To return to the abstract index press the back button on your browser
Barbara Baird
School of Philosophy, University of Tasmania
'Choosing Choice: Abortion, Women's Liberation and New Women's Magazines in Australia 1970-75'
This paper begins with noting the historical coincidence of the liberalisation of law and access to abortion in several states in Australia, the emergence of the Women's Liberation movement and the entry of several new women's in the early 1970s, in particular Cleo, Dolly and Cosmo. Somewhat symbolically, the successful entry of these new women's magazines ended a long period of market domination by 'the big three' (Women's Weekly, Woman's Day and New Idea). These events can be read together so as to establish each as context for the development of the other phenomena. This paper focuses on the ways in which the new women's magazines of the early 1970s represented abortion and, more broadly, birth control and sexuality. The development of a feminist politics of abortion focused around 'choice'. The place of abortion in a newly constituted female subject position in which choice is central, as evident in these magazines, will be analysed against a history of changing representations of abortion in Australia.
Bio: Dr Barbara Baird coordinates the Women's Studies Program at the University of Tasmania. She has researched the history and contemporary cultural politics of abortion in Australia. Her other research interests include changing discourses of sexuality in Australia public spheres, lesbian identity, gay law reform in Tasmania, and the changes and contests over citizenship and belonging in twenty-first century Australia.
<Barbara.Baird@utas.edu.au>