Miriam Dixson's The Real Matilda

The Real Matilda: Women and Identity in Australia, 1788 to the Present written by Miriam Dixson and published in 1976 poses many questions about the role of women from the convict beginnings to the present day. She speaks of a heavily patriarchal society that has deep roots from the past and they have yet to be uprooted, she even goes as far to refer to males in Australian society as misogynist. Her work is heavily influenced by …

…it for this, as historians we can find the text useful in examining some of the lives of convict women, as done by Dixson's research. Yet the reliability for the historian can be questioned because of the heavy use of bias, emotive language and narrow point of view, we can take many things from the text but it must be noted that we cannot accept Dixson's views as being the actual history of these women.