Women
Approximately 20% of the transportees were women, for whom conditions could be particularly harsh. For protection, most quickly attached themselves to male officers or convicts. Although they were routinely referred to as courtesans relatively few had been prostitutes in England; prostitution, like murder, was not a transportable offense.
Read more about this topic: Convictism In Australia
Famous quotes containing the word women:
“One of the reasons, surely, why women have been credited with less perfect veracity than men is that the burden of conventional falsehood falls chiefly on them.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
““... To many women I have said “lie still”
And given everything that a woman needs
A roof, good clothes, passion, love perhaps
But never asked for love, should I ask that
I shall be old indeed.””
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Women are taught that their main goal in life is to serve others—first men, and later, children. This prescription leads to enormous problems, for it is supposed to be carried out as if women did not have needs of their own, as if one could serve others without simultaneously attending to one’s own interests and desires. Carried to its “perfection,” it produces the martyr syndrome or the smothering wife and mother.”
—Jean Baker Miller (20th century)