She’s a mother and a wife; she’s a sales assistant who doesn’t get the train to work [so exhausting]; she spends a lot of time cleaning. According to a fascinating six pack of data collated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and their 2011 Housing and Population Census she exemplifies The Imaginary Average Australian, and thank her Catholic God she doesn’t exist because she sounds like a cast member of the imminent Real Housewives of Sydney.
She was born in Australia, as were both her parents, and now lives in a suburb where women outrank men, like Mosman (NSW) or Mornington (VIC). She only speaks English and has British, Irish, Scottish and Australian ancestry. Naturally, she’s a Catholic so her name is most likely Mary, Margaret or Elizabeth [the most popular baby names in ’76].
Mary Elizabeth then is literally the embodiment of Chaka Khan’s Every Woman. She has a certificate in Business and Management and works for 32 thankless hours a week before returning home to cook and clean for her two children, a boy (Jack, 9) and a girl (Isabella, 6), for at least five hours a week.
If Mary Elizabeth sounds exactly like someone you know you’re probably lying because she doesn’t exist, strictly statistically speaking. Of the nearly 22 million people who partook of the 2011 Census there was not a single person who exhibited every single average trait of mediocrity required to meet the criteria for certified beige, which offers some small comfort (we all fall either side of totally average!), or at least a set of warning signs to look out for should you or someone you know start ticking all those middling boxes.
If she did exist in entirety, Mary Elizabeth would be 5 ft 4″ tall and would weigh 71.1kg. In Queensland, she’s 36 years young; in South Australia she’d be 39, although some days she feels 50, amirite ladies? After a few pinots with the gals at that great new wine bar that just opened up down the road on Hump Day, she’ll say she’s a spritely 32, depending on ‘who’s asking, and why, are you interested?’
In Western Australia, she’s a 36-year-old truck driver called Michael.
via The ABS, State Registries of Births, Deaths and Marriages
