Women in conversation: A wartime social survey in Melbourne, Australia 1941-43

Abstract

This article examines the gendered dimensions of relationships in the conduct of a major academic Australian social survey in Melbourne in the early years of the Second World War. Despite its grounding in methodology current in Britain at the time, its execution and outcomes mirrored the gendered and classed nature of the survey, with its male direction, middleclass female interviewers, and largely working-class respondents. The value of 'women's conversations' was reflected in the fullness of the findings that were made publicly available in subsequent years.