Ina Clausen was born February 21, 1943 to Einar Clausen and Linda Hansen Clausen in Brooklyn, NY. She attended the Prospect Heights High School, where she was on the art staff of her high school's publication, the Cardinal. Clausen graduated in 1960.

In the late 1960s Clausen co-founded a women's collective print shop at 573 Metropolitan Avenue in Brooklyn. Fellow founders included Nina Hutchinson, Linda Feldman, Barbara Kaminsky, Karen Ninnis, Alice Moffett, Page Dougherty, Hazel Doren, and Alice Appleton. The shop was called the Greenpoint Print Shop, and was supported from donations of equipment from David Dellinger, who published Liberation Magazine in New Jersey. At the print shop Clausen designed and printed materials for several local activist groups, including the Southern Conference Educational Fund, the Southside Community of Greenpoint, the National Association for Irish Freedom, Yellow Pearl (an Asian-American organization based in Chinatown), Los Tintos Indios, a Red Hook, Brooklyn-based Puerto Rican group, and several women's liberation groups.

Clausen served as president of the Greenpoint Print Shop until late 1972, when she and the other officers all resigned and turned the corporation over to another group. During this period and beyond, Clausen participated in local activistorganizations, including the Flatbush Committee to End the War in Vietnam. She also designed and published informational packets to educate women about the Women's Liberation Movement. Her work in this movement included contributions to the Feminist journal, Up from Under, which focused on working women.