Working-class Women’s Writing in Australia: On the Margins of Every Margin?

Abstract

The notion of a single ‘working class’ is a problematic one in the Australian context, where class is defined more by education and lifestyle than by birth. Class mobility means that the constitution of the working class changes with each generation. But there was and always is a working class: the Irish made up a fair proportion of the working class in the years following the British invasion; Aborigines were always part of the working class whenever they were in a working relationship with whites (I would exclude Aborigines living in [near] traditional ways); and most recently migrants from the Middle East and Asia have become the new working class. Within a generation some groups move out of the working class. Working-class literature, from the point of view of mainstream critics, remains on the margin of all these groups, while working-class women’s writing is relegated to the margin of every marginal group.¹