The Australian Antarctic Territory: A Man’s World?
Until 1975, the Australian Antarctic Territory (AAT), a territory that comprises a massive 42 percent of the polar continent, was a man’s world—not that of a man specifically but of a particular form of Australian masculinity. The AAT was a man’s world in two related ways. The first is the most obvi...
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| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.426.4313 http://eprints.qut.edu.au/20697/1/c20697.pdf |
| Summary: | Until 1975, the Australian Antarctic Territory (AAT), a territory that comprises a massive 42 percent of the polar continent, was a man’s world—not that of a man specifically but of a particular form of Australian masculinity. The AAT was a man’s world in two related ways. The first is the most obvious: a key requirement for Australian Antarctic work was a penis, and until 1975, when three women were allowed on the continent for several weeks in an official capacity, Australia simply did not allow women to work in its polar claim at all. The second aspect of the AAT’s manliness is less genital and more conceptual. The AAT was, and remains, a space onto which fantasies of an idealized Australian masculinity have been projected: the final frontier awaiting penetration, or the masculine space of the imperial frontier as opposed to the feminized space of domestic colonial settlement. Obviously, the two Antarctic malenesses are connected. Ban women from half a continent, and pretty quickly that half continent becomes a fantasy world |
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