Spring 2009 | issue no. 2

“I have also met some of the most interesting and passionate women currently at Harvard. They are witty, compassionate, and very dedicated. It would not surprise me if the answer to my question – as to when the U.S. will elect its first female president – is this: whenever the woman sitting next to me decides to run.”

-Sheila Lalwani (MPP ‘09), Oval Office Cohort 2009, HKS Citizen

WAPPP News

Gender and Policy

Insights: Closing the Global Gender Gap
A collection of article summaries that focus on the underlying causes of, and interventions designed to close, the global gender gaps that exist in the areas of economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. Our aim in compiling these articles is to raise awareness of the existing gaps and provide examples of interventions and their results for use in creating policies to help close the gaps.

Changes in American Women’s Employment: Facts, Fiction, and Policy Implications
Contrary to The New York Times’ and other media outlets’ coverage of the alleged “Opt-Out Revolution,” in which they claim an increasing percentage of educated professional women are choosing to leave their jobs to raise children, Christine Percheski, the Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at Harvard University, found that the percentage of educated women who are working full-time year round, including those with young children, has actually increased over the last five decades.

Gender in Decision Making and Negotiation

Gender Stereotypes and the Double Binds for Women in Leadership
Despite the advances women have made within the employment sector, they remain a minority within the top leadership positions. In 2008, while both genders were equally represented at the managerial and professional levels, women comprised only 6% of Fortune 500 Top Earners and 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs.

Who Do You Trust?
For the past several years Iris Bohnet has been looking at the various factors that motivate individuals to trust.

Gender and Politics

Why Women Don't Run for Office and What Happens When They Do
At WAPPP’s Gender and Politics Seminar Series in March 2009, Jennifer Lawless, Assistant Professor at Brown University, analyzed the reasons why women do not run for political office. Lawless herself ran for Congress in 2006.

Gender and Security

Violent Women, War Porn and International Politics: Making the Links
There are a multitude of disturbing links between pornography, war photography, and conflict and have been throughout history.

Faculty Spotlight

Rohini Pande, Mohammed Kamal Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

The Women and Public Policy Program was pleased to welcome Rohini Pande, Mohammed Kamal Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, as a member of the WAPPP Faculty Advisory Committee earlier this year.

Publications and Awards

Iris Bohnet, WAPPP director and HKS Professor of Public Policy, was a moderator at the First Arab Women Leadership Forum in Dubai in January, chaired the Women in Leadership and Public Policy seminar at Harvard in celebration of International Women’s Day, will participate in the Advanced Leadership Initiative’s Think Tank on Poverty, Justice and Jobs at Harvard University, speak on “Human Capital and the Future” at the annual COUR symposium, an honorary association recognizing Harvard’s most generous supporters, and moderate the gender sessions at the World Economic Forum Meetings in Jordan in May.

Mona Lena Krook, WAPPP and Radcliffe Institute Fellow, had her first book, Quotas for Women in Politics: Gender and Candidate Selection Reform Worldwide, published by Oxford University Press this spring.

Rohini Pande, WAPPP Faculty Advisory Committee Member, was appointed as a Board member of the Committee of the State of Women in the Economic Profession, a subcommittee of the American Economic Association.

Laura Sjoberg, WAPPP Associate, received a Service Award from the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section of the International Studies Association at the Association’s annual convention in New York City in February 2009.

Jessica Stern, Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and a WAPPP research grant recipient (AY 2008/09), was awarded a 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship. Stern will use her fellowship to continue her research on “the anatomy of terror” leading to a book that investigates the motivations of a rapist, and specifically the biology of trauma. Stern is interested in evaluating how past trauma creates a risk for future violence. In addition, she is examining the impacts and intergenerational affects of fear as well as what can happen when fear is not acknowledged.

Martina Viarengo, WAPPP and PEPG post-doctoral fellow, was awarded a Newton International Fellowship, run by The British Academy, The Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society.

Teachining and Training

From Harvard Square to the Oval Office
Each academic year, Harvard Kennedy School

Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st Century
December 2-12, 2008 and March 29-April 8, 2009, Harvard Kennedy School

Women and Security Executive Program
January 12-15, 2009, Harvard Kennedy School

Negotiating for Leadership: An Executive Program for Women in Senior Positions
January 14-15, 2009, Dubai School of Government and HKS

Women and Power Executive Program
May 17-22, 2009, Harvard Kennedy School

Student Spotlight

Sheila Lalwani, HKS Master in Public Policy candidate 2009

Sheila Lalwani, HKS Master in Public Policy candidate 2009, began her career as a reporter of social justice. She worked as a journalist with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel where she wrote about religion, international affairs and gender.