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Story: Women and men

Women at home

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Women at home

While psychiatrist Fraser McDonald suggested women go out to work, rather than vegetate at home, his wife, painter Jacqueline Fahey, recorded the life of middle-class women at home with the kids. In this 1974 painting, ‘Sisters communing’, two women relax with a glass of wine and a cigarette while a child plays nearby.

Using this item

Hocken Collections, University of Otago

Reference: Acc 75/39

by Jacqueline Fahey

Permission of the Hocken Collections Uare Taoka o Hakena, University of Otago, must be obtained before any re-use of this image. Further information may be obtained from the Library through its website.

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How to cite this page

Charlotte Macdonald, Women and men – War and suburbia, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/artwork/29246/women-at-home (accessed 25 June 2026).

Story by Charlotte Macdonald, published 30 March 2011, updated 1 August 2017.