Gender, crime and empire: Convicts, settlers and the state in early colonial Australia (Studies in Imperialism, 69)

Between 1803 and 1853, some 80,000 convicts were transported to Van Diemen's Land. Revising established models of the colonies, which tend to depict convict women as a peculiarly oppressed group, 'Gender, crime and empire' argues that convict men and women in fact shared much in common. Placing men and women, ideas about masculinity, femininity, sexuality and the body, in comparative perspective, this book argues that historians must take fuller account of class to understand the relationships between gender and power. The book explores the ways in which ideas about fatherhood and household order initially informed the state's model of order, and the reasons why this foundered. It considers the shifting nature of state policies towards courtship, relationships and attempts at family formation which subsequently became matters of class conflict. It goes on to explore the ways in which ideas about gender and family informed liberal and humanitarian critiques of the colonies from the 1830s and 1840s and colonial demands for abolition and self-government Front matter Contents General editor's introduction List of illustrations Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Map of Van Diemen’s Land, 1825 Introduction Visions of order Regulating society, purifying the state Production and reproduction Sex and slavery ‘A nation of Cyprians and Turks’ Sodomy and self-government Conclusion Select bibliography Index Examines the experiences of the convict men and women transported to the British penal colony of Van Diemen's Land between 1803 and 1852, challenging the received notions of convict women as a particularly oppressed and exploited group, supposedly dominated by convict men as much as by the imperial and colonial states. -- .