Disciplining the Aborting Woman: Social Work and Changing Discourses of Race, Class and Reproduction in 1950s Australia
In this article Barbara Baird examines in detail a report on women suffering post-abortion complications who were admitted to a large public hospital in Australia in 1956. The 1950s were a period of massive population growth in Australia, fuelled significantly by migration, when the whiteness...
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2004-01-01
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Online Access: | https://journals.univie.ac.at/index.php/oezg/article/view/4288 |
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doaj-d1a4a46519fe4d6281fd8f353c502b872021-03-18T20:47:57ZdeuStudienVerlagÖsterreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften1016-765X2707-966X2004-01-0115110.25365/oezg-2004-15-1-4Disciplining the Aborting Woman: Social Work and Changing Discourses of Race, Class and Reproduction in 1950s AustraliaBarbara Baird0School of Philosophy, University of Tasmania In this article Barbara Baird examines in detail a report on women suffering post-abortion complications who were admitted to a large public hospital in Australia in 1956. The 1950s were a period of massive population growth in Australia, fuelled significantly by migration, when the whiteness of an Anglo-dominated population and culture was put under stress by non-Anglo European migrants and by new discourses of racial assimilation. Examination of the report, written by a member of the hospital’s social work department, enables consideration of the place of women having abortions in the changing social and discursive environments of post-war Australia. Baird reads the report as an early sign of an increase in the surveillance and regulation of women having abortions in a period when reform of the criminal law relating to abortion was still a decade away. She argues that understanding the logic of the report depends on consideration of the racialised meanings of changing discourses of reproduction and femininity. https://journals.univie.ac.at/index.php/oezg/article/view/4288 |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
deu |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Barbara Baird |
spellingShingle |
Barbara Baird Disciplining the Aborting Woman: Social Work and Changing Discourses of Race, Class and Reproduction in 1950s Australia Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften |
author_facet |
Barbara Baird |
author_sort |
Barbara Baird |
title |
Disciplining the Aborting Woman: Social Work and Changing Discourses of Race, Class and Reproduction in 1950s Australia |
title_short |
Disciplining the Aborting Woman: Social Work and Changing Discourses of Race, Class and Reproduction in 1950s Australia |
title_full |
Disciplining the Aborting Woman: Social Work and Changing Discourses of Race, Class and Reproduction in 1950s Australia |
title_fullStr |
Disciplining the Aborting Woman: Social Work and Changing Discourses of Race, Class and Reproduction in 1950s Australia |
title_full_unstemmed |
Disciplining the Aborting Woman: Social Work and Changing Discourses of Race, Class and Reproduction in 1950s Australia |
title_sort |
disciplining the aborting woman: social work and changing discourses of race, class and reproduction in 1950s australia |
publisher |
StudienVerlag |
series |
Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften |
issn |
1016-765X 2707-966X |
publishDate |
2004-01-01 |
description |
In this article Barbara Baird examines in detail a report on women suffering post-abortion complications who were admitted to a large public hospital in Australia in 1956. The 1950s were a period of massive population growth in Australia, fuelled significantly by migration, when the whiteness of an Anglo-dominated population and culture was put under stress by non-Anglo European migrants and by new discourses of racial assimilation. Examination of the report, written by a member of the hospital’s social work department, enables consideration of the place of women having abortions in the changing social and discursive environments of post-war Australia. Baird reads the report as an early sign of an increase in the surveillance and regulation of women having abortions in a period when reform of the criminal law relating to abortion was still a decade away. She argues that understanding the logic of the report depends on consideration of the racialised meanings of changing discourses of reproduction and femininity.
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url |
https://journals.univie.ac.at/index.php/oezg/article/view/4288 |
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