Miriam Dixson's The Real Matilda

Subject  > History Term Papers  > Australian History

The Real Matilda: Women and Identity in Australia, 1788 to the Present written by Miriam Dixson and published in 1976 poses many questions about the role of women from the convict beginnings to the present day. She speaks of a heavily patriarchal society that has deep roots from the past and they have yet to be uprooted, she even goes as far to refer to males in Australian society as misogynist. Her work is heavily influenced by her context of the 1970's feminism movement and this has greatly influenced her work, however this has given her work a narrow view of the society, in the past and in the present, this text hence overlooks and exaggerates certain aspects of ...

... contradicting sources we can see that as a historian Dixson has definitely written a work in which she has overlooked a vast majority of women's experiences and most of the work is based on her opinion, influenced by her context about the society that she was living in and hoping to make sense of that by looking at the past. Her colourful language indeed makes the history interesting to read yet it somewhat detracts from its reliability and its usefulness for an historian. She has exaggerated certain aspects of Australian society, in particular the Australian male, she portrays the Australian male in a less than fond manner and makes the generalisation that all males are

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