Damousi’s approach moves beyond the simple dichotomies which have underscored so much previous work on women convicts – the good/bad woman debate or the negative/positive impact of convictism argument. These preoccupations, Damousi argues, have been guided by questions of morality and have ‘narrowed the focus of discussion’. Damousi instead asks a number of different questions of the much-trodden ground, questions which seek to determine the ways in which colonial cultural understanding shaped and was voiced within the female convict experience. Gender and sexual difference provide the central basis for her cultural analysis and within this framework Damousi looks at such diverse topics as the demarcation of space on the convict ship, the language of purity and pollution on shore, the cultural significance of head shaving, and laughter and play as means of asserting female autonomy.

Damousi’s work opens with an analysis of the convict ship and the relationships that developed within that space. Her interpretation of the role of ‘public’ and ‘private’ on board ship is illuminating and serves to highlight issues which were to be relevant once these women disembarked.

She also argues that the sexualised element on board ship determined the nature and understanding of rebellion and resistance among male and female convicts. Unfortunately, here, as in other areas of Depraved and Disorderly, Damousi’s conceptual framework does not guide her analysis sufficiently and as a consequence I found some of her conclusions unconvincing or at least without satisfactory substantiation. For example, she writes ‘Whereas the key disturbance on male ships related to theft, disorder on female ships was characterised in terms of this recalcitrant behaviour’, but this apparent distinction between male and female ships is not fully explored and the discussion of the male convict is reduced almost to tokenism. I had similar reservations about other areas of the work. Damousi’s inside/outside conceptual framework in Chapter Four, for example, creates more confusion than clarity in an otherwise stimulating chapter which provides an insight into the punishment of head shaving, both in terms of its use as a tool of humiliation and as a means through which we can glean an understanding of the female convict’s own perception of her sexuality and femininity.

Despite this, there is much to be praised in Depraved and Disorderly, and it must be noted that Damousi herself admits to wishing only to move beyond the more traditional analyses of female convicts and to suggest ‘some new directions for broadening our understanding of convict history and the experiences of convict women in particular’. This she certainly achieves in her second chapter which looks at the female convict as the ‘other’, the object of a constant white, middle-class male gaze. Images of pollution and purity pervade the depictions of female convicts and although Damousi’s language is not always accessible, her analysis provides a fresh approach which reveals much more about colonial cultural understanding than many previous works. Unlike Portia Robinson et al who looked at how the female convict fits into bourgeois ideals, Damousi presents a more comprehensive understanding of how these complex and ambiguous middle-class ideals affected colonial society as a whole. This she achieves through an analysis of the contemporary judgmental writings on the female convict. These women, like Aboriginals, were perceived as contaminants, disruptors of the social order and yet they were strangely alluring to the male voyeur.

One of the most fascinating and innovative areas of discussion in Depraved and Disorderly revolves around the role of orphan schools and the children of convicts within the wider colonial society. Previous works have highlighted the ‘honest’ nature of the first generation of native-born white Australians and have used that information as a springboard from which to study the role of convicts as parents. Damousi is more interested in the role and perceptions of government on issues of parenthood and children. The concepts of racial and cultural contamination are central to her analysis of perceptions of the convict within the social order and these issues were linked directly to the handling of children in the colony. Both convicts and Aboriginals were subjected to the removal of their children by governmental bodies. Paradoxically, argues Damousi, the government was both protective of these children as the innocent hope for the future, and yet fearful of them as the contaminated offspring of Aboriginal or convict parents. Extending the paradox, Damousi continues, the government also saw the need to ‘feminise’ female convicts through motherhood and marriage and yet they feared the corrupting influence of these women as wives and mothers.

There are many evocative stories within Depraved and Disorderly, which are, in Damousi’s own words ‘haunting and disturbing’, stories which highlight the humanity of these convict women and the diversity of their experiences. The construction of images of these women by those who observed them is without doubt central to Damousi’s work, but this by no means diminishes the presence of the women themselves. Indeed, one of the major strengths of Depraved and Disorderly is that female convicts are brought to life with vibrancy using a variety of sources and approaches. Damousi’s research is extensive, her indexing and referencing are impressive and her approach is innovative, moving beyond generalisations and simple dichotomies to open up many more enticing avenues for research.