The Australian convict prostitute romance: narrating social and sexual justice for "damned whores"

The 21st century #MeToo movement has drawn global attention to the sexual exploitation of women by men in power, especially in hierarchical, male-dominated workplaces and social setting. These abuses, arising from a “continuum of sexual violence” in patriarchal societies, have been longstanding concerns among Australian feminists. This chapter analyses how issues raised by the #MeToo movement resonate within the Australian historical romance novels of Lena Dowling that feature convict prostitutes as heroines. It argues that Dowling’s historical Convict Wives trilogy attempts two forms of reparative work. The first, by engaging with and challenging the misogynist assumptions of male sexual entitlement that characterise Regency romance novels, enacts a literary form of social and sexual justice sought by feminist activism in the #MeToo movement. The second popularises a feminist reparative historiography that reframes and rehabilitates the reputation of convict prostitutes, transforming them from the “damned whores” and sexual victims of early Australian history to the resourceful “founding mothers” of the Australian nation.