Gate-Crashing Public Space/Desire and Masculine Romance, 1900-1950 (Essay‪)‬

This essay reviews three very diverse texts--one is cultural history, one a collection of journalism, and the other a biography. It uses them to think about two specific questions: the problematic of speaking 'as a woman' in the first half of this century, and the phenomenon of Pakeha masculine romance. The selection of Robin Hyde's journalism, Disputed Ground, edited and introduced by Gillian Boddy and Jacqueline Matthews, immediately raises questions of voice. (1) Hyde wrote for many papers and her career spanned feature articles, women's pages, parliamentary reporting, and book reviewing. Each paper, each genre produced a different Hyde, a difference sometimes but not always marked by noms-de-plume. For the Wanganui Chronicle in 1929 she wrote: