Graduate House June Luncheon: Carmel Shute

Norman Mailer claimed that you have to have balls to write crime, but the members of Sisters in Crime Australia and Carmel Shute beg to differ. Women’s lack of that masculine equipment is precisely what gives them the edge when it comes to writing crime. They aren’t writing from a position of gender privilege. They know what makes the world tick in both the big and small and subtle ways. Women are all too aware of the violence that lurks everywhere, regardless of age, appearance and class. Women walk down those mean streets at night, clutching keys and listening for any footsteps that follow us.

But it’s once women are inside the front door, that they face the most danger. Last year, 103 Australian women and 16 children were killed as a result of murder or manslaughter. Women know that the domestic sphere is where politics begin. Crime begins at home.