GENDERED SILENCE AND COLONIAL MEMORY: RECLAIMING ABORIGINAL WOMEN’S VOICES IN BIRCH’S THE WHITE GIRL: A POSTCOLONIAL FEMINISTIC STUDY

Abstract

This study explores Tony Birch’s The White Girl (2019) through the lens of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s (1988) seminal concept of subalternity, as articulated in Can the Subaltern Speak?. It investigates how Aboriginal women, as both colonized subjects and gendered bodies, are doubly marginalized within postcolonial Australian society. Employing close textual analysis, the research examines how systemic racism, legal control, and gendered violence contribute to their silencing and oppression. The novel illustrates how colonial laws—particularly those separating Aboriginal mothers from their children—inflict deep psychological trauma and reinforce structural inequality. Furthermore, it highlights how Aboriginal women are rendered voiceless, not only by white patriarchal institutions but also within broader cultural discourses that deny them agency. The findings suggest that Aboriginal women in The White Girl occupy a liminal space of subalternity, where race and gender intersect to sustain their marginal status. Ultimately, the study contributes to postcolonial feminist scholarship by foregrounding the lived realities of Indigenous women under colonial and patriarchal domination.