'Homeless' women and the problem of visibility: Australia 1900–1940. Issue 2 (23rd February 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: O'Brien, Anne
• Is Part Of: Women's history review. Volume 27:Issue 2(2018)
• Page Start: 135
• Page End: 153
• Publication Date: 2018-02-23
• Subjects: Women -- History -- Periodicals; 305.4
• DOI: 10.1080/09612025.2018.1392275
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0961-2025

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The historiography of women who experienced homelessness is spare but a small, important body of research addresses their long-standing problems with visibility. However, this writing mostly focuses on either 'vagrant' women who were subjects of the law, or 'respectable' women who were subjects of philanthropy. This article draws these groups into the same frame. It shows how the assumed dichotomy between them worked in mutually constitutive ways to sustain their lack of visibility. The 'homeless woman' was defined through her desire to remain hidden, while the 'woman vagrant' was defined by her public performance of transgression. In a context where 'homeless' was challenging 'vagrant' as a sociological descriptor, the woman vagrant was not seen as homeless and the homeless woman was effaced by her own respectability. Despite the divide evoked by the labels, the lived experience of women without homes was connected by a range of economic and affective pressures.