Female Convicts: Victims or Agents?
Author(s)
Piper, Alana Jayne
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2006
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
This paper addresses and examines the historiographical debate on the situation of female convicts. In particular, it asserts that convict women were not necessarily victimised by the transportation system, with prisoners able to manipulate the conditions of the colony to assert a significant degree of agency. In the factory system, female prisoners often collectively rebelled to improve their circumstances. Similarly, women in assigned service practised individual acts of rebellion, empowered by the recognition that the scarcity of labour endowed them with substantial bargaining power. Furthermore, investigation of the ...
View more >This paper addresses and examines the historiographical debate on the situation of female convicts. In particular, it asserts that convict women were not necessarily victimised by the transportation system, with prisoners able to manipulate the conditions of the colony to assert a significant degree of agency. In the factory system, female prisoners often collectively rebelled to improve their circumstances. Similarly, women in assigned service practised individual acts of rebellion, empowered by the recognition that the scarcity of labour endowed them with substantial bargaining power. Furthermore, investigation of the sexual nature of their imprisonment demonstrates convict women encountered sexual expectations similar to those they would have experienced as working class women in Britain, with prisoners perhaps perceiving their sexuality as another means to develop their economic or social agency.
View less >
View more >This paper addresses and examines the historiographical debate on the situation of female convicts. In particular, it asserts that convict women were not necessarily victimised by the transportation system, with prisoners able to manipulate the conditions of the colony to assert a significant degree of agency. In the factory system, female prisoners often collectively rebelled to improve their circumstances. Similarly, women in assigned service practised individual acts of rebellion, empowered by the recognition that the scarcity of labour endowed them with substantial bargaining power. Furthermore, investigation of the sexual nature of their imprisonment demonstrates convict women encountered sexual expectations similar to those they would have experienced as working class women in Britain, with prisoners perhaps perceiving their sexuality as another means to develop their economic or social agency.
View less >
Journal Title
Crossroads
Volume
1
Issue
1
Publisher URI
Subject
Australian History (excl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander History)
Historical Studies
Philosophy
Religion and Religious Studies