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    19.00 - 20.15
    20.30 - 22.00

Fri 6 April
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    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

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    16.00 - 17.00

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Wednesday 4 April 2018 11.00 - 13.00
S-2 SEX01b Birth Control Practices, Gender and Sexuality in the Twentieth Century Oral Testimonies: Transnational Perspectives from Catholic Countries II
PFC/03/006B Sir Peter Froggatt Centre
Networks: Oral History , Sexuality Chair: Sylwia Kuzma-Markowska
Organizers: Agata Ignaciuk, Laura Kelly Discussant: Agnieszka Koscianska
Ramón Castejón-Bolea : Feminism, Sexuality and Contraception in the Spanish Periphery, 1980-1982
In the last years of francoism and during the democratic transition, there were strong movements in favour of the legalisation of contraceptive methods, which had been forbidden in Spain since 1941, as well as the development of infrastructures enabling women access to them. One of the key features of ... (Show more)
In the last years of francoism and during the democratic transition, there were strong movements in favour of the legalisation of contraceptive methods, which had been forbidden in Spain since 1941, as well as the development of infrastructures enabling women access to them. One of the key features of this process was the geographical diversity of models of creation, development and consolidation of the first family planning centres, and the interactions of social, political, scientific and health-care interests pursued by social actors such as feminists, activists for democracy and human rights, and medical professionals. This paper seeks to analyse the case of the Region of Murcia, with its peculiarities and similarities in the national context, as an example of this process in the Spanish periphery. Secondly, and more specifically, this paper focuses on the Family and Women’s Advice Centres created by the Regional Council of Murcia in 1980 and active until 1982.
This research is based on interviews with professional and non-professional women workers involved in these centres, feminist activists and on local newspapers and archives from the Regional Council of Murcia.
The existence of an organized feminist movement, which was independent of all political parties, played a relevant role in how the centres worked, which went beyond the access of working class women to contraception. We argue that the close connection between feminist organizations and the Advice Centres allowed the transference of specific knowledge and practices linked to the women’s health movement to these centres, which in turn, brought them to working class women through educational strategies. (Show less)

Agata Ignaciuk : “Mothers – Coffins”? Abortion Culture and Women’s Experiences in State-Socialist Poland (1950s-1980s)
Abortion was legalized in state-socialist Poland in 1956 and three years later, in became available practically on demand in public hospitals. During decades that followed, termination was one of the main birth control resources for Polish women. Yet, its use as such was never publically encouraged. On the contrary, criticism ... (Show more)
Abortion was legalized in state-socialist Poland in 1956 and three years later, in became available practically on demand in public hospitals. During decades that followed, termination was one of the main birth control resources for Polish women. Yet, its use as such was never publically encouraged. On the contrary, criticism of what can be called “abortion culture” was formulated by doctors active in the field of family planning and the Catholic hierarchy and intellectuals. In popular magazines for women, story of an “abortion-abuser”, a desperate woman who had become sterile after having had multiple medical abortions, was a recurrent parable during the 1960s and 1970s. Oral evidence points to these women being stigmatized in their local environments as “mothers-coffins”.
With further restrictions to the already very restrictive abortion legislation in today’s Poland still on the table, the cultural history of abortion during Polish state socialism, when it was readily available, requires urgent examination. While scholars have focused the circumstances preceding and surrounding its decriminalization in 1956 and medicalization that followed, less attention has been paid to the cultural experience of abortion itself. The aim of this paper is thus to explore women’s motivations for using or rejecting this form of birth control, and to determine to what extent these choices were specific to their experience as (female) citizens of the socialist and largely Catholic state. Through this analysis, I attempt to advance the examination of the relationship between the “abortion culture” and state- socialism. This research is based oral history interviews with women who were in their reproductive age after 1956 and before the beginning of the Polish democratic transition, small and large scale- surveys regarding pregnancy termination carried out between 1956 and 1989, and letters and articles published in magazines for women (Przyjaciólka, Zwierciadlo, Ty i Ja, Kobieta i Zycie) during this period. (Show less)

Erin Jessee : “There Are no Other Options:” Rwandan Gender Norms and Family Planning in the 20th Century
This paper explores shifts in social expectations at the intersections of Rwandan gender norms and practices related to family planning. A predominantly Roman Catholic country since the 1930s, Rwanda is often regarded as a patriarchal society in which Rwandan women have, throughout history, endured limited rights and opportunities. Little is ... (Show more)
This paper explores shifts in social expectations at the intersections of Rwandan gender norms and practices related to family planning. A predominantly Roman Catholic country since the 1930s, Rwanda is often regarded as a patriarchal society in which Rwandan women have, throughout history, endured limited rights and opportunities. Little is known about the nation prior to the start of the colonial period in 1895 due to Eurocentric interests in the Rwandan court, which was largely dominated by male elites. However, some ibitekerezo (orally transmitted historical narratives) have persisted in the present as told by twentieth century Rwandan historians and storytellers, and as interpreted by the German and Belgian scholars and missionaries who lived in Rwanda during the nation’s colonial period as part of German East Africa (1895-1916) and Belgian-controlled Ruanda-Urundi (1916-1962). These ibitekerezo suggest that gender norms in Rwanda were far more complicated than was understood by European colonizers, and that women’s roles within their families, communities, and the court were often more diverse than the historiography’s narrow focus on women as wives and mothers otherwise allows.

Drawing upon a range of ibitekerezo, as well as oral history interviews conducted with Rwandans since 2007, I argue that Rwandan women—while under significant societal pressure to become wives and mothers, particularly since the spread of Catholicism in Rwanda—did occasionally find ways to exert agency within and beyond these roles. Shifting practices related to family planning are but one arena in which this becomes evident. For example, in popular culture, Rwandan women have a reputation as poisoners due to their alleged use of medical plants and related practices to resolve a host of medical illness and interpersonal conflicts. In practice, this meant various forms of contraception and abortion were available and necessary, particularly prior to independence in 1962 when becoming pregnant outside of marriage could prompt a woman’s execution by her family. Since the 1930s, however, the spread of Roman Catholic values rendered contraception increasingly taboo, while abortion was eventually made illegal. At present, abortions are legally permissible only in cases involving medical necessity—most commonly, to save the life of the mother. However, as one of the world’s most densely populated nations, the current government encourages couples to have no more than two children. Likewise, as a nation that is leading the world in women’s representation in politics, special emphasis is being placed on promoting gender equality. Such developments have thrust various family planning, including women’s access to contraception and abortion, into the limelight with great controversy. In this context, understanding how Rwandan women have approached and managed family planning at different points in the nation’s history could be essential for informing policy debates, particularly those that hope to better ensure women’s rights and access to adequate healthcare are being respected regardless of civilians’ religious backgrounds. (Show less)

Laura Kelly : Birth Control Practices, Class and Access to Contraception in Ireland, C.1950s-1970s
The twentieth-century history of men and women’s attempts to gain access to reproductive health services in the Republic of Ireland has been significantly shaped by Ireland’s social and religious context. Contraception was made illegal by the Irish government in 1935 with the introduction of the Criminal Law Amendment Act that ... (Show more)
The twentieth-century history of men and women’s attempts to gain access to reproductive health services in the Republic of Ireland has been significantly shaped by Ireland’s social and religious context. Contraception was made illegal by the Irish government in 1935 with the introduction of the Criminal Law Amendment Act that forbade the import, sale and advertisement of contraceptives, and would not be legalised until 1979. Although contraception was illegal until 1979, declining birth rates in this period suggest that many Irish men and women were practising fertility control measures.

The Fertility Guidance Company, later the Irish Family Planning Association a voluntary clinic established in 1969, was the first organisation to challenge Irish laws on contraception and provided both medical and non-medical contraception to patients who paid a “donation” rather than a fee. In 1972, an organisation called Family Planning Services was founded, which also provided a clinic service as well as a mail-order service for men and women who wished to purchase non-medical contraceptives such as condoms, spermicidal jelly, or the cap. The voluntary family planning clinics catered for the urban-based middle-classes and working-class and rural-based men and women struggled to get access to contraception. Those who could afford to would travel to Northern Ireland or elsewhere in the United Kingdom to obtain contraceptives that were available without a prescription such as condoms, the diaphragm, and spermicidal jelly. Mail order services also made it possible for those who could afford to buy contraceptives from the United Kingdom to do so. However, until the landmark 1973 McGee case, which legalised the import of contraceptives for personal use, it was illegal to do this, and imported contraceptives could be seized by customs officers. While it was possible for some women to get access to the contraceptive pill, which was marketed in Ireland as a ‘cycle regulator’, from their general practitioners, doing so meant potentially going against one’s faith, and also depended on whether the doctor would prescribe it or not.
Recent studies of Irish women’s reproductive rights have explored the role of the Catholic Church hierarchy, Irish government and the medical profession in shaping debates on contraception. Yet, we still know very little about the contraceptive practices and attitudes to contraception among Irish citizens in the period before legalisation.

Drawing on oral history interviews with Irish men and women, as well as contemporary sources such as women’s magazines and memoirs, this paper will investigate the attitudes to contraception and the birth control practices of men and women in twentieth-century Ireland, exploring how these changed over time and varied depending on class, religion, and location. Crucially, it will highlight the experiences of ‘ordinary’ men and women and the impact of church and state law on individuals’ reproductive choices. Finally, it seeks to illuminate how individuals transgressed the law and gained access to birth control in this period, and illustrate the complex range of factors which influenced individuals’ choices in relation to family planning. (Show less)



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