Centre for Gender History

Wednesday 28 May 2025, 9am-5.30pm

Hybrid Workshop

University of Glasgow, Adam Smith building | Room 383, 2 Discovery Place | G11 6EY

Organisation

• Carolina Topini, Centre for Gender History, University of Glasgow
• Maud Anne Bracke, Centre for Gender History, University of Glasgow

Programme

Programme

Zoom registration

carolina.topini@glasgow.ac.uk

Registration for in-person attendance is not necessary.  All welcome!

Feminist scholars have extensively documented how reproductive rights and freedoms have historically been curtailed along the axes of race, ethnicity, class, religion, and disability, to serve racist and imperialist population control agendas. While the long fight of women of color for reproductive justice in the United States has been widely acknowledged and researched, the struggles, campaigns and protests led by women of African, Caribbean, and Asian descent in the UK, and the specificity of their activism, remain much less known and explored. From the campaign against virginity testing of South Asian migrants to the advocacy against the use of the injectable Depo-Provera, this one-day workshop proposes to explore this rich history through an intersectional lens. How have these women advocated for their sexual and reproductive health needs? How have they contributed to expose racial and ethnic inequalities within health systems? How has their activism been influenced by and connected to similar struggles around the world? By situating their campaigns and protests not only in local and national, but also in international contexts, the workshop will offer a more diverse picture of global women’s health activism in the late 20th century, exploring the pioneering involvement of British feminists in transnational activist networks.

Turning our attention to the present, what does it mean to fight for reproductive justice today, amidst a global backlash against reproductive and sexual rights, increasingly restrictive migration and border policies, and the growing influence of right-wing political forces? How can we imagine new paths to reproductive justice and new possibilities for political solidarity in hostile environments? Drawing on a wide range of case studies from Britain, Scotland, France, Canada, and the USA, including more transnational analyses, the workshop will bring together feminist scholars and activists working with intersectional approaches on reproductive politics, social activism and global solidarity.

This workshop was made possible thanks to a BME Small Grant — a funding scheme administered by the Social History Society (SHS) in partnership with the Economic History Society, History UK, History of Education Society (UK), History Workshop Journal, the Royal Historical Society, the Society for the Study of Labour History and the Women’s History Network.

Keynote bio

Amrit Wilson is a prominent writer and activist on issues of race and gender in Britain and South Asian politics. She was a founder member of Awaz, the first Asian feminist collective in the UK and an active member of the Organisation of Women of Asian and African Descent (OWAAD). Between 2000 and 2014, she was chair of Imkaan, a national network that works to prevent and respond to violence against Black, Asian and minoritised women and girls. She is a founding member of South Asia Solidarity Group, an anti-imperialist, anti-racist organisation in London. Her books include Finding a Voice: Asian Women in Britain (Virago, 1978) which won the Martin Luther King Award and has been republished in an extended form in 2018 by Daraja Books and Dreams Questions Struggles: South Asian Women in Britain (London: Pluto Press, 2006). Emerging from her experience as a journalist and activist, Finding a Voice established a new discourse on South Asian women’s lives and struggles in Britain. Through discussions, interviews and conversations with South Asian women, in Urdu, Hindi, Bengali and English, it explored family relationships, the violence of immigration policies, colonial mental health services, but also friendship and love. 

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First published: 7 May 2025