May 17, 2011
An Unspoken and Disparate History
Two years ago, Susanne Klausen applied to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for a Standard Research Grant to continue her research in South Africa.
When her lack of knowledge of Afrikaans held her back, a sympathetic ear at Carleton helped her get the knowledge she needed to earn a $48,000 grant this year.
“Pauline Rankin, the associate dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Science, contacted me and asked what they could do to turn this around,” Klausen recalled. “She personally helped me get some funding to study the language.”
Now, Klausen has three years of SSHRC funding to look forward to – a valuable resource to help her go further afield as she pursues her research on abortion under apartheid.
African women and poor women of any racial category, got illegal and often dangerous abortions
Estimates put the number of clandestine abortions at 100,000 to 200,000 annually during the apartheid period, which officially ran from 1948 to 1992. That adds up to many millions of unsafe abortions.
The things the history professor has learned, though grim, have inspired her to write about women’s difficult, sometimes unimaginable experiences.
“White women, who were generally well-off, could get safe abortions in London or Mozambique or from family doctors. But the vast majority, African women and poor women of any racial category, got illegal and often dangerous abortions in the community or else procured an abortion themselves.”
Klausen’s interest in abortion goes back to at least 1989, when then-justice minister Kim Campbell tried to bring back an abortion law. Klausen and many others protested.
“As a feminist historian, I find the combination of the social justice of the issue as well as women’s determination to control their fertility no matter the circumstances an irresistible research topic.”
And when speaking at the South African Historical Society’s meeting in Durban in June, that’s what Klausen will focus on.
“This is a history that must be told and I feel privileged to tell it.”
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