GEN110 Chapter Notes - Chapter Reading 1: George Augustus Robinson, Prehensility, Uwa Publishing
9 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Liz Coī
¶or, īIī
¶troduītioī
¶: īHer ī
µiī
¶d īas īaīaī
¶t,īī ākiī
¶ Deep: āettler Iī
µpressioī
¶s of Aīorigiī
¶al
Women, UWA Publishing, 2016, 1-43.
ā¢ Many names given to Aboriginal women
o Gin
o Lubra
ā¢ Local word for 'penis'
ā¢ Believed that George Augustus Robinson may have mistaken the word for
meaning 'wife' in 1826
ā¢ Became a permissible form of address, regardless of whether they were married
or not
o Native belle
o Sable siren
o Spinifex fairy
o Stud
ā¢ Photographs of Indigenous Peoples
used without their
knowledge/permission demonstrates
complete disregard for their wishes
and rights
ā¢ Erasure of Indigenous identity
ā¢ The intersection of race and gender
ā¢ Due to the labelling of Aboriginal women as lubra, regardless of their marital status, they
became classified within the social phenomenon of 'black velvet'
o Black velvet was a class of Australian women who settler men saw as assured sexual
access
o Considered easy for the taking
ā¢ Aborigines adopted the word "skin" to explain cosmologies of kinship and marriage laws ('skin
relative', or 'wrong skin')
ā¢ Colonialism and the classification of Indigenous women
o Hair structure
o Occipital ridge
o Evenness of teeth
o Ratio of arm length to trunk
o Prehensility of toes
o Acuteness of vision
o Lack of reflection
o Depth of female genitalia
o Skin
ā¢ All nations depend on powerful constructions of gender
ā¢ The imagery and textual description used to portray Aboriginal women undermined their
wellbeing and safety
ā¢ Need to educate Australians with a settler-heritage about the cruelty that was entrenched in
the fabric of our society from the beginning
ā¢ 'civilised' women made useful servants, however that first contact (usually with 'rough
settlers') would most likely have resulted in prostitution
o At first by force
o Then as a means of survival
ā¢ Print as representational media
o Reported events
o Circulated meanings of Aboriginality from archives and external resources, including:
ā¢ Public lectures
If you treat people like
animals, it makes it
easier to dismiss their
human rights, including
health and safety
Referring to Aboriginal women as everything but
'woman', 'girl', or even by their name: this dehumanises
the Indigenous population, demonstrating the culturally
embedded ideas of white domination and the belief that
the Indigenous population were more closely related to
animals. This is also erasure of indigenous identity.
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