Exploring sexual and reproductive health: women experiencing homelessness in England and Australia

This thesis explores the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) decision-making of women experiencing homelessness, an area of research neglected in homelessness scholarship. It uncovers the barriers to their decision-making and asks how it is possible to understand bodily autonomy in the context of survival. This research was conducted in England and Australia, two countries with mounting housing crises and characterised by neoliberal strategies that fail to address the structural factors forcing women into homelessness. Findings are based on unstructured, qualitative interviews with 12 women in England and 11 women in Australia who self-identified as having experienced homelessness. Group collaging sessions were also conducted with four women in England and five women in Australia. A feminist ethics of care guided every stage of the research process. A theoretical lens combining concepts of reproductive justice, structural stigma and structural violence informs the research. This framework re-politicises stigma and delivers a new lens for interrogating the structural processes that inform women’s decision-making. This research produced a series of important and novel theoretical and empirical contributions to what is known about the SRH of women experiencing homelessness. From these, four of the most significant findings have been identified. First, good/bad womanhood discourses are an injurious force that devalue women experiencing homelessness and limit their reproductive autonomy. Second, women’s capacity for SRH decision-making must be understood as integrally connected to housing deprivation. Third, violence permeates the lives of women experiencing homelessness and is a significant repressive force on their SRH decision-making. Fourth, the barriers these women face mean their SRH decision-making is highly complex and resourceful, and requires constant, often invisible, forms of labour. By examining SRH rights not in isolation, but rather as inextricably linked to the structures that shape the lives of women experiencing homelessness, this research offers a novel and nuanced understanding to guide policy, practice and future research.