Showing papers in "Australian Historical Studies in 1996"
TL;DR: The authors argued that postsuffrage feminists sought to participate in political life as maternal citizens, and suggested further that we need a new history of Australian women's political thought, one that took women's ideas about the vote and their changing conception of political power seriously.
Abstract: Writing feminist history as national history requires that we analyse women's political relationship to the nation state and their condition as citizens. Arguing that postsuffrage feminists sought to participate in political life as maternal citizens, I suggest further that we need a new history of Australian women's political thought, one that takes women's ideas about the vote and their changing conception of political power seriously.
32 citations
TL;DR: In a way unusual for their sex in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, three colonial women, Rosa Campbell Praed, Mary Bundock and Katie Langloh Parker, contributed in minor but not major roles as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In a way unusual for their sex in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, three colonial women, Rosa Campbell Praed, Mary Bundock and Katie Langloh Parker, contributed in minor but not i...
16 citations
TL;DR: Another look at first-wave feminism, one that considers cultural productions as well as the materials usually accepted by historians as "sources" as mentioned in this paper, offers a new, revisionist, account of the "Woman Movement" focused less on motherhood and/or work than on (hetero)sex.
Abstract: Another look at first‐wave feminism, one that considers cultural productions as well as the materials usually accepted by historians as ‘sources’, offers a new, revisionist, account of the ‘Woman Movement’, focused less on motherhood and/or work than on (hetero)sex. This account also suggests that Australian feminism was not only born modern but was a force for modernism, at least two decades sooner than anywhere else.
15 citations
15 citations
TL;DR: This article explored issues in lesbian history by considering Monte Punshon, who constructed her identity within competing meanings of femininity that were being redefined within modernity and within historical forms of women's same-sex love, such as passionate friendships, rather than from medical and sexological discourses of gender inversion and homosexuality.
Abstract: ’Speculating on Scrapbooks’ explores issues in lesbian history by considering Monte Punshon. Monte constructed her identity within competing meanings of femininity that were being redefined within modernity and within historical forms of women's same‐sex love, such as passionate friendships, rather than from medical and sexological discourses of gender inversion and homosexuality. Although Monte did not appear to adopt the label ‘lesbian’, her lesbian desires are evident in her scrapbooks and adoption of a certain visual style.
14 citations
TL;DR: In the course of the 1970s and 1980s, feminist theory, like theory in general, came to be radically dissociated from any historical or empirical base as mentioned in this paper, which undermined the latter strategy.
Abstract: Australian feminist historians have employed two strategies to subvert the past and claim the future: equal opportunity and retheorising historical knowledge. In the course of the 1970s and 1980s, feminist theory, like theory in general, came to be radically dissociated from any historical or empirical base. This has undermined the latter strategy. The article concludes with a survey of Australian feminist/women's history published since 1990.
12 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined four key texts in Australian women's history: Miriam Dixson, The Real Matilda, Anne Summers, Damned Whores and God's Police: The Colonization of Women in Australia, Penguin, 1975, Edna Ryan and Anne Conlon, Gentle Invaders: Australian Women at Work, 1788-1974, Nelson, 1975; and Beverley Kingston, My Wife, My Daughter, and Poor Mary Ann, Nelson 1975.
Abstract: This paper examines four key texts in Australian women's history—Miriam Dixson, The Real Matilda: Woman and Identity in Australia 1788 to 1975, Penguin, 1976; Anne Summers, Damned Whores and God's Police: The Colonization of Women in Australia, Penguin, 1975; Edna Ryan and Anne Conlon, Gentle Invaders: Australian Women at Work, 1788–1974, Nelson, 1975; and Beverley Kingston, My Wife, My Daughter, and Poor Mary Ann, Nelson, 1975. The paper discusses the context within which these texts were produced and then examines them as works of history, noting especially the continuities and discontinuities between these texts and current work in Australian women's history.
9 citations
TL;DR: The Real Matilda as discussed by the authors examines the role of the unconscious in identity and modernity in the context of women and identity in Australia, and proposes a re-consideration of Castoriadis's western project of autonomy.
Abstract: Identity in Australia, a born‐modern country, is inevitably about identity and modernity. As a study of Woman and Identity in Australia, so too is The Real Matilda. Like the book itself, the following ‘reconsideration’ pays due regard to the role of the unconscious in structuring identity. The book's theory of modernity reflects a 1970s Frankfurt School negativity, which, in all, provides a valuable but one‐sided view. This reconsideration, set within the terms of Castoriadis's western ‘project of autonomy’, would similarly appraise The Real Matilda.
8 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the process by which the idea of industrial efficiency emerged from the Protestant work ethic in the Australian context and uses Australian evidence to support Max Weber's thesis that the emphasis on efficiency in the way the individual worked was part of the continued secularisation of the religious asceticism of Protestantism in modern society.
Abstract: This article examines the process by which the idea of industrial efficiency emerged from the Protestant work ethic in the Australian context. The study uses Australian evidence to support Max Weber's thesis that the emphasis on efficiency in the way the individual worked was part of the continued secularisation of the religious asceticism of Protestantism in modern society. The article examines the ideology behind the methods by which industrial efficiency was to be realized—profit‐sharing and payment by results—between 1915 and 1929, when these ideas first rose to prominence in Australia.
7 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors look at Australia's reach for Portuguese Timor, the debates in Japan whether to follow suit and violate Portuguese neutrality, and the Japanese government's subsequent quandary over what to do with neutral Portuguese Timorese once Allied troops were expelled.
Abstract: Japan occupied Portuguese (East) Timor in February 1942, not to incorporate the neutral territory into the Greater East Asia Co‐Prosperity Sphere but to expel Australian troops who had occupied the colony two months earlier on the assumption that Japan would invade. Both invasions proved disastrous for the Portuguese Timorese. Tens of thousands lost their lives during the Pacific War. The underlying question of this paper is whether these losses were necessary. The belief has persisted in official Allied war histories that Japan was going to invade neutral Portuguese Timor. Yet, Portuguese Timor and the matter of its invasion were questions of some dispute in Japan's highest military and political councils. This paper looks at Australia's reach for Portuguese Timor, the debates in Japan whether to follow suit and violate Portuguese neutrality, and the Japanese government's subsequent quandary over what to do with neutral Portuguese Timor once Allied troops were expelled.
7 citations
TL;DR: This article argued that attention to a number of cultural signs can illuminate sexual difference and gender disorder, and argued that cultural meaning and the dynamics of relationships can be used to illuminate sexual differences and gender disorders.
Abstract: This paper aims to shift the debates on convict women from a discussion of their ‘origins’ and their morality to a focus on the construction of cultural meaning and the dynamics of relationships. Drawing on feminist and cultural theory, I argue that attention to a number of cultural signs can illuminate sexual difference and gender disorder.
TL;DR: This paper examined the way in which the Australian discourse on prostitution can be understood as part of a wider, international concern with "the white slave traffic" and venereal disease, using examples from the history of prostitution in Australia.
Abstract: Using examples from the history of prostitution in Australia, this paper examines the way in which the Australian discourse on prostitution can be understood as part of a wider, international concern with ‘the white slave traffic’ and venereal disease. These case studies are used to introduce a broader discussion of developments in the historiography of prostitution.
TL;DR: Gender relations studies have taken this re-evaluation further by problematising categories of "men" and "women" as discussed by the authors, which have been fraught with conceptual and methodological difficulties as the range, complexity and interpenetration of categories of race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion and region have been coterminously analysed.
Abstract: Feminist historiography of the 1970s challenged dominant paradigms by attempting to integrate ‘women’ into historical narratives. Gender relations studies have taken this re‐evaluation further by problematising categories of ‘men’ and ‘women’. Yet these endeavours have been fraught with conceptual and methodological difficulties as the range, complexity and interpenetration of categories of race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion and region have been coterminously analysed.
TL;DR: The authors used primary records to construct limited biographies for 241 women in early colonial Australia and found that the women shared the common bond of being heads of family groups but otherwise represented the diversity of colonial society in that era.
Abstract: This article is based on a research project that used primary records to construct limited biographies for 241 women in early colonial Australia. The women shared the common bond of being heads of family groups but otherwise represented the diversity of colonial society in that era. Comparisons drawn between civil status groups on aspects of relationships, economic opportunities and social attitudes are used to examine the way in which this particular group of women experienced life in colonial society.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: The authors reflect on the story behind the publication in 1975 of My Wife, My Daughter, and Poor Mary Ann and on subsequent developments in feminist and women's history in Australia, including the subsequent development in women's empowerment in Australia.
Abstract: Reflections on the story behind the publication in 1975 of My Wife, My Daughter, and Poor Mary Ann and on subsequent developments in feminist and women's history in Australia.
TL;DR: The authors argue that the cultural significance of the Anglican Church is greater than historians have acknowledged, and that the career of John Stoward Moyes, Bishop of Armidale 1929-64, shows that a prophetic churchman could wield considerable authority in local community, particularly in the divisive interwar years.
Abstract: This article argues that the cultural significance of the Anglican Church is greater than historians have acknowledged. The career of John Stoward Moyes, Bishop of Armidale 1929–64, shows that a prophetic churchman could wield considerable authority in his local community, particularly in the divisive interwar years. One of a group of ‘social gospellers’, Moyes saw himself acting as a force for unity and cohesion. Analysis of his relationships with labour suggests the class contradictions inherent in this aspiration, while analysis of his perceptions of manliness and his pastoral role, particularly in relation to women, shows the different ways in which gender could act to both modify and reinforce such contradictions.
TL;DR: The teaching of women's history and women's studies at Macquarie University, Sydney, with comparative comment on the other two pre-Dawkins universities in Sydney, and the current situation at Harvard, where the author was visiting professor of Australian studies 1994-95.
Abstract: This article documents the teaching of women's history and the emergence of women's studies at Macquarie University, Sydney, with comparative comment on the other two pre‐Dawkins universities in Sydney, and the current situation at Harvard, where the author was visiting professor of Australian studies 1994–95. Issues raised include deteriorating staff gender ratios and a new version of McCarthyism in America.
Journal Article•
TL;DR: Norman Lindsay as mentioned in this paper was one of the most influential, popular and controversial figures in Australian literature and art and his program for an Australian renaissance was based on the nude and masculinist conceptions of female sexuality.
Abstract: Norman Lindsay was one of the most influential, popular and controversial figures in Australian literature and art. The nude and masculinist conceptions of female sexuality were at the centre of Lindsay's aesthetic vision and his programme for an Australian renaissance. Male sexual liberation through the exploration of women's bodies was also an important aspect of his articulation of a national resistance to modernism as the product of metropolitan modernity. Lindsay's antimodernism was based on premodern styles and images increasingly divorced from historical time and national space. His nationalism was interwoven with his antimodernism; it was personal and contradictory and included criticism of the constraints placed on Australian writing by British publishers.