Agnė Pakšytė (Lithuania)

In 2019, I completed a Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences and the Humanities at Sciences Po Paris with a major in History and a cum laude distinction. During my undergraduate studies, I also spent two semesters at McGill University in Canada. My professional life after graduating combined activism and education. For two years, I worked at the Lithuanian Centre for Human Rights as Project Manager and Advocacy Lead, mainly focusing on issues of gender-based violence prevention, LGBTQ+ rights and hate crime. Before coming to Oxford, I worked as a freelance human rights educator and researcher. I conducted workshops for children and adults about gender equality, the prevention of sexual harassment, and gender-based violence. I also contributed to research projects of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.

While pursuing an MSt in Women’s, Gender, and Queer History at Oxford, I want to explore the history of reproductive politics, contraception, and abortion in the Soviet Union. I am particularly interested in the conflicting discourses that shaped the perceptions of abortion, presenting it as both a sign of immoral, promiscuous behaviour and a normalised, inevitable contraceptive practice. With my research, I hope to contribute to finding more nuanced and authentic approaches to studying Soviet gender history.

I am incredibly grateful to the Ertegun Graduate Scholarship Programme for making my studies at Oxford possible. I appreciate the opportunity to be part of this community immensely.