The Making and Breaking of the Australian Family

Basically I think all the Helen Lovejoys in our current government should have a read of this in light of their refusal to contemplate gay marriage. Gilding discusses the ways in which the image of the family in Australia has been moulded according to social, government, and market forces, and none of it has to do with the raising of children until the 1950s.Having read [b:My Wife, My Daughter and Poor Mary Ann 926045 My Wife, My Daughter and Poor Mary Ann Beverley Kingston https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1307246649s/926045.jpg 911050], a rounded and more fleshed-out approach to the ‘making of the housewife' was particularly nice to see. While Kingston's position was that women essentially created a suburban-housewife-life rod for their own backs, Gilding comments on external pressures from government in particular that created the typical 1950s woman at home.Published in 1991, Gilding focuses on the turn of the twentieth century. His comments on the homosexual identity and family are limited and do not touch on marriage or children in the homosexual ‘family' (quotes because, as it becomes evident while reading the book, the definition of ‘family' isn't a fixed thing, it is a social construct based on who is doing the constructing of the idea).