How Did Imperialism Shape the Intimate Lives of Women in Colonial Australia - Article Example

Running Head: HOW DID IMPERIALISM SHAPE THE INTIMATE LIVES OF WOMEN IN THE COLONIAL AUSTRALIA How did Imperialism shape the intimate lives of women in the colonial Australia Name Institution Date Introduction The invasion of British in Australia established the white colonial settlement state that was similar to such places as South Africa, Algeria, Israel, and Canada. The settler state of the colonial white built by the invading Europeans that was based on indigenous population’s dispossession dominated with racists and has paranoid history. The study examines how various authors presented their understanding of imperialism in shaping the intimate lives of women in the colonial Australia. For instance, the gender issues emerged as the fundamental category in white women’s exploration as the business owners in the interwar Queensland1. As a result of establishing the women’s economic history in Australia, Alford identified Holland as the successful woman in garage proprietor. According to Alford (1984), Holland was one out of the thousands of women in Queensland during the interwar period that successfully operated her owned business. In addition, she represented the Australian women group whose role within the economy as self-employed as well as employers, rarely attracted the historians’ sustained attention2. Alford also considered taking both Holland and fellow peers seriously in order to gain deep understanding of class and gender intersections as a way of extending appreciation to the gendered nature of Australian economy. The research analysis also did not prompt the understanding of why in accordance to important exceptions of neither labor nor the feminist historians have shown much interest in the Australian female proprietors3. Women such as Mrs. Holland appeared to be minority during the Queensland interwar in Australia. The nature of the existing documentary sources creates difficulties in establishing the basic and definitive interpretation of them4. Due to variations within the economic trends in various Australian states during this imperial era, the research findings based on Queensland seems not to be transferable to some other states. However, with the existence of both Holland as well as her peer not only acts as the reminder for women’s diversified experiences, but also presents an emphasis on women’s differences in power accessibility, interpretation of the gender as well as class identities and relations5. Australian Censuses of Commonwealth Commonwealth Censuses greatly underestimated the ideal number of women that were required to operate the commercial enterprises. Very few women involved in the small-scale of self-employment were not even recognized, particularly such women who identified themselves basically as both mothers and wives. The Censuses also highly overlooked informal economy within which men as well as women operated. Most of the businesses that were commonly operated by the white women included those based on traditional female skills such as dressmaking, cooking and the millinery6. Typical of such commercial ventures included the fashion boutiques, cafes, small stores like grocery shops, beauty salons. Majority of the women owned as well as managed various boarding houses, nursing homes, private hospitals and hotels. In addition, they operated as self-employed private teachers in music, dance and drama disciplines with the inclusive of female authors, performers, artists and craftswomen. The white women usually operated most of the businesses which required skills that they could easily acquire through exercising their roles as mothers, daughters, wives or employees7. Such an association existed since women were most likely to involve in the establishment of businesses that they could easily exercise their skills already possessed. The association also indicated the wider societal assumptions concerning work variations and such economic sectors that were appropriate for the women, irrespective of their participation in the sectors as self-employed workers, employers or employees8. Consequently, the businesses involved domestic associations which existed in various sectors of the Australian economy, where the white women also acted as employees. This is a clear implication that acceptance of the white women as business proprietors while reinforcing the simultaneous assumptions concerning those economic areas or sectors that they belonged. The roles of women in homes, low wages paid as employees, the white female employees’ temporary nature in workforce participation and the tendency for the sons instead of daughters to inherit the family enterprises, greatly militated against the women in acquiring a substantial start-up of capital9. Although, the business owners involved such women who were single, windowed, divorced as well as married, the likelihood of those white women joining the Queensland economy as the business owners instead as employees was highly influenced by the marital status. The single women’s tendency in being employees instead as business owners, partly was a result of their age. Generally, the single women seemed to be younger compared to the married as well as windowed women. In addition to being younger, the single women appeared eligible for the apprenticeships with less probability of accumulating funds for the establishment of any business. Marital status contributed to the female’s pattern of participation within the economy. The married women achieved very few opportunities compared to fellow single counterparts as employees due to both legal and the social barriers that largely confronted them10. According to Cole, Victoria & Fiona (2005), the Uncommon Ground is a very unique examination of the composite roles played by majority of the white women within the Indigenous history of Australia. They considered it as the showcase of recent as well as most interesting Australian work on issues related to gender and the cross-cultural history. Victoria Haskins suggested a compelling story concerning her own great-grandmother known as Joan Kingsley-Strack and their off and on long-term relationship an Aboriginal servant known as Mary. They retained their fraught ties since the year 1920s to early days of 1940s. Haskins aimed at indicating the tense relationship between race and the class situated within the powerful colonial system, indicating that Strack as well as Mary greatly jostle uneasily for the supremacy since the two women, especially Mary rendered themselves to hard births against the existing backdrop of depression11. Anna Cole also presented the career for Ella Hiscock who was the matron at the home of Cootamundra Girls between 1945 and 1967. Cole considered Ella Hiscock as reflecting, enacting the change intersections among the race, gender and class. Being a white window restricted with the economic choices, she managed to undertake one of the highly considered significant positions that existed for the non-Aboriginal woman. An argument made by Cole (2005), the duties of Hiscock as both the protector and carer needed to be irreconcilable and her basic tasks rested at heart or control of colonial regime in which sexual control was basic in the manner to which racial policies were to be secured. Hiscock was supported the assimilation of apparatus state with the inclusion of child separation from families and she decided to educate the young girls till the maximum age of 15 years in the discipline of cleanliness as well as hygiene in relation to the white femininity deal in order to assume the apprenticeships within the domestic service of white households that were unfortunately exposed to the sexual abuse12. Similarly, Fiona Paisley wrote on the Constance Ternent Cooke who was the reform activist and the Australian government employee. Paisley perceived Constance Ternent Cooke as a significant crossover figure who well led far beyond the limitation of white women’s politics concerning race within Australia in mid 1930’s. A consideration was made on Mary Montgomery Bennett who was the Western Australian missionary teacher during inter-war period as well as the activist for Aboriginal rights, friend and Cooke’s supporter. Holland confirms that Bennett identified and related the gendered as well as racialised the consequences of the colonial rule within Australia prior to the recognition its nature of policies (Cole, Victoria, & Fiona, 2005). As a result of feminist anti-slavery discourses’ influence concerning polygamy and the infant betrothal, Bennett presented a very unusual analysis on devastation wrought through prostitution on frontier. Holland also argues that if colonization had actually not occurred, the lives of Aboriginal women would improved better than before, but through land losses and starvation, the outdated customs for instance, the revival of polygamy that resulted into traded merchandise among the Aboriginal women of both black and the white men. The Aboriginal women was left in a very vulnerable state of no ability to stand before laws and subjected to the torture of child removal13. Women also experienced the colony’s convicts of general administration and the economic differences. Although majority of the convict women were successfully sent to the entire destinations with the exception of Western Australia, nearly half of them ended up in Van Diemen’s Land. However, most of the convict women on their arrival to destinations were assigned to domestic work for families (Beverly, 1975). Windshuttle (1988), the enormous social transformation that is normally known as demographic transition was identified as the leading and vital social change for the women in the previous one and a half century. Since the period of mid-nineteenth century to the early decades of twentieth century, the life chances for Western women changes drastically as a result of fertility as well as mortality decrease. Although, a substantial mapping of fertility patterns decline has existed before, remarkable and little progress in relation to understanding such a massive change has also been observed14. Whereas the feminist historians discuss about momentous changes in the lives of women during the imperialism period, the historical demographers examines the meta-explanations related to concepts such as modernization, theory of rational choice and urbanization. Windshuttle also suggested that rising of women’s status was introduced as the main strand of an effective population control prescription in a developing world15. The historians of the Sydney philanthropy such as those that were published in 1970s as well as 1980s, shared the changing assumptions concerning international studies which was highly influenced by the commonly known as ‘new left’ for control and reforms. The 1980s feminists also wrote of own power to hone the skills of women and support them with that contributed to the public life. The nineteenth-century philanthropy helped both women and men to effectively fulfill the expectations of new order in gender in different way. The women-philanthropy relationship seemed to be complex. Philanthropy not only allowed women in exercising the compassion which had been for long considered as being natural to them, but also emerged as a way for them to reinforce the new model of authority of useful as well as committed domestic femininity that replaced the older one related to frivolity, decoration and decadence16. Throughout the nineteenth century, some of the women resulted into benefactors, visitors of prisons and the hospitals. Majority of the women within the organized charity participated in auxiliaries that sometimes exercised their power beyond own prescribed status. Explosive charities which were led by women due to the belief that they were suitable in assisting fellow women and the increase in prosperity provided extra women in relevant age group for the necessary leisure. Referred to as the nineteenth-century female emancipation taproot, the philanthropy greatly enabled women in extending their responsibilities beyond domestic sphere17. Conclusion Australian women group whose role within the economy as self-employed as well as employers, rarely attracted the sustained attention of the historians. Commonwealth Censuses greatly underestimated the ideal number of women that were required to operate the commercial enterprises. Very few women involved in the small-scale of self-employment were not even recognized, particularly such women who identified themselves basically as both mothers and wives. Marital status contributed largely to the female’s pattern of participation within the economy. The married women achieved very few opportunities compared to fellow single counterparts as employees due to both legal and the social barriers that largely confronted them. While the feminist historians concentrates on the discussion about momentous changes in the lives of women during the imperialism period, the historical demographers instead examines the meta-explanations related to concepts of modernization, theory of rational choice as well as urbanization. References Alford, K., (1984). Production or Reproduction? An Economic History of Women in Australian 17881850. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Cole, A., Haskins, V., & Paisley, P., (2005). Uncommon Ground: White Women in Aboriginal History. Canberra. Aboriginal Studies Press. Grimshaw, P., et al (1996). Creating a Nation Ringwood. Melbourne. Penguin Books Australia Ltd. Beverley, K., (1975). My Wife, My Daughter and Poor Mary Ann: Women and Work in Australia Melbourne: Nelson. Windshuttle, E., (1988). Women, Class and History. Melbourne. Fontana. Wolcott, A., (2006). Gender and Empire. Hampshire: Palgrave. Haggis, J., (2003).White women and colonialism: Towards a non-recuperative history', Reina Lewis and Sara Mills (eds). Feminist Postcolonial Theory: New York. Rutledge, 161-189. Read More