Biography

Robyn Schwarz is a student, researcher, teacher, and reproductive rights activist in London, Ontario. She is a PhD candidate in History at Western University, focusing on Canadian women's history. Her SSHRC funded doctoral research looks at welfare policy for single mothers from 1945 to 1980, focusing on how the state constructed single mothers as a "problem" in Canadian society. She examines the way that government programs and laws reinforce the importance of marriage and the nuclear family in Canadian society. Her research hopes to show the origins of the systematic challenges that single mothers still face today.
She actively works to promote a woman's right to choose and normalize abortion. By tweeting and engaging with reproductive activists and public officials, she hopes to help draw attention to the continued barriers to abortion access in Canada.