Professor Marilyn Waring honoured with Science and Innovation Award
AUT University’s Professor Marilyn Waring has been named as the winner of the Science and Innovation Award at the inaugural New Zealand Women of Influence Awards.
A valuable acknowledgement
Professor Waring is an academic and former MP, best known for triggering Prime Minister Sir Robert Muldoon's downfall. She is recognised internationally for her research on the value of unpaid work.
“I’m very grateful to the New Zealand academic community for providing me with the space and opportunity to continue my work,” said Professor Waring.
“To have this acknowledgement for the work that I have done feels really good,” said, after admitting to the audience at the gala dinner that, as someone who does not usually like competitions, she felt a little awkward on stage.
“Too hot to handle”
As she accepted her award Professor Waring recalled being told by a senior job search company in 1984 that as a former MP she was “too hot to handle” and should probably look for a job somewhere else.
Recognising the achievements of a generation
Professor Waring says she was nominated for the Science and Innovation Award by a young feminist who felt her generation didn’t know enough about what the feminists of Waring’s generation had achieved.
Women of Influence Awards
The Women of Influence Awards have been established by Westpac and Fairfax Media to ‘support, promote and celebrate diversity and the invaluable contribution women make to New Zealand.’