The glorified flower : race, gender and assimilation in Australia, 1937-1977
- Publication Type:
- Thesis
- Issue Date:
- 2000
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This is a gendered history of the period which spans, what was known popularly, and in official
government documents, as the era of Aboriginal 'assimilation', from the late 1930s until the early
1970s. This study considers the ways in which public representations of 'gender' interacted with
the administration, and discourse, of 'race' in a historical period, when biological solutions to the
Aboriginal 'problem' were replaced with a cultural model. The first part of this thesis, through a
series of historical case studies based on the archives and official records of the Aborigines
Protection Board (1909-1939) and the Aborigines Welfare Board (1940-1969) in New South
Wales, focuses on how the policy of biological and cultural assimilation drew on ideas about
femininity and sexuality to inform policy, administration, personnel, and imagery sponsored by
the state during the assimilation era. The thesis shows how particular representations of
femininity and masculinity were central to administrative attempts to biologically 'absorb', and
later culturally, 'assimilate' Aboriginal women and their children into 'White' Australia.
The second part of the thesis explores the way that negative definitions of Aboriginal culture in
New South Wales in the post-War period were influenced by ideas about Aboriginal women as
the primary reproducers, and producers of that culture. This section argues that official attitudes
and policies directed at Aboriginal women, influenced on-going attitudes towards Aboriginal
culture and identity in the apparently 'enlightened' 1960s and 1970s when new Federal legislation
promised an era of equality and 'self-determination' for Aboriginal people. Overall this thesis
traces the disciplinary regiems operating in New South Wales from the late 1930s to early 1970s,
and the gendered identities performed in relation to them. A central purpose of this work is to
make race, gender and sexuality the basis for cultural and historical analysis, rather than 'adding
on' women and race to the historical narrative.
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