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User Name Thread Name Subject Posted
matt milton Accents (65* d) RE: Accents 15 Jun 16


@Jim: I didn't know the song "Sarah Collins the Female Transport" until I googled it just now.

Are these the words you sing (give or take)?
http://digital.nls.uk/english-ballads/pageturner.cfm?id=74892349&mode=transcription

If so, I wouldn't worry. Just sing it! I mean, unless you're built like a WWF wrestler and have a bellowing baritone voice an octave deeper than Barry White, there'll be nothing ridiculous about singing the words "Sarah Collins is my name..."

It's debatable how much there is in that song that is specifically female gendered. On a literal level, there's just the "come all ye" addressed to women; the protagonist's first name; and a reference to "us poor girls". So, if you really really felt uncomfortable with the gendering you could always just change the first name and alter the gendering of those two lines.

However, given that the song is indeed "Sarah Collins, the Female Transport", I don't think I'm completely barking in noting an implication/subtext in this verse:

"We labour hard from morn to night until our bones do ache,
And every one they must obey, their mould beds must make,
We often wish when we lay down, we ne'er may rise no more,
To meet our savage governors upon Van Dieman's shore."

The lines "every one they must obey, their mould beds must make" so close to references to "meeting our savage governors" have overtones of sexual harassment/abuse that probably wouldn't suggest themselves were it a male-gendered song.


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