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Defiant Voices : How Australia's Female Convicts Challenged Authority 1788-1853

Defiant Voices : How Australia's Female Convicts Challenged Authority 1788-1853

by Babette Smith

Between 1788 and 1868, approximately 25,000 women were transported to Australia. For nearly 200 years, there has been a chorus of outrage at their vulgarity, their depravity and their promiscuity.

Format
PB
Category
Non-Fiction
Publisher
NewSouth Books
Publish Date
January 2021

Defiant Voices tells the story of the Crown trying and failing to make its prisoners subservient to a harsh penal system. Convict women challenged the authorities by living in perpetual disobedience, which was often flagrant, sometimes sexual and always loud. They were not all 'the most abandoned prostitutes', but their sexual mores were certainly different from the observers who labelled them. From factory rioters to individuals like Ann Wilson, whose response-'That will not hurt me'-provoked a magistrate to pile punishment after punishment onto her, the women of Defiant Voices fought like tigers and drove men to breaking point with their collective voices, the lewd songs and 'disorderly shouting' resounding from the page.

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