‘Magdalens and moral imbeciles’: Women's homes in nineteenth-century New Zealand

Tennant, Margaret

doi:10.1016/0277-5395(86)90041-5

“…For those subject to intervention, a range of punishments could be experienced, including imprisonment. However, there existed a range of semi-penal institutions such as 'reform' homes, refuges, inebriate asylums, and magdalen (maternity) homes for single women and those deemed prostitutes (Barton 2005;Tennant 1992). Conditions and treatment of inmates in these semi-penal institutions could be as draconian as imprisonment, despite the often 'voluntary' commitment of inmates (Tennant 1992).…”

Section: The Nature Of Punishmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Women's wayward and rowdy behaviours often meant that they were excluded from semi-penal institutions such as refuges and inebriate asylums (Tennant, 1992;Zedner, 1991). Instead, magistrates had little choice but return them constantly to prison.…”

Section: Rowdies and Outsidersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Australian commentators at the time attributed sexual immorality to intergenerational contamination bequeathed by the 'convict taint' of the founders (Damousi 1997;Frances 2007;Perkins 1991). New Zealand observers found it hard to explain how prostitution continued to flourish after the consolidation of European settlement, since their society had been convict-free and supposedly founded on ideals for civilised colonial development (Jordan 2010, Macdonald 1990Tennant 1992). In a bid to restrict the lives of prostitutes, all Australasian colonies introduced a range of vagrancy, police, and health legislation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The images developed of prostitutes in the late-nineteenth century have retained a tenacious hold on modern imaginations (Hubbard 1998). Such images included the 'hardened' older woman, spiralling downwards, with recourse to no other means of support, or the younger woman seduced and abandoned, destined for a life on the streets or in the brothel, but still perhaps reclaimable for good (Hubbard 1998;Tennant 1992). In both cases, each was seen as a victim, albeit victims inclined to guile and viciousness.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Age, prostitution and punishment in the late nineteenth century

Wimshurst

¹

2013

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology

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Considerable research has been undertaken by historians to understand the meanings of prostitution as it evolved in the nineteenth century. Initially, commercial sex was considered in terms of criminality and deviance. Later studies, influenced by the seminal work of Walkowitz (1980), explored the role of local economies in shaping the lived experiences of prostitutes. This article investigates the incarceration of women labelled as prostitutes in late nineteenth century Queensland, using prison and police sources. The analysis identifies similarities and differences between prostitutes and other female prisoners as a way of exploring the place of prostitutes in patterns of 'offending' in their communities. While situated in a criminal justice framework, the article takes account of recent work on historical images and representations of prostitutes. There is general agreement among historians on some core interpretations, but debate still surrounds the role of age, and particularly how concerns about age might have informed strategies of governance. In fact, it seems that age was less important in terms of control strategies. Instead, the reputation of women as street rowdies, petty criminals, and the carriers of disease were deciding factors in official regulation of their lives. However, considerations of age did inform contemporary visions of 'deviant' women, and especially popular views about divisions between deviant women themselves. Examples are provided of the formation of views about older and younger female offenders. Such views about generational divisions between 'fallen' women have exerted a tenacious hold on modern imaginations.

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“…At the same time, the high mortality in these homes was often attributed to the infant's abandonment by its mother. In addition, Tennant (1992) notes that by the 1920s proprietors of residential maternity homes for unmarried mothers claimed that they saved not one life (the mothers), but two (the mother and the child).…”

Section: Changing Constructions Of New Zealand Lone Mothers As Othermentioning

confidence: 99%

Women, Mothers and Citizens: Lone Mothers' Narratives in the Context of New Zealand Welfare Reform

Patterson¹

1

0

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<p>As in other late modern societies with a history of liberal welfarism, 'lone mothers' in New Zealand occupy contested subject positions. On the one hand, lone parenting is understood as the outcome of broader changes in family life and gender relations, and in particular, the emergence of new forms of intimacy as people seek relationships to sustain individual identity projects. On the other hand, in the context of neo-liberal welfare discourses, lone mothers are constructed as a problematic Other, categorically different to 'ordinary' women, mothers and citizens. In New Zealand, welfare reform discourses have constructed women who parent alone as 'particular types of people', and subjected lone mothers to welfare reforms that have had real material effects in their everyday lives. The construction of lone mothers as Other is not only a product of neo-liberal welfare reform discourses. Rather, the ways in which women who parent alone are 'made up' as particular types of people is historically specific. This thesis situates current discourses around lone mothering in New Zealand in the context of a hierarchy of maternal legitimacy that has produced historically specific subjects through a number of traditional, modern and late modern subjectification discourses. Discourses have effects, both materially and in terms of the subjectivity and experience of the people 'made up'. This thesis offers an analysis of the narratives of twenty-one lone mothers in the context of New Zealand welfare reform. In particular, the ways in which women who parent alone make sense of becoming lone mothers, of being 'different' in negotiating the social identity of mother, and of the materiality of the experience of parenting alone are examined. The thesis argues that when narrating experience, women who parent alone enact particular narratives in the form of validation stories. Validation stories are drawn from an amalgam of discourses that both construct lone mothers as particular types of people and shape the material conditions of lone mothers' lives. In enacting validation stories, women who parent alone negotiate these discourses, producing narratives to make sense of their experience and position themselves as ordinary women, mothers and citizens. In this sense, validation stories are narratives that ameliorate the oppressive effects of welfare reform discourses that relentlessly shape lone mothers' lives. The thesis concludes that although validation stories make the lives of lone mothers more 'liveable', sociological theorising around changes in family life must critique claims of individualization as a benign tendency of late modernity, and attend empirically to the ways in which persistent gendered inequalities in family life are both discursively legitimated and reproduced, and continue, for example, to discriminate against lone mothers.</p>

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Women, Mothers and Citizens: Lone Mothers' Narratives in the Context of New Zealand Welfare Reform

Patterson

0

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<p>As in other late modern societies with a history of liberal welfarism, 'lone mothers' in New Zealand occupy contested subject positions. On the one hand, lone parenting is understood as the outcome of broader changes in family life and gender relations, and in particular, the emergence of new forms of intimacy as people seek relationships to sustain individual identity projects. On the other hand, in the context of neo-liberal welfare discourses, lone mothers are constructed as a problematic Other, categorically different to 'ordinary' women, mothers and citizens. In New Zealand, welfare reform discourses have constructed women who parent alone as 'particular types of people', and subjected lone mothers to welfare reforms that have had real material effects in their everyday lives. The construction of lone mothers as Other is not only a product of neo-liberal welfare reform discourses. Rather, the ways in which women who parent alone are 'made up' as particular types of people is historically specific. This thesis situates current discourses around lone mothering in New Zealand in the context of a hierarchy of maternal legitimacy that has produced historically specific subjects through a number of traditional, modern and late modern subjectification discourses. Discourses have effects, both materially and in terms of the subjectivity and experience of the people 'made up'. This thesis offers an analysis of the narratives of twenty-one lone mothers in the context of New Zealand welfare reform. In particular, the ways in which women who parent alone make sense of becoming lone mothers, of being 'different' in negotiating the social identity of mother, and of the materiality of the experience of parenting alone are examined. The thesis argues that when narrating experience, women who parent alone enact particular narratives in the form of validation stories. Validation stories are drawn from an amalgam of discourses that both construct lone mothers as particular types of people and shape the material conditions of lone mothers' lives. In enacting validation stories, women who parent alone negotiate these discourses, producing narratives to make sense of their experience and position themselves as ordinary women, mothers and citizens. In this sense, validation stories are narratives that ameliorate the oppressive effects of welfare reform discourses that relentlessly shape lone mothers' lives. The thesis concludes that although validation stories make the lives of lone mothers more 'liveable', sociological theorising around changes in family life must critique claims of individualization as a benign tendency of late modernity, and attend empirically to the ways in which persistent gendered inequalities in family life are both discursively legitimated and reproduced, and continue, for example, to discriminate against lone mothers.</p>

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‘Magdalens and moral imbeciles’: Women's homes in nineteenth-century New Zealand

Cited by 3 publications

References 6 publications

Age, prostitution and punishment in the late nineteenth century

Age, prostitution and punishment in the late nineteenth century

Women, Mothers and Citizens: Lone Mothers' Narratives in the Context of New Zealand Welfare Reform

Women, Mothers and Citizens: Lone Mothers' Narratives in the Context of New Zealand Welfare Reform

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