Scholar - Women Also Know History

Participant Info

Keywords: history of the family, gender history, history of reproduction, history of health systems, transnational history, history of social medicine, New Zealand history, UK history

About Me: I am currently working on a history of the New Zealand health system from 1938 until 2000 which focuses on trans-national connections and influences, particularly the close relationship between the New Zealand health system and the NHS. Through this project I have developed a particular interest in the history of health centres.

My PhD was the first historical study of the history of divorce in New Zealand in the first half of the twentieth century based on case file analysis. It explored the changing frequency and character of the divorcing population in New Zealand during the first half of the twentieth century. My thesis demonstrated how divorce offers a mirror into many important and often hidden aspects of New Zealand culture and history, particularly its growing secularisation, the turning of marriage from a sacrament into a contract, the growth of individual rights, sexualisation, surveillance, and the role of the press.

Recent Publications: ‘The Trans-Tasman Abortion Travel Service: Abortion Services for New Zealand Women in the 1970s.’ In Abortion Across Borders: Transnational Travel and Access to Abortion Services. Gayle Davis and Christabelle Sethna, eds., (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019), pp.72-97. ISBN: 978-1-4214-2729-4.

Brown, H., Linda Bryder and Martin Gorsky (eds.), Health Policy Making in an Era of Reform: New Zealand’s Health System in the 1980s. Transcript of a Witness Seminar. (London: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, 2018). ISBN 978-0-9957874-3-8.