Colonisation of bodies: The sterilisation and reproductive control of Aboriginal women in 1960s Australia
The power dynamics where states have exploited the bodies of women through control of sexual reproduction can be illustrated when examining Australia’s historical past. In 1967, the number of Aboriginal people mattered. Before, Aboriginal communities were not seen as citizens; they were “the others”. In May 1967, after 10 years of campaigning, a referendum on recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Australian Constitution was held. Aboriginal people were acknowledged—for the first time—as equal citizens (National Museum of Australia, 2017). The historic celebration was then met with fear: the results of a 1966 census published after the referendum told a new story about the Aboriginal population: it was growing. Dr Jarvis Nye, a founder of a medical clinic in Brisbane, wrote in the media that Aboriginal people had “much larger families than our intelligent and provident European and Asian citizens; unlike more intelligent people who control their breeding” (Rademaker, 2024). Nye advocated for instruction in contraception, coupled with sterilisation for Aboriginal women and men. The control over Aboriginal reproduction, coupled with the Stolen Generations—the Indigenous children removed from their families and communities through race-based policies set up by the state government up until the 1970s—echo Australia’s eugenics history up to today.
The body is a site of colonisation, and “the colonial relationship is one of domination and subordination among groups; is constructed primarily on notions of difference; it is maintained to serve the interests of a dominant group” (Buckman, 1995). These power dynamics are prevalent in international relations, which exposes the dichotomies of our world through binaries and gendered languages. This analysis aims to underscore how the state’s colonisation of the bodies of Aboriginal communities throughout the 1960s and 1970s proves women’s bodies are political. It is a site of male and national colonisation. By examining the sterilisation of Aboriginal women, we assert the intersection between state power and reproductive rights through a gendered lens.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Aboriginal motherhood remained a focus of government interventions. Eugenics were not unfamiliar in Australia: Professor W.E. Agar had just decades prior argued for measures to restrict the “breeding of less able Australians,” as “Melbourne had no place for the black Indigenous population in the white Australian race” (Jones, 2024). In 1968, Agar’s fears solidified when the alarm around the Aboriginal birth rate heightened in national politics. Aboriginal communities were rapidly reproducing—and would surpass white Australians if not halted. Repeatedly, white anxiety around the Aboriginal population was framed around the postwar populate narrative, “where white Australians were encouraged to reproduce to defend the country from alleged invasion from Indigenous Australians” (Byrnes, 2018). In other words, Aboriginal motherhood was a threat to the nation. Perceived as “primitive,” “irrational” and “challenged” —Aboriginal women were not fit to reproduce. And action had to be taken.
Figure 1: Department of Lands Collection. (1968) Historians are finding evidence of coercive practices of birth control and sterilisation in government records from the 1960s and 1970s. Available at: Libraries and Archives NT.
It would be at the turn of the decade when pilot projects would address the “special problems of family planning education among unsophisticated Aboriginals in remote locations” (Rademaker, 2024). One began at Bagot, Australia, in January 1968, with initial appointments for inserting IUDs in February. Medical reports showcased that by 1973, 59 Aboriginal women there received IUDs, and five had tubal ligations. Some welfare officers reported that “direct persuasion” was made to some women. The form of this “direct persuasion” was made unclear, but it indicated that Aboriginal women were directly encouraged to control their fertility “if they did not make the choice that these projects anticipated”:
“Women who did not wish to adopt family planning, however, were classified as unsophisticated. According to doctors, some Aboriginal women were so unsophisticated that they would never countenance family planning. Those that reject assistance were described as primitive and dirty; the “rubbish” woman with no husband” (Rademaker, 2024).
Aboriginal women had several reasons for participating willingly in the program. Some wanted to stop having children; some were too young to wish for any. Doctors preferred inserting these women with an IUD, as it was long-lasting, required medical supervision, and “crucially, could not be removed by the woman herself”. The perception of Aboriginal women as primitive equally meant the pill was not proposed as an option, as they were “poorly educated” and would experience “difficulty.” It was also widely believed that once Aboriginal women became more sophisticated—ergo, using IUDs as habitual practice—the pill would eventually replace the device.
Aboriginal women themselves did not prefer IUDs. Rembarrnga women were anxious about the device, and Pitjantjatjara women associated IUDs with illness, as reported by local media at the time. Harry Giese, the Director of Welfare in the Northern Territory Administration, believed that Aboriginal women should use contraception to become more “sophisticated.” This civilising of Aboriginal people was to be achieved through reproductive control: “Contraceptive use and a lower birth rate were linked to Aboriginal development, women’s sophistication, and modernisation in a mutually reinforcing cycle” (Randemaker, 2024). Many were sterilised without their full consent, as language and cultural barriers impeded viable communication. Some feminists believed control of Aboriginal women’s reproductive health was excessive, while others sustained this was empowering Indigenous women to make autonomous decisions. In his 1975 article in the Medical Journal of Australia, Dr Aileen Connon argued:
“After all, why should Aboriginal women be deprived of one of the greatest medical technological advances of this century, namely a choice of method of family spacing to which all other women in Australia have the right of access?” (Connon, 1975).
This double-edged sword of rights discourse for First Nations people in Australia was troublesome. While opening opportunities to stake claims for freedoms, these rights also arise coupled with expectations of “responsibility” and scripts for behavioural change, which are a mode of colonial governance (Rademaker, 2024). Aboriginal women were expected to conform to normative motherhood by “becoming mothers who controlled and spaced their childbearing, made sophisticated decisions, and aspired to white middle-class domestic norms” (Holcombe, 2018). Simply put, they were colonised.
“Women’s bodies are colonised when treated as commodities” (Adair, 1992). Aboriginal women’s bodies were feared; their motherhood was a threat to nation-building and Australia’s future. The Western imperial gendered narrative—exalting the binary perception of Aboriginal men and women as primitive, feral, and mentally challenged—shaped public discourse in 1970s Australia. It reinforced the European white saviour complex: Aboriginal women required help since they could not restrain themselves. Furthermore, the prevalent eugenics discourse in Australian society fortified the need to counter non-white reproduction.
The state’s colonisation of bodies of Aboriginal people remains present. Aboriginal communities today still face heightened reproductive rights issues than their white counterparts. Communities face hardships when transmitting reproductive cultural practices, as collective memory has been blurred with sterilisation and coercive abuse. As such, when First Nations women still make fertility decisions within a broader context of high rates of “child removal and domestic abuse, we must ask what kind of choice is available to them” (Rademaker, Troy, and Hurst, 2024). When the colonised never ceased, autonomy can not be attained.
List of references
Adair, C. (1992). Colonised bodies — the oppression of women. Women and Dance. Women in Society Series List (ed CG), [online] pp.40–61. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22374-9_4.
Buckman, A.R. (1995). The Body as a Site of Colonization: Alice Walker’s Possessing the Secret of Joy. The Journal of American Culture, 18(2), pp.89–94. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1542-734x.1995.00089.x.
Byrnes, C. ed., (2018). Reproduction regulation, abortion and Indigenous women since the 1970s | Australian Women’s History Network. [online] Australian Women’s History Network. Available at: https://www.auswhn.com.au/blog/abortion-indigenous-women/.
CONNON, A.F. (1975). FAMILY PLANNING AMONG ABORIGINES. Medical Journal of Australia, 1(SP3), pp.17–19. doi:https://doi.org/10.5694/j.1326-5377.1975.tb140368.x.
Jones, D.R. (2024). ‘Melbourne had no place for the “black” Indigenous population in the “white Australian race”’. [online] Pursuit. Available at: https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/melbourne-had-no-place-for-the-black-indigenous-population-in-the-white-australian-race.
National Museum Australia (2017). Indigenous referendum | National Museum of Australia. Nma.gov.au. [online] doi:https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/indigenous-referendum.
Rademaker, L. (2024). Being Counted: Family Planning and Aboriginal Population, 1967–75. Australian historical studies, [online] 55(3), pp.1–19. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/1031461x.2023.2297964.
Troy, J., Hurst, J. and Rademaker, L. (2024). Friday essay: ‘too many Aboriginal babies’ – Australia’s secret history of Aboriginal population control in the 1960s. [online] The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-too-many-aboriginal-babies-australias-secret-history-of-aboriginal-population-control-in-the-1960s-189249.
