Katie Hughes PhD Student
Supervisor Dr. Erika DyckMy dissertation research examines the roles of women in Canadian HIV/AIDS activism during the 1980s and 1990s. Considering women’s interlocking roles, experiences, and identities as caretakers, family members, activists, and sufferers during the AIDS crisis, my research aims to expand historical understanding of HIV/AIDS activism in Canada by analyzing how public, medical, activist discourse did (or did not) consider women within their responses to the AIDS epidemic and how, in turn, women fought to gain recognition in broader discussions of HIV/AIDS. Through this analysis, my research situates women’s participation in HIV/AIDS activism into the longer framework of feminist and women’s health activist histories in Canada.
Research Area(s)
- History of Medicine and Health
- Women’s/Gender History
- Canadian History
- History of Activism
- Social History
Publications
Hughes, Kathryn L., and Catherine Carstairs. “‘Needling Doubts’: Maternalism, Neoliberalism and Intensive Parenting as the Roots of Vaccine Hesitancy in English-Speaking Canada, 1980-2007.” Canadian Historical Review, 105, no. 2 (June 2024): 232-256.
“‘Absurd Quackery’: The Canadian Women’s Health Movement, Vaccine Attitudes, and Healthsharing.” Active History. May 17, 2023. https://activehistory.ca/blog/2023/05/17/absurd-quackery-the-canadian-womens-health-movement-vaccine-attitudes-and-healthsharing/.
Istead, Jeremy, Catherine Carstairs, and Kathryn L. Hughes. “Before #MeToo: The Fight Against Sexual Harassment at Ontario Universities, 1979-1994.” Historical Studies in Education/Revue d’historie de l’éducation 33, no. 1 (Spring 2021): 1-21.
Conference Presentations
Carstairs, Catherine and Kathryn Hughes. “Intensive Parenting, NeoLiberalism and Vaccine Hesitancy in Canada, 1982-2007” Canadian Historical Association, Toronto, 31 May 2023.
Carstairs, Catherine and Kathryn Hughes. “Vaccine Resistance in Canada: The 1980s and Beyond” Society for the Social History of Medicine, Swansea, 30 June 2022.
“The Role of the Women’s Health Movement in Vaccine Resistance” Canadian Society for the History of Medicine, Virtual, 4 June 2022.