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Fall 2010
September 2010
Thursday, September 2
Women and Public Policy Program Open House
WAPPP Cason Seminar Room, Taubman 1st floor | 11am–12pm
Description: Please join us to learn about the Women and Public Policy Program. Hear more about the center's work on Closing the Global Gender Gap, Gender in Decision Making and Negotiation, Gender and Political Opportunity, and From Harvard Square to the Oval Office. We will discuss our initiatives, fellowship stipends, and other student opportunities. Refreshments will be provided!
Thursday, September 9 - WAPPP Seminar
Gender Equality Nudges
Iris Bohnet, Professor of Public Policy, HKS and Director, WAPPP
WAPPP Cason Seminar Room, Taubman 1st floor | 11:40am-1pm
Description: In this presentation, Iris Bohnet, Professor of Public Policy at HKS and Director of the Women and Public Policy Program, will apply the behavioral economics concept of a “nudge” to questions of gender equality and diversity. She will discuss how hiring processes can be changed to increase diversity and how gender diversity in groups affects performance. Specifically, using experiments, her work explores how hiring in bundles as compared to hiring one at a time sequentially affects the choices people make, how comparison information focuses people’s attention on more objective criteria such as past performance as compared to stereotypical judgments, and shows how the gender balance in groups creates informational (dis-)advantages that affect the minority and majority group’s work performance. Her presentation builds on joint work with Max Bazerman, HBS, Alexandra van Geen, HKS, and Farsad Saidi, NYU.
Monday, September 13
Leadership for Social Change
Arianna Huffington, Co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post
Co-moderated by David Gergen, CPL, and Jason Israel, MPP2
Malkin Penthouse, Littauer 4th floor | 11:45am-1pm
Arianna Huffington is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, a nationally syndicated columnist, and author of thirteen books. She is also co-host of “Left, Right & Center,” public radio’s popular political roundtable program. In May 2005, she launched The Huffington Post, a news and blog site that has quickly become one of the most widely-read, linked to, and frequently-cited media brands on the Internet. In 2006, she was named to the Time 100, Time Magazine's list of the world’s 100 most influential people. Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was 16 and graduated from Cambridge University with an M.A. in economics. At 21, she became president of the famed debating society, the Cambridge Union.
Sponsored by the Center for Public Leadership and co-sponsored with the Women and Public Policy Program
Wednesday, September 15
Student Group Reception
WAPPP Cason Seminar Room, Taubman 1st floor | 6-7pm
Description: Interested in becoming involved with a student group focused on gender/diversity? Please join us for a mixer with members of the Women and Gender Caucus, Women and Policy Journal and Diversity Committee. Hear about the mission of these groups and their goals for the year. Light refreshments provided.
Wednesday, September 16, 2010 - WAPPP Seminar
Gender Equality and Development: the Approach of the 2012 World Development Report
Ana Revenga and Sudhir Shetty, The World Bank
Allison Dining Room, Taubman 5th floor | 11:40am-1pm
Description: The World Bank's 2012 World Development Report will focus on the links between gender equality and development. The relationship between gender-based inequalities in opportunities and the development process has gained prominence in research and policymaking. Despite the growing body of evidence on the costs of gender disparities to individuals and countries, the goal of bringing a gender perspective to the analysis and design of development policies remains a work in progress. There are still gaps in knowledge both in how and why gender inequalities matter for development and evolve as part of the development process as well as in the understanding of how best to take account of these inequalities in policy design. In this presentation, we will discuss how we are approaching these issues in preparing the Report.
Tuesday, September 21
From Harvard Square to the Oval Office Open House
1:00pm – 2:00pm | WAPPP Cason Seminar Room
Please join us to learn about From Harvard Square to the Oval Office (‘Oval Office’), a non-partisan initiative of the Women and Public Policy Program that provides a select group of Harvard graduate students with the training and support they need to ascend in the electoral process at the local, state and national levels. We will discuss the application process, skills-training sessions, internship opportunities, mentoring and networking events. Refreshments will be provided!
Thursday, September 23 - WAPPP Seminar
Sarah Palin Plays Chess: Culture Wars as Class Conflict
Joan Williams, University of California, Hastings College of the Law
WAPPP Cason Seminar Room, Taubman 1st floor | 11:40am-1pm
Description: Why is Sarah Palin so popular? Why is abortion so controversial? Because class conflict, disguised as culture wars, operates—unrecognized—as a key driver of American politics. Williams will tie together three topics that are rarely linked: why American politics has veered so sharply to the right since 1970; why the U.S. has the most family-hostile public policy in the developed world; and why the revolution in gender roles stalled in the 1990s. Jump-starting the stalled gender revolution requires new approaches to politics that defuse class conflict, and new initiatives to change gender pressures on men.
Monday, September 27
Half the Sky: A New York Times Columnist Talks About Women as a Solution to Global Problems
Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times with moderator R. Nicholas Burns
Nye BC, Taubman 5th floor | 5-6pm
Nicholas D. Kristof, a columnist for The New York Times since 2001, is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner who writes op-ed columns that appear twice a week. He will be discussing his book, "Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity For Women Worldwide," which he co-wrote with Sheryl WuDunn in 2009. Nicholas Burns, Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics, will moderate the discussion.
Jointly sponsored by The Future of Diplomacy Project, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy
Thursday, September 30 - WAPPP Seminar
The Motherless State: Women’s Political Leadership and the American Democracy
Eileen McDonagh, Northeastern University
WAPPP Cason Seminar Room, Taubman 1st floor | 11:40am-1pm
American women attain more professional success than most of their counterparts around the world, but they lag surprisingly far behind in the national political arena. In this presentation, Eileen McDonagh, Professor of political science at Northeastern University, uses a policy-feedback model to show that equal rights alone do not ensure women’s equal access to political office. Also necessary are government public policies that represent the maternal group difference voters attribute to women candidates. Such policies associate women with the public sphere of the state, and, by so doing, increase public support for women as political candidates and women’s election to public office. Most democracies adopt such policies, but the United States does not, thereby explaining its laggard status when it comes to women’s political representation.
October 2010
Thursday, October 7 - WAPPP Seminar
Towards a Race and Gender-Conscious Conception of the Firm: Corporate Governance, Law and Diversity
Aaron A. Dhir, York University and Visiting Scholar, Fall/Winter 2010, Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government
WAPPP Cason Seminar Room, Taubman 1st floor | 11:40am-1pm
This presentation will explore the intersections of corporate law and governance with gender and racial diversity. The representation of women and people of color on corporate boards and in senior management positions is strikingly low. How can law be used as a tool to facilitate diversity in the upper echelons of business? Do law-based mechanisms, such as diversity-related director quotas and disclosure-related initiatives under securities law, assist or undermine diversification efforts? In addressing these questions, aspects of the "business case" for corporate governance diversity will be unpacked and assessed.
Thursday, October 14 - WAPPP Seminar
All the President's Men? The Appointment of Female Cabinet Ministers Worldwide
Mona Lena Krook, Washington University in St. Louis
WAPPP Cason Seminar Room, Taubman 1st floor | 11:40am-1pm
Women have traditionally been underrepresented among government ministers, and when included in cabinets have largely been relegated to 'feminine' and low-prestige policy areas. Recently, however, some countries have witnessed an increase in the proportion of female ministers and women have been appointed to more 'masculine’ and high-prestige portfolios. In order to explain variations in women's cabinet status, this study constructs a new measure of parity, the Gender Power Score, which assesses the position of women relative to men not only in numbers, but also the gender and prestige of the ministries to which they are assigned. Using a cross-national dataset, three hypotheses are tested, focusing on the role of political institutions, societal attitudes towards gender equality, and attitudes towards gender equality in politics. The article concludes that agency-related rather than structural factors have the greatest impact on gender parity in cabinets.
Friday and Saturday, October 15-16
Conference: Closing the Gender Gap: The Business Case for Organizations, Politics and Society
What is the economic value of gender diversity in organizations, politics and society? To explore this question, the Women and Public Policy Program of Harvard Kennedy School, in collaboration with the Council of Women World Leaders and our knowledge partner, the World Economic Forum, will host a two-day conference convening a select group of leaders from the academic, private, governmental, and non-profit sectors to explore the economic value of gender diversity in organizations, politics and society.
The conference is by invitation only.
Wednesday, October 20
Women Fellows Networking Lunch
Allison Dining Room, Taubman 5th floor | 12pm-2pm
by invitation only
Thursday, October 21 - WAPPP Seminar
Identity, Political Reservations and Access to Water Resources in Rural India
Pinar Keskin, HKS and Wesleyan University
WAPPP Cason Seminar Room, Taubman 1st floor | 11:40am-1pm
Keskin analyzes the impacts of a centuries-old social institution, the caste system, (directly) on households’ access to water resources and (indirectly) on female time allocation in India. The idea behind this study is quite intuitive, yet this remains an almost entirely unexplored topic: water is believed to be an agent that spreads pollution upon contact with a person who herself is in a state of pollution. Therefore, in many regions of India, upper caste households insist on maintaining distinct water sources from the lower caste (i.e. untouchable) households in their villages. The caste discrimination in the access to water resources creates an unequal burden for women and has important intra-household implications, since over 69% of rural Indian households collect water for drinking purposes, and those fetching water are predominantly women.
Thursday, October 28 - WAPPP Seminar
Kill the Women First? Gender and Intentional Civilian Victimization
Laura Sjoberg, University of Florida and Jessica Peet, PhD Candidate, University of Florida
WAPPP Cason Seminar Room, Taubman 1st floor | 11:40am-1pm
Civilians are intentionally victimized in wars, frequently and often brutally. A growing literature asks when, why, and how, looking for explanations in regime type, war type, external material situations, and other relevant factors. We argue that the "civilian victimization" debate omits a key factor explaining when, how, and why civilians are intentionally targeted in war: the role of gender. We argue that women are a Clausewitzian center of gravity in war. States attacking civilians are actually attacking women as the symbolic essence of their opponent. After brief discussions of the civilian victimization literature and what "gender" means, we hypothesize that "civilian" in civilian victimization is a proxy for "woman" as a signification of state/nation. We then provide empirical evidence in support of this hypothesis in two forms: quantitative tests of the relative influence on gender in predicting intentional civilian victimization as compared to other independent variables traditionally employed in the literature, and two case studies of intentional civilian victimization in war (the British blockade of Germany in the First World War and the Soviet incursion in Eastern Germany at the end of the Second World War). After presenting the evidence, we argue that states that attack civilians in war do not attack civilians generally but women specifically. These attacks on women, however, are not just blatant and violent human rights abuses of women as women, but attacks on women as opponents' causes belli and symbolic centers of state/nation.
Friday, October 29
Oval Office Welcome
From Harvard Square to the Oval Office: A Political Campaign Practicum ('Oval Office') is a non-partisan initiative of the Women and Public Policy Program that provides a select group of Harvard students with the training and support they need to ascend in the electoral process at the local, state and national levels.
November 2010
Wednesday, November 3
Global Governance in the 21st Century: The UNESCO Angle
Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO and former Foreign Minister of Bulgaria
Nye AB, Taubman 5th floor | 4pm
Director-General of UNESCO and former Foreign Minister of Bulgaria Irina Bokova will deliver a lecture at the Harvard Kennedy School, co-sponsored by the Kokkalis Program and the Center for International Development. The lecture is open to the public and entitled "Global Governance in the 21st Century: The UNESCO Angle". The event is Co-sponsored by the Center for International Development and the Women and Public Policy Program
Bokova completed a Harvard Kennedy School-Kokkalis Program Executive Education program in 1999. The tenth Director-General of the organization, Bokova is the first woman appointed to the UNESCO leadership, and the first East European and fifth European to win the post. For further information on Bokova and her appointment, please visit the UNESCO website.
Thursday, November 4 - WAPPP Seminar
Economics vs. Culture: Why Are Daughters Treated So Much Worse Than Sons in India?
Robert Jensen, UCLA
WAPPP Cason Seminar Room, Taubman 1st floor | 11:40am-1pm
In many countries, parents provide girls with significantly less education, nutrition and health care than boys. Though the problem itself is well-documented, significantly less is known about the underlying causes or potential solutions. I will present results from two of my recent studies that test the efficacy of potential solutions to this problem, including the role of economic vs. cultural factors. I will focus in particular on a randomized trial that shows how a low-cost intervention designed to increase the perceived economic value of girls to their families - in the form of recruiting visits from the call-center industry - succeeded in raising girls' education and health, and significantly weakened the strong preference among couples to give birth to sons rather than daughters.
Co-sponsored with CID
Wednesday, November 10
Denial: A Memoir of Terror
Jessica Stern, Harvard Law School
WAPPP Cason Seminar Room, Taubman 1st floor | 11:40am-1pm
One of the world’s foremost experts on terrorism and post-traumatic stress disorder, Jessica Stern, HLS, will discuss her new book, Denial: A Memoir of Terror. The book is an investigation of her own unsolved adolescent sexual assault at the hands of a serial rapist, and, in so doing, examines the horrors of trauma and denial. “I have been quiet, and I have listened all my life. But now, I will finally speak.” The world-class social scientist and expert on terrorism and post-traumatic stress disorder began her own investigation, with the help of a devoted police lieutenant, to find the truth about her rapist, the town of Concord, MA her own family, and her own mind. The result is Denial, a candid and deeply intimate look at a life, a trauma, and its aftermath.
Thursday, November 18 - WAPPP Seminar
Gender Differences in Media Consumption and Political Involvement
Christine Benesch, HKS
WAPPP Cason Seminar Room, Taubman 1st floor | 11:40am-1pm
Survey results reveal that women, on average, consume less political news than men. Information is, however, crucial for voters in order to be able to enforce their preferences in the political process. The news gender gap may lead to women knowing less about politics, being less politically involved and not properly represented in the political process. This paper empirically analyzes the gender gap in news consumption and explores several explanations for it. In the US, the gender gap cannot be explained by differences in education, income and other socio-demographic characteristics or by differences in preferences and job benefits of news consumption. The gender gap is higher among full time working people with children, and, hence, the dual burden of paid and household work appears to be one of the drivers of the gender gap in news consumption. Differences in media consumption between women and men are also connected with differences in political knowledge. In a cross-country comparison, the gender gap is linked to general measures of gender equality, but not to measures of gender balance in the media.
Monday, November 22
FILM SCREENING: "Made in Dagenham"
WAPPP Cason Seminar Room, Taubman 1st floor | 4-6pm
The film stars the award winning Sally Hawkins as Rita O'Grady who is the catalyst for the 1968 Ford Daganham strike by 187 sewing machinists which led to the advent of the Equal Pay Act. Working in extremely impoverished conditions for long arduous hours which they must balance with their domestic lives, the women at the Ford Dagenham plant finally lose their patience when they are reclassified as "unskilled". With humor, common sense and courage they take on their corporate paymasters, an increasingly belligerent local community, and finally the government itself. The leader of the women's struggle is fast-talking no nonsense Rita whose fiery temper and occasionally hilarious unpredictability proves to be a match for any of her male opponents, and is echoed by Barbara Castle's struggle in the male-dominated House of Commons.
Monday, November 22
Networking Across Programs: Conversations with HKS’s Midcareer Women
Presented by the Women and Gender Caucus, Women and Public Policy Program, and KSSG
Nye AB, Taubman 5th Floor | 6-7:30 PM, Dinner will be served!
It’s almost Thanksgiving! Time to be thankful for who we have right here at the Kennedy School! ALL are welcome to join us as we highlight the careers and experiences of 10 midcareer women at the Kennedy School. The Women and Gender Caucus is bringing back one of our most successful events and providing students with the opportunity to learn about the amazing work and lives of HKS’s own midcareer women. This is a chance for men and women from all programs to have conversations and network with some of the most valuable resources at this school. Every participant will have an opportunity to join small group discussions led by a midcareer woman about common interests or experiences. We have women from the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors—all of whom are excited to share their experiences. The more the merrier!
Please RSVP online. Any questions, e-mail Heidi at heidi_fieselmann@hks11.harvard.edu.
Thursday, November 25
Thanksgiving Break
No seminar
December 2010
Thursday, December 2 - WAPPP Seminar
Status Constraints in Negotiation: Gender and Global (vs. Local Culture) in the Arab Gulf
Hannah Riley Bowles, HKS
WAPPP Cason Seminar Room, Taubman 1st floor | 11:40am-1pm
Studies conducted in the rapidly globalizing Arab Gulf illuminate university students’ psychological experiences of the global and local job markets. Global and local job markets are distinct cultural contexts—one dominated by Western capitalism, the other by traditional local business norms. Arab men enjoy high status in the local culture, but are negatively stereotyped in the global. Priming local culture, gender effects on negotiation replicated U.S. studies: Arab men (versus women) were more inclined to negotiate and paid a lower social cost for negotiating. However, in the global (versus local) context, Arab men were more reticent to negotiate and paid a higher social cost after negotiating for higher pay—reflecting lowered social status.
Thursday, December 9 - WAPPP Seminar
Why Feminists Should Pay Attention to the Privatization of Military Security
Maya Eichler, WAPPP/ISP Fellow
WAPPP Cason Seminar Room, Taubman 1st floor | 11:40am-1pm
There are two reasons feminist scholars and others should pay close attention to ongoing trends in the privatization of military security.
First, private military and security companies (PMSCs) have become key players in international relations, especially since the end of the Cold War. Second, although protection and security are fundamentally gendered, our knowledge of the effects of the private military and security sector on gender dynamics is limited. In this presentation I propose a feminist agenda for the study of PMSCs. I will examine women’s participation in PMSCs; discourses of masculinity employed by PMSCs; and gender-based violence perpetrated by PMSCs. Finally, I will discuss the recently adopted International Code of Conduct for PMSCs and the robustness of its guidelines on gender.
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