Difficult conversations: Race, class and gender in White Australia

Abstract

Since colonisation, Australian society has been hierarchically structured according to race, class and gender. Although Australians may acknowledge that these hierarchies existed in the past, their contemporary manifestation is denied through recourse to discourses of egalitarianism and individualism. Despite evidence that one’s racial identity continues to have a profound impact on life chances; that income inequality between rich and poor has increased significantly in the last twenty years; and that women’s earnings are decreasing relative to men, Australians stubbornly cling to the idea that Australia is a fair and equitable society in which everyone receives a ’fair go’. Within this con..