Barbara Gabeler

Thesis title: 'A conspiracy of silence: birth control and eugenics in twentieth-century Scotland'

Biography

Background

Born and raised in Rotterdam. I moved to Glasgow in 2016 to pursue a joint-honours degree (MA) in History and Economic and Social History at the University of Glasgow. During my undergraduate studies, I developed a strong interest in gender history and the history of medicine, particularly where they intersect in areas such as reproductive healthcare and population policy. Following my MA, I pursued an MSc in Gender History in 2020 at the same institution.

In September 2022, I started my PhD at the University of Edinburgh, with cross-institutional supervision between Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow. I am immensely grateful to have been awarded a SGSAH AHRC DTP Studentship to fund this research.

Qualifications

  • MSc Gender History, with Distinction (University of Glasgow, 2020 - 2021)

Dissertation: ‘The most defenceless of the British subjects of the Queen’: The prostitute and prostitution in the Scottish popular imagination between 1840 – 1892

  • MA History and Economic and Social History, First Class Hons (University of Glasgow, 2016 - 2020)

Dissertation: Only Wunschkinder: A comparative study of discourses on abortion in media and state policies in East and West Germany between 1945 – 1977

Responsibilities & affiliations

  • Admin and social media officer for the Histories of Gender and Sexuality Research Group

Undergraduate teaching

University of Edinburgh:

  • The Historian's Toolkit (HIST08032)
  • The History of Edinburgh (HIST08036)

University of Glasgow:

  • Economic and Social History 2A: Britain 1770-1914 (ESH2001)
  • Economic and Social History 2B: Britain since 1914 (ESH2002)

Current research interests

My PhD examines the Scottish birth control movement from 1918 – marked by the publication of Marie Stopes’s radical marriage guidance book, Married Love, and the public debate it provoked – through to the 1967 National Health Service (Family Planning) Act, which set in motion the gradual integration of contraception into the NHS. It explores the long campaign for state-sponsored birth control provision, focusing on the role of the Family Planning Association in Scotland as it worked alongside various interest groups to establish and expand a network of voluntary birth control clinics amid moral, religious, medical and political opposition. Given that the Ministry of Health in England and Wales sanctioned municipal contraceptive services in 1930, whereas the Scottish Department of Health did not follow until 1966, this research examines the reasons behind this delay and the factors that ultimately led to policy change. By examining the movement’s strategies, negotiations and struggle for legitimacy, this study provides the first comprehensive account of the Scottish birth control movement and demonstrates how intertwined political, economic and cultural forces shaped reproductive health policy in twentieth-century Scotland.
This article was published on