The Real Matilda

The Real Matilda is a 1976 non-fiction book of feminist history by Miriam Dixson. The book argues that Australian women have a significantly lower social standing than women in other Western nations, and attributes this to Australia's early colonial history. Dixson argues that the lower-class men who made up Australia's early convict population had a particularly low regard for women, and that their subjugation of women in the colony's early years has "imprinted" itself on contemporary Australian culture.

While the book received critical reviews from some feminists upon its release, it has since come to be regarded as a landmark work in Australian feminist history. New editions of the book were published in 1984, 1994, and 1999. The Real Matilda has been described as one of the catalysts for a new wave of feminist historiographies of Australia released in the years that followed its publication.

Summary

The Real Matilda, titled after the song "Waltzing Matilda", argues that Australian women generally have a lower social standing than women elsewhere in the Western world. The book supports this argument through an analysis of Australian culture and the ways in which it excludes women, while also examining the ways in which women have been marginalised throughout Australian history. The work was described by the feminist scholar Jill Ker Conway as "an essay in psychohistory", and draws heavily on the theories of the political scientist Louis Hartz.

Dixson argues that the central reason for Australian women's comparatively low social standing lies in the nation's early colonial history.