Various Debates Centered on the Changes in Attitudes towards the Women Convicts - Essay Example

Question 3: Work by historians during recent decades has helped us to gain a more complete and richer understanding of the lives of convicts, both men and women. Discuss, analyze and evaluate the various debates centered on the changes in attitudes towards the women convicts. Introduction In Australian history, convict women were the female British prisoners taken to Australia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to complete their sentences there. Being transported to Australia’s penal settlement was a replacement for harsh punishments like hanging. The female convicts were seen as prostitutes since they were being compared to Britain’s women of the upper class Nicholas & Shergold (1993). These women were not taken from Britain to Australia because of prostitution but they acquired it in Australia. They arrived in Australia only to find that their sex could be used to improve their situation. Because of the poverty and the situation in which they found themselves in immorality and prostitution according to them was the most sensible thing to do. They were then labeled and loose prostitutes. They were looked down upon by the society because of their bad character. Many historians came up with debates and discussions on the character of these convict women. This essay will focus on the analysis and evaluation of the debates about attitudinal change towards the female convicts. Analysis of the debates Various debaters chose to argue from a different perspective on the issue of female convicts. There are those who saw them as immoral whores who needed to be blame for all their wicked lives. Others took the blame away from them and sought to cleanse them while putting the blame on the patriarchal society. Therefore the women convicts were known in various ways such as people oppressed by the male dominated system that imposed prostitution upon them, whores with moral deprivation, hardworking and potentially respectable members in the colonial society, and as ordinary people who were more susceptible compared to the men to insecurities in their labor market. Different types of evidence have been put forward to prove each of these descriptions Nicholas & Shergold (1993). Most of the views made on the female convicts were perpetuated by the comments made by Robson. He borrowed the sexist language that the commentators of the middle class used but failed to put these views in the historical context it belonged to. Robson takes the male point of views and draws on middle class morality. In his contribution he uses the point of view of other sources as well as his own to make an interpretation of his statistics from which he makes the conclusion that the female convicts were immoral. Deborah Oxley in her argument says that both historians and contemporaries responded to the question ‘who’ with the answer ‘whore.’ She is willing to stand on the side of the female convicts and even raise some defense for them. Oxley sees the prostitution of these women as having been considered as truism. She thinks that the women received a more harsh condemnation than the men convicts because of their sex yet all of them have been seen by historians in the negative light. Oxley sees them as having been treated differently because they were criminals and at the same time sexual Nicholas & Shergold (1993). More reactions were prompted by the study of the female convicts by female historians such as Anne Summers. Summers in her perspective brings out the feminist views seen in the 1970s to promote feminist ideas. She makes use of words like stereotyping, social control, sexism and the view of women by men as sexual objects. Summers never drew her argument from new research in order to dismiss previous interpretations but only made use of established materials from a different perspective. She refused to blame the women like the other historians such as Clark, Shaw and Rob and chose to put blame away from the women convicts. Instead she placed the blame on the colonial society with its male domination for enforcing the same immoral behavior. Her contribution and argument however did not erase the perception that these female convicts were whores. Summers and another historian by name Miriam Dixson were only interested in showing that the prostitution that the convicts practiced was caused by the patriarchal society in which they lived. They however, agreed that these women were whores. Summers received a lot of criticism because she thoughtlessly accepted the male contemporary middle class views just the same way Robson had done. Summers’ view of the women convicts was revised by the historian Robinson Portia. She said that the established picture of these convict women was not wrong but later she says that these convicts were after all not really immoral. It was only a minority which was immoral. She failed to agree with the view that the colonial society in the early days was repressive and vicious. Robinson in a publication she did later by name; “The women of Botany Bay: a reinterpretation of the role of women in the origins of the Australian society,” Robinson makes a similar argument by using different kinds of evidence Nicholas & Shergold (1993). In her account Robison is different from Summers in the sense that she emphasizes the need of examining the experiences of the ex convict women, immigrant women, female convicts and those of convict wives. She says that the convict status was not permanent on women. She paints a complex, bigger and broader picture of the convict women when they arrived in Australia the penal colony. Her picture comes out more positive than what Summers paints. She wants the women of Botany Bay to be seen not as the victims of the sexist society in the stereotypes but as independent industrious people who were respectable and willing to grab and use the opportunities found in society Nicholas & Shergold (1993). The account by Robinson of women who did skilled trade and operated small businesses after arrival went hand in hand with the account by Oxley. In her account found in the book “Convict workers” of 1988 Oxley wanted to establish the occupational and criminal backgrounds of the women convicts. In her argument she says that these convicts especially the prostitutes were ordinary workers who went into criminal activities because of economic conditions. Their levels of skill, numeracy, literacy and experience in spatial mobility gave the indicators. Robinson stresses the opportunities for advancement of individuals in the colony but Oxley argues that the women convicts gave their labor in the colonial society although they had constraints such as patriarchal and capitalist structures. However she does not present them as stereotype victims like what Summers does Nicholas & Shergold (1993). During the 1990s a number of books on the female convicts were authored by Oxley, Kay and Damousi. They redressed women neglect in the scholarships on female convicts which they saw as having been dominated by men. Shaw, Robson, Wood and Clark agreed that prostitution had significance among the convict females. The issue was submerged as women rose to do their books at a later date. In her book however, Daniels dedicated a chapter to prostitution. Nevertheless her book seeks to show how women in the penal colony were rich and complex as she went beyond the stereotypes that Summers had put forward. According to Oxley, the issue of prostitution is “majorly a conflagaration of a moral question with an economic one.” In official accounts prostitution stood for depravity and badness and was in many cases used as a label for cohabitation and promiscuity. Prostitution itself was not illegal but the accounts such as that of Robsons conveyed a sense that certain women were found to be “guilty” because of prostitution. Oxley’s argument is that the accounts by her contemporaries only show the moral economies of their respective authors. She identifies the differences in gender, religion, class and power between the speakers and the victims of the speech. These differences destroyed the image of the convict women. The moral economy that accounted for the bad image the convict females had has been taken into very recent scholarship like the one for Manning Clark’s unless there is a good effort to check into the production of the evidence. Various historians, debaters and contemporaries were seeking to further their feelings about the female convicts through their books. As others blamed them squarely, others chose to defend their position. What emerges from these debates is that female historians chose to reduce or remove the condemnation on these convicts while the men placed it on them. Some female historians saw the men in the colonial society as the cause of the misfortunes that befell these convicts Nicholas & Shergold (1993). Conclusion In conclusion, the essay has examined the various debates that were formed by different historians on the convict women issue. Female convicts in the history of Australia were the women who were transported from Britain to serve their punishments in the penal colony of what is known today as Australia. These female convicts were forced into a life of prostitution because of their circumstances and the poverty that they found themselves into. Various commentators and historians debated a lot about them in their writings in which they condemned them with some of them seeking to defend them. Female authors sought to establish the truth about the women convicts and not just to heap blame on them. Among the contributors to the debates were Robson, Oxley, Shaw, Summers and Daniels among others. As Summers blamed the women convicts Robinson sought to paint a broader picture of them observing that the convict status was temporary. Oxley says the hard economic conditions forced skilled ordinary women into crime for them to become convicts. Robson’s picture is more positive compared to the stereotypes that Summers cites. Robson says that the image of the convicts was destroyed by the differences such as class, power, religion and gender between the convicts and the speakers. References Nicholas S. Shergold P. 1993, Unshackling the past, in Gillian Whitlock and Gail Reekie (eds) Uncertain Beginnings: Debates in Australian Studies. 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