© 1994 by Society for the Social History of Medicine
Articles |
Nationalism, Race, and Gender: The Politics of Family Planning in Zimbabwe, 1957–1990
* Curriculum on African and Afro-American Studies, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill NC 27599, USA.
SUMMARY: In line with a general tendency of nationalists to hold pro-natalist views, African nationalists in Zimbabwe took a hostile position to family planning upon its introduction in 1957, arguing that it was part of a conspiracy to control the black population. However, it was only after the unilateral declaration of independence in 1965 by the white settlers under Ian Smith that an official policy aimed at reducing African fertility emerged. The African nationalists waged a consistent propaganda campaign against this policy, and the facilities that were established under it, as well as their personnel, became military targets during the guerrilla war in the late 1970s.
After independence in 1980, the triumphant nationalists tried to maintain their pronatalist position. But, with a postwar ‘baby boom’ pushing the birth rate close to four per cent by the mid-1980s, the officials in charge of economic and social development concluded that society could not sustain such a high fertility rate. Consequently, there was a reversal of policy, and by 1990 Zimbabwe had become an internationally recognized leader of family planning among developing countries. For the most part, however, these changes have taken place without any real input by African women, who remained largely excluded from the male-dominated circles in which decisions about family planning were made.
Keywords: family planning; UDI; racism; sexism; policy making
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the conference on ‘Disease and Society in the Developing World: Exploring New Perspectives’, held at the Francis Wood Institute for the History of Medicine of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia in September 1992. I am grateful to the conference participants for their comments, and especially to Caroline Hannaway and Janet Tighe, the organizers. I also gladly acknowledge a debt a gratitude to Leslie Bessant, Gloria Waite, participants in the Social History Group at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and two anonymous referees for this journal.