Sandra Coney
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Sandra Coney is a New Zealand feminist and women's health campaigner. She is best known for her co-authorship (with Phillida Bunkle) of a Metro magazine article which alleged that women had been experimented on, without their consent, at National Women's Hospital in Auckland. The article, titled 'The Unfortunate Experiment' led to the Cartwright Inquiry which confirmed the article's allegations. The article and the subsequent inquiry are seen as a turning point in healthcare ethics in New Zealand.
Coney has been involved in other women's health causes, and in 1984 co-founded with Bunkle Women's Health Action to co-ordinate claims by women who had been injured by the Dalkon Shield IUD.[1]
Coney was the co-founder of the feminist magazine Broadsheet, which she co-edited for 16 years. She is the author or editor of 14 books, including the major Suffrage Centennial publication Standing in the Sunshine (1993) which was also a television series. She wrote a regular column of political and social comment for the Sunday-Times for 16 years from 1986.
She is also involved in the local politics of the Piha area, and since 2001 has represented Waitakere on the Auckland Regional Council (ARC) and has served as Chair of the Parks and Heritage Committee since 2004. She was involved in a campaign against a cafe in Piha, wanting to preserve the area's non-commercial feel. She has also written a history of Piha and is currently researching Anzac soldiers from the Piha area.[2][3]
Her father was Tom Pearce, who was ARC chair from 1965 to 1976 and a New Zealand Rugby Football Union administrator.
[edit] Selected bibliography
- 1998: Stroppy sheilas and gutsy girls : New Zealand women of dash and daring Tandem Press, ISBN 1877178292
- 1996: Feeling fabulous at 40, 50 and beyond Tandem Press, ISBN 0908884834
- 1995: I do : 125 years of weddings in New Zealand Moa Beckett (NZ), ISBN 1869581717
- 1993: Standing in the sunshine : a history of New Zealand women since they won the vote Viking, ISBN 0670846287
- 1993: Unfinished business : what happened to the Cartwright Report? Women's Health Action, Auckland. ISBN 0473020181
- 1991: The Menopause Industry: How the Medical Establishment Exploits Women Penguin ISBN 0897931610 (U.S. Edition 1994)
- 1990: Hysterectomy Heinemann Reed (NZ), ISBN 079000089X
- 1988: The Unfortunate Experiment: The full story behind the inquiry into cervical cancer treatment. Auckland, New Zealand: Penguin. ISBN 0140116710
- 1986: Every girl : a social history of women and the YWCA in Auckland 1885-1985 Auckland YWCA ISBN 090863627X
