Australian Frontier Feminism and the Marauding White Man

This chapter explores the ways in which the outlook of feminism in Australia from the 1880s to the 1940s was shaped by the historical context of a frontier society. The chapter suggests that the frontier was a conceptual and geographical space that acquires its meaning within an imperial as well as national context. It is emphasizing the importance of gender relations and the family to the imperial project in Australia and conversely the centrality of colonialism to gender politics and feminism in the settler colonies.