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Cultural Bridge Fellowship - SUMMER INTERNSHIP FUNDING AVAILABLE

Accepting Applications beginning January 7
Men and Women May Apply

Application Deadline: Friday, March 6 | 3pm
Women and Public Policy Program
Taubman 105A, Taubman building 1st floor

Please submit all applications in hard copy to Naisha Bradley

Through the generosity of the Nancy Germeshausen Klavans Foundation, the Women and Public Policy Program is offering scholarships for Kennedy School students to work with women peace builders on a specified project during the summer.  The program will provide a $5,000 - $6,500 grant for the summer.

The Cultural Bridge fellowship continues to be one of the most generously funded fellowships at the Harvard Kennedy School. Providing a stipend and a transit scholarship, students are able to travel abroad or work domestically on a wide range of issues. Over the course of five years Cultural Bridge fellows have worked in an array of different projects with organizations such as the Salmmah Women’s Resource Centre, UNICEF, Action Aid, National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and Aid Afghanistan.  In addition our fellows have worked in a variety of capacities as researchers, speech writers and policy analysts.

For more informationon this fellowship contact Naisha Bradley

FORUM: Will Obama’s Security Policy Be Inclusive? -- How women’s global leadership can shape the new administration’s agenda

Josephine Abalang, Deputy Director of Public Relations, Office of the Vice President, Government of Southern Sudan; Orzala Ashraf, Founder and Senior Adviser, Humanitarian Assistance for the Women and Children of Afghanistan; Rufa Guiam, Director of the Center for Peace and Development Studies at Mindanao State University-General Santos City, Philippines; Marini de Livera, National Project Coordinator for the United Nations Development Programme's Women’s Empowerment Project, Sri Lanka; and moderated by Ambassador Swanee Hunt

Wednesday, January 14 | 6:00 pm
John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum
Harvard Kennedy School
79 JKF St., Cambridge, MA 02138

Around the world women are resolving conflict, building sustainable peace, and strengthening economies. Women’s sometimes marginalized role in society may serve as an avenue for pursuing innovative security policies. Please join us as we host four exceptional leaders from around the world as they discuss US strategies to increase global security through supporting women’s inclusion. The panel discussion will address why and how President Elect Barack Obama could use women’s global leadership to meet critical security and economic goals.

Panelists and contributors are part of the tenth annual Women and Security Executive Education Program at the Harvard Kennedy School in partnership with the Women and Public Policy Program. The forum will be moderated by Ambassador Swanee Hunt., Eleanor Roosevelt Lecturer in Public Policy, HKS.

An opportunity for questions will follow the panel discussion and guests are invited to network with global peacebuilders during a reception after the forum. The forum is open to the public.

The event is open to the public.

Part of the Women and Security Executive Education Program

Through the Labyrinth: The Truth About How Women Become Leaders

Alice Eagly, James Padilla Chair of Arts and Sciences, Professor of Psychology, Faculty Fellow of Institute for Policy Research, Department Chair of Psychology, all at Northwestern University

Thursday, February 5 | 11:40-1pm
Alison Dinning Room, Taubman building 5th floor

In many nations, women have gained considerable access to leadership roles and are increasingly praised for having excellent skills for leadership. In fact, women, somewhat more than men, manifest leadership styles associated with effective performance as a leader. Nevertheless, more people prefer male than female bosses, and research has demonstrated that women can still face impediments to attaining leadership roles and barriers to success as occupants of these roles. This mix of women’s apparent advantages and disadvantages reflects progress toward gender equality as well as the lack of attainment of this goal.

Alice Eagly is Professor and Department Chair of Psychology, James Padilla Chair of Arts and Sciences, Professor of Management & Organizations, and Faculty Fellow in the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern. She has also held faculty positions at Michigan State University, University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and Purdue University. She received her Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Michigan.
 
Her research interests include the study of gender, attitudes, prejudice, stereotyping, and leadership. She is the author of several books and numerous journal articles and chapters in edited books. Her most recent book, Through the Labyrinth: The Truth About How Women Become Leaders, co-authored with Linda Carli, was published in 2007 by Harvard Business School Press in conjunction with the Center for Public Leadership of the Kennedy School of Government. She has won several awards, most recently the 2008 Gold Medal for Life Achievement in the Science of Psychology from the American Psychological Foundation and the 2009 Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association.

Co-Sponsored with the Center of Public Leadership, Part of the Gender in Decision Making and Negotiation Seminar Series

Roy Family Internship - SUMMER INTERNSHIP FUNDING AVAILABLE

Accepting Applications beginning February 9
Men and Women May Apply

Application Deadline: Friday, March 6 by 3pm
Women and Public Policy Program
Taubman 105A, Taubman building 1st floor

Please submit all applications in hard copy to Naisha Bradley

Through the generosity of the Roy Family, the Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) offers summer internship funding to Harvard's Kennedy School students who have completed at least one year of study and will be returning to campus in the fall. The Roy Family Summer Internship Program (Roy program) advances WAPPP’s mission to create a world more balanced in opportunity by supporting students who work with female role models or gender related projects/programs during the summer.

Since 2001, the Roy program has supported Kennedy School students’ gender-related work in over 14 countries including Kenya, India, Costa Rica, Rwanda, Bangladesh, Lebanon, Liberia, El Salvador, Mozambique and the United States. Students have worked in a variety of capacities from researchers to policy analysts with responsibilities that range from drafting national legislation to designing gender focused program evaluation processes. Roy Interns have secured projects with such role models as Aloisea Inyumba, Secretary General of the Commission for Unity and Reconciliation in Rwanda (2001) and Chetna Sinha, a pioneer in women’s advocacy and the founder of Mann Deshi Mahila Bank in India (2005).

For more informationon this fellowship contact Naisha Bradley

The Politics of Intersectionality: Quotas for Women and Minorities in India And France

Mona Lena Krook, Washington University, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and Women and Public Policy Program Fellow

Tuesday, February 10 | 4:15-6pm | Cabot Room
Center for European Studies
27 Kirkland Street
Cambridge, MA

The Politics of Feminist Security Studies

Annick T.R. Wibben, Assistant Professor, Politics Department, University of San Francisco

Wednesday, February 11 | 4:00 – 5:30pm
Joukowsky Forum, Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street
Brown University

Given feminist methodological commitments, their concern with violence (against women, but also others), and the limited nature of the field of security studies – do feminists really want to ‘play the security game’ … and by whose rules?

Traditional, critical, and feminist security studies exhibit a number of continuities and discontinuities. While all approaches show a broadening and deepening of security studies, differences exist with regard to an opening of security studies. The latter requires an engagement with the meaning of security, and thus with the politics of security. Insofar as feminists question assumptions that frame traditional understandings of security, they can produce such an opening. As Feminist Security Studies expands, the radical politics of feminist interventions are getting sidelined in favor of ‘playing the security game.’ This talk highlights the dangers of framing feminist concerns in terms of security without at the same time questioning the politics of security. 

Annick T.R. Wibben is an Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of San Franciso (USF), where she is actively involved in the interdisciplinary International Studies Program. She received her Ph.D.in International Politics from the University of Wales in Aberystwyth, UK and also holds an M.Soc.Sc. in IR and European Studies from the University of Tampere in Finland and a Vordiplom in Economics from the University of Hamburg, Germany. In addition to her appointment at USF, Annick continues to be affiliated with the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University where she worked with the Information Technology, War and Peace Project [infopeace.org] from 2001-2005.

Annick teaches International Politics and specializes in feminist IR, (critical) security studies, and IR theory. Before joining the USF faculty, she taught at Brown University, Bryant College, and Wellesley College. In the fall of 2003, she was a Rockefeller Humanities Fellow for Human Security with the National Council for Research on Women and the Center for the Study of Women and Society at the City University of New York Graduate Center.

Currently on sabbatical, Annick is working on her book Feminist Security Studies: A Narrative Approach (Routledge 2009) and recently published “Human Security: Toward an Opening” in Security Dialogue. She has presented her work at the intersection of feminist IR and security studies at numerous conferences and has published some articles in the area, including an often cited piece on "Feminist International Relations: Old Debates and New Directions" in the Brown Journal of World Affairs (2004). She has also co-produced a documentary, After 9/11, with James Der Derian and Udris Productions (2004). Her Narrating Experience: Raymond Aron and Feminist Scholars Revis(it)ed (1998) was published by the University of Tampere.

Sponsored by the Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University

Feminist Conceptualizations of War

The Boston Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights lecture with Dubravka Zarkov

Wednesday, February 11 | 7:30 – 9pm
MIT, Stata Center, (Building 32) Room 144

Dubravka Zarkov looks at the shifts in contemporary feminist conceptualizations of war, tracing the assumptions informing the theoretical approaches and focus of the research. The main questions she asks are: how does feminist theorizing relate to the contemporary geo-politics of the west, and what can be learned from transnational feminist theoretical exchange?

Dr. Zarkov studied Sociology, Anthropology, Development and Women's studies in Belgrade and the Netherlands. Her main fields of interest are violent conflict and its representation in the media, especially the intersections of gender, sexuality and ethnicity/ race in the acts of violence and their representations. Her regions of interest are former Yugoslavia, South Asia and Eastern Europe. In 2007 Duke University Press published her book, The Body of War: Media, Ethnicity and Gender in the Break-up of Yugoslavia, and in 2008 her edited book, Gender, Conflict, Development: Challenges of Practice, appeared in Zubaan (Delhi, India).

Part of the Boston Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights lectures

Changes in American Women's Employment: Facts, Fiction and Policy Implications

Christine Percheski, Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at Harvard University

Thursday, February 12 | 11:40 – 1pm
Taubman 401, Taubman building 4th floor

Christine Percheski received her Ph.D. in sociology from Princeton University in 2008. Her primary research interests are in women's employment, family demography, and social   inequality. Dr. Percheski's recent work has considered questions of how family characteristics correlate with employment including whether becoming a father affects employment differently for married and unmarried men, how the child penalty on women's employment has changed across birth cohorts of college-educated women in professional  occupations, and how the employment patterns of new mothers vary by whether they are married, cohabiting or lone mothers. In current research projects, she is investigating how increasing instabilities in employment and family life place low-income families and racial/ethnic minorities at risk of losing health insurance coverage.  In 2010, Dr. Percheski will assume a position as assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University.

Part of the Gender and Policy Seminar Series

Media, Narratives of War and Practices of Masculinities in an Intersectional Perspective

The Boston Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights lecture with Dubravka Zarkov

Thursday, February 12 | 12:30 – 1:45pm
UMass Boston, Quinn Building, 3rd floor Room 308

Dubravka Zarkov analyzes the ways in which various forms of violence against men (including sexual violence) in contemporary wars increasingly challenge feminist dichotomies of omnipotent violent masculinities and vulnerable femininities. Multiple vulnerabilities of specific groups of men in wars seem to be both ever more visible, and carefully tucked away from public eyes.  Using intersectional analysis, she explores what the visibility means, under which conditions it appears, and what remains in the dark when media lights turn on to some of the male bodies?

Dr. Zarkov studied Sociology, Anthropology, Development and Women's studies in Belgrade and the Netherlands. Her main fields of interest are violent conflict and its representation in the media, especially the intersections of gender, sexuality and ethnicity/ race in the acts of violence and their representations. Her regions of interest are former Yugoslavia, South Asia and Eastern Europe. In 2007 Duke University Press published her book, The Body of War: Media, Ethnicity and Gender in the Break-up of Yugoslavia, and in 2008 her edited book, Gender, Conflict, Development: Challenges of Practice, appeared in Zubaan (Delhi, India).

Part of the Boston Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights lectures

Inroads: Selected Feminist Security Studies Panels at the ISA

Sunday, February 15 - Thursday, February 19, 2009
New York City, NY

For a complete listing of the feminist security panels, please click here.

Women and Politics in the US Today: What Do We Know?

Lisa Baldez, Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College

Thursday, February 19 | 11:40 – 1pm
Taubman 401, Taubman building 4th floor

Lisa Baldez is Associate Professor of Government and LALACS at Dartmouth College. She has a B.A. in Politics from Princeton University, an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego.  Her research interests include gender and politics in Latin America; women's movements; social movements, revolutions and protest; and global gender issues.  Her recent publications include: Political Women and American Democracy (2008), Primaries vs. Quotas: Gender and Candidate Nominations in Mexico (2003), Does the US Constitution Need an Equal Rights Amendment? co-authored with Lee Epstein and Andrew D. Martin (2006), ¿Cuánto hemos avanzado las mujeres con las couotas? El caso beliviano, co-authored with Patricia Brañez (2005), Constitutional Sex Discrimination, coauthored with Lee Epstein, Andrew D. Martin, and Tasina Nitzschke (2004), Women's Movements and Democratic Transition in Brazil, Chile, East Germany and Poland (2003), Elected Bodies: Gender Quotas for Female Legislative Candidates in Mexico (2004) which was the winner of the 2005 Award for Best Article, American Political Science Association Comparative Democratization Research Section. 

Part of the Gender and Politics Seminar Series

Gender and War Crimes in Bangladesh: Forming Alliances Across Borders

Dr. Bina D'Costa, Associate Professor and Head of the Security Analysis Program, College of the Asia-Pacific
Current Research Fellow, Center for International Governance and Justice

Thursday, February 26 | 11:40 – 1pm
Taubman 401, Taubman building 4th floor

Gender and War Crimes in Bangladesh: Forming Alliances Across Borders
Is it feasible or possible to apply transnational theorizing and activism around experiences of people in post-conflict locations in order to seek redress for historic wrongs?  When the wall of silence that surrounds abuses of human rights breaks down with testimonies of witnesses and forensic evidences, how do we then translate the accompanying emotions and passions into practical actions? 

This paper seeks to address these questions by focusing on the vulnerability of survivors of the 1971 war of independence in Bangladesh whose needs and claims have been ignored by the Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi states.  The passage of time and the difficulty societies have facing up to the kind of experiences survivors of violence have gone through conspire to render certain stereotypes as more ‘acceptable’ in both personal narratives and written histories.  Although local initiatives by rights-based groups create a platform for previously silenced voices to be heard, the activities of these agencies tend to remain marginalized and unstable.  This paper suggests that regional collaboration with other human rights groups is an essential strategic tool to create a platform for survivors not only to speak but also to build a network for action.  This platform also provides a political opportunity for survivors, activists, and scholars to discuss the feasibility of a war crimes tribunal and a truth commission for Bangladesh to address historic violence and injustices.

Bina D’Costa has worked on the nexus between development, human rights and security in South Asia.  She has a PhD in International Relations from the ANU, an MA in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Notre Dame, US and an MA in International Relations from Dhaka University.  She was previously the Convener of the Bachelor Program in Security Analysis with the ANU.  She has worked as a post-doctoral fellow on ‘poverty, inequality and development in post-conflict Africa’, at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand and as a John Vincent Fellow in the Department of International Relations of the Research School of Asian and Pacific Studies at the ANU. 

She has contributed to various CSO (civil society organisations)-led projects in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India and worked as a consultant for AUSAID, the UNRISD (United Nations Research in Social Development), and DfID (Department for International Development, UK).

Bina’s research interests and specialisations are in peacebuilding, justice and reconciliation processes; human security and borders; gender and conflict; children and war; and the role of NGOS in social movements.  

• War Crimes and Justice: Bina’s current project is on war crimes, transitional justice and peacebuilding in Asia.  She is investigating various ‘justice seeking’ processes in Sri Lanka, East Timor, Cambodia and Bangladesh.  She is also revising her manuscript titled ‘Burden’ of the State: Engendering War Crimes and National Identity Politics in South Asia.

• Human Security and Borders: Bina has been involved in various policy oriented projects on borders, identity and human security, focusing on Rohingya and Muslim refugees from Burma and the Internally Displaced People (IDPs) of the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

• Children and War: Bina has conducted extensive field research on ‘war babies’ with special attention to the War of Liberation of Bangladesh in 1971.  This project has developed largely out of Bina’s activist work.  She is currently involved in building a children and conflict network with Dr Katrina Lee Koo, International Relations, ANU. 

Part of the Gender and Security Seminar Series

Evaluating the Gender Variable: Academic and Policy Implications

Mohammed Kamal Professor of Public Policy, Rohini Pande, (HKS)
Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Rema Hanna, (HKS)
Assistant Professor of Economics, Erica Field (Harvard)
Sustainability Science Fellow/World Bank Economist Quy-Toan Do

Wednesday March 4| 4pm-6pm
Starr Auditorium, Belfer Building

The panel will address the challenges involved in finding and interpreting the effects of gender in public policy. Panelists include HKS Professors Rohini Pande and Rema Hana, Harvard Economics Professor Erica Field, and SSP Fellow/World Bank Economist Quy-Toan Do. Each panelist will discuss their own experiences from the field and academia, and address a series of topics ranging from gender in politics, infant and maternal health policy, business training for female microfinance clients, and the economics of marriage.

Co-Sponsored by the Center for International Development

The Negative Effects of Gender Stereotypes on Women's Career Progress

Madeline Heilman, Professor of Psychology at New York University

Thursday, March 5 | 11:40-1pm
Taubman 401, Taubman building 4th floor

This talk will present research concerning two aspects of gender stereotypes, one descriptive (specifying what women and men are like) and the other, prescriptive (specifying what women and men should be like). The focus will be on the potentially negative consequences for women in the workforce. The research will demonstrate how descriptive gender stereotypes can lead to expectations that women are ill-equipped to handle jobs and roles traditionally held by men, and how prescriptive gender stereotypescan induce disapproval and social penalties for women who are successful in these male gender-typed positions.  The implications of these findings for understanding barriers to women’s career progress will be discussed.   

Co-Sponsored with the Center of Public Leadership, Part of the Gender in Decision Making and Negotiation Seminar Series

Champions for Peace: Women Winners of the Nobel Peace Prize

Judith Hicks Stiehm, Professor of Political Science at Florida International University

Thursday, March 5 | 4:30-5:30 pm
Nye C, 5th floor Taubman building, HKS

Since it was first awarded in 1901, only twelve women have won the Nobel Prize for Peace. They hail from all over the world, including the United States, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Central America. Engaging and inspiring, these women clearly demonstrate that there is something each of us can do to advance a just, positive peace. Whether they began by insisting on garbage collection or simply by planting a tree, each understood that peace must be global in order to be sustained. All learned that peace is not always popular, but believed they must persevere. All are truly champions for peace.

JUDITH HICKS STIEHM is Professor of Political Science at Florida International University where she served as Provost and Academic Vice President for four years. Her specialties include political theory, social change, the status of women, and civil-military relations. She has taught at the University of Wisconsin, University of California at Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California. She has been a Visiting Professor at the U.S. Army Peacekeeping Institute and at the Strategic Studies Institute  at Carlisle Barracks. She earned a BA in East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin, an MA at Temple University in American History, and a PhD in Political Theory from Columbia University. Her books include Nonviolent Power: Active and Passive Resistance  (Heath, 1972), Bring Me Men and Women: Mandated Change at the U.S. Air Force Academy  (California, 1981), Women's and Men's Wars (Pergamon, 1983), Arms and the Enlisted Woman (Temple, 1989),  It's Our Military Too!: Women and the US Military  (Temple, 1996), and  U.S. Army War College: Military Education in a Democracy  (Temple, 2002). Professor Stiehm has served on the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Military, the California Postsecondary Education Commission, the  California Vocational Education Commission, as a consultant to the United Nations Commission for the Advancement of Women and to the Lessons Learned Unit of the  Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and as an Expert Witness to the Senate Armed Services Committee. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, holds the U.S. Army Distinguished Civilian Service Medal, and appears in the most recent edition of Who's Who.

Part of the Harvard International Women's Day Celebration 2009

BOOK SIGNING: Quotas for Women in Politics: Gender and Candidate Selection Reform Worldwide

Mona Lena Krook, WAPPP fellow and Harvard Radcliffe fellow

Thursday, March 5 | 6pm
The Coop Bookstore, Harvard Square
Cambridge, MA

In recent years, political parties and national legislatures in more than one hundred countries have adopted quotas for the selection of female candidates to political office. Despite the rapid international diffusion of these measures, most research has focused on single countries—or, at most, the presence of quotas within one world region. Consequently, explanations for the adoption and impact of gender quotas derived from one study often contradict with findings from other cases. Quotas for Women in Politics is the first book to address quotas as a global phenomenon to explain their spread and impact in diverse contexts around the world. Synthesizing literature on quota policies, this book develops a framework for analyzing the spread of quota provisions and the reasons for variations in their effects. It then applies this framework to examine and compare campaigns for reserved seats in Pakistan and India, party quotas in Sweden and the United Kingdom, and legislative quotas in Argentina and France.

Mona Lena Krook is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Women and Gender Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in February 2005. Mona’s dissertation, entitled Politicizing Representation: Campaigns for Candidate Gender Quotas Worldwide, developed a framework for analyzing the adoption and implementation of quotas for the selection of female candidates to political office. Her current research explores the global diffusion of gender quotas, the normative dimensions of quota reform, and the broader significance of quota policies to existing political processes, including links between the descriptive and substantive representation of women. During her fellowship at WAPPP, Mona plans to build upon her latest book manuscript, Quotas for Women in Politics: Gender and Candidate Selection Reform Worldwide. She will expand this project in two ways: (1) she will create and analyze a new database on quota campaigns and quota policies and (2) she will begin the theoretical work for the next stage in her research program, which involves studying the impact of quotas on three facets of women’s political representation.

At the Cusp of Change: Women Leaders at Harvard

March 5, Thursday 5-7pm
Radcliffe Gym in Radcliffe Yard

Join prominent women leaders in a moderated panel discussion on women's critical place in university leadership at Harvard and beyond.  The panel will be followed by small group discussions, facilitated by leaders throughout the university.  Dinner will be served!  Please RSVP to hcwc@fas.harvard.edu by Monday March 2nd.

Panelists

• Jacqueline Bhabha- Lecturer in Public Policy and Director of the University Committee on Human Rights Studies and the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School and Faculty of Arts & Sciences

• Judith Glaven- Associate Dean for Basic and Interdisciplinary Research, Harvard Medical School

• Ann Braude- Director of the Women's Studies in Religion Program and Senior Lecturer on American Religious History, Harvard Divinity School

• This event is cosponsored by the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity, the Harvard College Women's Center, the Office for Postdoctoral Affairs, and the Office of Career Services

• Barbara Kellerman - James McGregor Burns Lecturer in Leadership, Founding Director of the Center for Public Leadership, Harvard Kennedy School (Moderator)

The Woman is Smarter: Marriage and the Reversal of the Gender Education Gap in Latin America

Martina Viarengo, WAPPP fellow

Thursday, March 12 | 11:40-1pm
Taubman 401, Taubman building 4th floor

Martina Viarengo, an Italian citizen, recently received her Ph.D. in Economic History from the London School of Economics and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Program on Education Policy and Governance of the Harvard Kennedy School. She is on leave from the Center for Economic Performance of the LSE where she works as a Research Economist within the Education and Skills Program. For the past several years, Martina has been examining the labor market in the European Union and plans to devote her research at WAPPP to a study of the reversal of the college gender gap in OECD countries since the 1980s. Specifically, she plans to study the major trends for the OECD countries whose college gender gaps have been reversed by using internationally comparable data sets and a new interdisciplinary approach. Her aim is to create an international comparison that will facilitate an understanding of the common factors that caused this phenomenon to occur in countries very different from each other with respect to their education systems and labor markets. In addition to her Ph.D., Martina also holds a Master’s in Economics from Northwestern University and a first class honors degree in Economics from the University of Turin, Italy.

Part of the Gender and Policy Seminar Series

Why Women Don't Run for Office and What Happens When They Do

Jennifer Lawless, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Brown University

Thursday, March 19 | 11:40 – 1pm
Taubman 401, Taubman building 4th floor

Jennifer Lawless will discuss her book, "It Takes A Candidate: Why Women Don't Run for Office," which is the first systematic, nationwide empirical account of the manner in which gender affects political ambition. Based on data from the Citizen Political Ambition Study, a national survey she conducted of almost 3,800 “potential candidates,” she finds that women, even in the highest tiers of professional accomplishment, are substantially less likely than men to demonstrate ambition to seek elected office. Women are less likely than men to be recruited to run for office. They are less likely than men to think they are “qualified” to run for office. And they are less likely than men to express a willingness to run for office in the future. This gender gap in political ambition persists across generations. Despite cultural evolution and society’s changing attitudes toward women in politics, running for public office remains a much less attractive and feasible endeavor for women than men.

Jennifer Lawless is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Brown University who specializes in women and politics, public opinion, and statistics. Current research focuses on political ambition and the manner in which gender affects the decision to run for office. She is author of articles that have appeared or are forthcoming in American Journal of Political Science, Political Research Quarterly, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and Women and Politics. Co-author (with Richard L. Fox) of It Takes A Candidate: Why Women Don't Run for Office (Cambridge University Press, 2005).  Jennifer Lawless graduated from Union College in Schenectady, New York, with a B.A. in political science. She went on to receive an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University. A nationally recognized expert on women's involvement in politics, she is co-author (with Richard L. Fox) of the book, It Takes a Candidate: Why Women Don't Run for Office. She has also published articles in various political science journals and has issued a policy report on the barriers that oftentimes preclude Americans from running for office.  She will continue her research on gender and political ambition, but will also turn to early socialization's effects on considering a candidacy later in life; specifically to the question of political ambition and future interest in office holding. The successful completion of this project will represent the first, in-depth national examination of youth political ambition.  The results will represent a significant step in understanding who will run for office, as well as gauging prospects for citizens' fuller inclusion in U.S. politics.

Part of the Gender and Politics Seminar Series

Women: Armed and Dangerous?

With: Megan MacKenzie, Women and Public Policy Program, Harvard; Elina Penttinen, Tampere Peace Research Institute; and Laura Sjoberg, Political Science, Virginia Tech

19 March 2009, 4-6.00 pm.
Institute for Advanced Studies meeting room 2/3
Lancaster University, Bailrigg, Lancaster LA1 4YD, UK

Contact: c.sylvester@lancaster.ac.uk
Website: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/events/touchingwar/

The Framing Effects of Gender in the Workplace

Cecilia Ridgeway, Lucie Stern Professor of Social Sciences in the Sociology Department at Stanford University

Thursday, April 2 | 11:40-1pm
Taubman 401, Taubman building 4th floor

The background frame of gender (and the status based stereotypes that define it) has to be taken into account to anticipate the effects that given organizational structures and procedures have on gender outcomes in the workplace. Professor Ridgeway will explain her argument about the framing effects of gender and the contextual factors that make these effects more or less salient, and then give two specific examples of how these framing effects transform the impact of organizational forms or structures on gender outcomes in the workplace.

Co-Sponsored with the Center of Public Leadership, Part of the Gender in Decision Making and Negotiation Seminar Series

Africa Week At Harvard: Africa on the Rise: Successes, Opportunities, and Strategies for Tomorrow

The Harvard African Law Association (HALA), Harvard Kennedy School Africa Caucus, Harvard African Students Association (HASA), and Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Voices of Africa is proud to organize Africa Week at Harvard from April 4–12, 2009! The theme for this year’s week-long focus on Africa is Africa on the Rise: Successes, Opportunities, and Strategies for Tomorrow.

Africa Week at Harvard aims to celebrate and foster greater cultural, intellectual, political, and economic awareness about the African continent. It will begin with an April 4 conference on education in Africa, hosted by the Harvard School of Education, followed by an Africa-themed boat cruise and party aboard the Spirit of Boston.

Through the week, the Harvard Kennedy School will host a series of panel discussions on pertinent governance and public policy issues, while the Harvard Law School will present an African film festival of some of the continent’s critically acclaimed movies and documentaries.

The culminating event of the week will be a university-wide Africa Night themed Letha Umlilo: Bring the Fire! on Saturday April 12, in Sanders Theater. The event will feature a fashion show, music, dance, and a performance by the African King of Comedy, Michael Blackson.

http://africaweekatharvard.com/

Organizing for Gender Justice (Costa Rica, Punjab, Bangladesh)

Moderated by Professor Rohini Pande

Tuesday, April 7 | 4-6 pm
Littauer building, Rm 140
Followed by a reception in the Fainsod room

Panelists:

Ms. Magda De Castro | Costa Rica
Magda de Castro is a co-founder and the current Director of Foundation Hope, which is a non-governmental organization dedicated primarily to the restoration of women who have suffered domestic violence spiritually and psychologically.  It also provides training in skill-development so beneficiaries can become self-sufficient and contributing members of their society. The services include unemployed single mothers and victims of substance abuse. Magda is the ringleader in replicating this life-saving program to four different regions of the country and to Nicaragua.  

Ms. Harman Kaur Sharda | India
Harman’s grassroots work with “Rescue and Recovery Punjab,” is filling a crucial void in rural Punjab by providing assistance to the families of Punjabi farmers who have committed suicide. Caught in an ever-deepening economic crisis and trapped in debt, Punjab’s farmers and farm laborers are committing suicide by the thousands. By organizing these families, Harman hopes to give them a voice, to help them find jobs, education, and return to a life of comparative stability and well-being. Her approach is to work with the families in their own home environment, rather than finding them shelter or schools outside their villages. “Sending children to orphanage and elderly parents to old age homes, would uproot them, thereby adding to the trauma,” she explained.  She bridges the gaps between victims, their local government (panchayats), social service agencies, and funders who now “adopt” families.

Ms. Umme Kulsum Ranjana | Bangladesh
Ms. Umme Kulsum Ranjana is the elected President of Protibondhi Narider Jatio Parishad (National Council of Disabled Women-NCDW) a nation-wide network of organizations working with the women with disabilities in Bangladesh. It has emerged as a platform to end discrimination and injustice against women with disabilities in 2006 under her leadership. Initially it was not easy to organize groups of women with disabilities, but due to her patience and strong feelings about violence against women with disabilities, she succeeded. Once women with disabilities formed independent groups she found that women are more vocal and open to talk about their experiences of abuse. Currently she has mobilized 10,000 women with disabilities in 23 districts out of 64.

Part of the International Bridge Builders 2009 Conference.

Reproductive Health and Human Rights: Implications for U.S. Law and Policy

Martha Davis, Professor of Law at Northeastern University School of Law | WAPPP fellow and Harvard Law School fellow

Thursday, April 9 | 11:40-1pm
Taubman 401, Taubman building 4th floor

Martha Davis is a Professor of Law at Northeastern University School of Law, where she also co-directs the law school’s Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy. Previously, Martha was Vice President and Legal Director of the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund. Martha has written widely on women's rights, poverty and human rights, including her recent co-edited volumes, Bringing Human Rights Home, on the U.S. human rights movement. During her fellowship at WAPPP, Martha will research how the power of human rights norms can be harnessed to support domestic advocacy on women’s rights, specifically women’s human right to reproductive health. Her project will bring a sophisticated gender perspective to a number of critical state and federal public policies affecting women’s lives. Martha holds a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, a M.A. and B.A. from Oxford University, and a B.A. in Anthropology from Harvard College.

Part of the Gender and Policy Seminar Series

Comparative Aspects of Patriarchy from a Political Economy Perspective

Torben Iversen, Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy at the Department of Government at Harvard University and Frances Rosenbluth, Professor of Political Science at Yale University

Thursday, April 16 | 11:40 – 1pm
Taubman 401, Taubman building 4th floor

Torben Iversen is Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy at the Department of Government at Harvard University. His research and teaching interests include comparative political economy, electoral politics, and applied formal theory. He is the author of Capitalism, Democracy, and Welfare (CUP 2005), Contested Economic Institutions (CUP 1999), and co-editor of Unions, Employers and Central Bankers (CUP 2000). His current work focuses on the political economy of distribution, representation, and economic performance. He is the author or co-author of more than two dozen articles in leading journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, Annual Review of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, International Organization, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Public Choice, Quarterly Journal of Economics, World Politics, and numerous edited volumes. His work has won five American Political Science Association prizes including Best Book on European Politics and Society, the Luebbert Best Article Award, and the Gabriel Almond Best Dissertation Award. He is currently working on two book-length projects: one on the political representation of economic interests (with David Soskice), and another on the political economy of gender inequality (with Frances Rosenbluth).

Frances Rosenbluth is Professor of Political Science at Yale University.  She is a comparative political economist with a special interest in Japan.  Her current work focuses on the electoral microfoundations of different forms of capitalism, and on the politics of gender inequality.   She has her B.A. in Government and Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia and her PhD in Political Science from Columbia University.  She also was a Fulbright Scholar in Tokyo.  Her working paper with Torben Iversen is The Political Economy of Gender: Explaining Cross National Variation in Household Bargaining, Divorce and the Gender Voting Gap.  She edited the book The Political Economy of Japan’s Low Fertility (2007).  

Part of the Gender and Politics Seminar Series

5 Secrets of Powerful Communicators

Dr. Marie Danziger, Lecturer in Public Policy and Director of the Kennedy School Communications Program

Thursday, April 16 | 5:00pm
Belfer Center Library

Please join Women in International Security-HKS, for a communications training and roundtable discussion with Dr. Marie Danziger. Women in International Security (WIIS) is the only global network actively advancing women's leadership, at all stages of their careers, in the international peace and security field.

Please contact Hope at hope_lebeau@hks.harvard.edu for additional information.

Marie Danziger, Lecturer in Public Policy, is Director of the Kennedy School Communications Program. Her teaching, research, and consulting explore policy communication skills and strategies for leaders, managers, and advocates. She has also designed a womens leadership curriculum for Radcliffe and taught management communication at MITs Sloan School of Management. Previously she taught policy analysis and persuasion at Radcliffe and communications and cross-cultural studies at Harvards School of Education, Boston University, the universities of Sydney and Geneva, and the Instituto Chileno-Norteamericano in Santiago. She was also a journalist and coeditor of a bilingual news magazine in Munich, Assistant to the President at Bentley College, and Assistant Dean for Academic Support at MIT. She holds a PhD in narrative theory from Boston University and is author of Text/Countertext and coauthor of Communicating in Business Today.

Dinner Discussion with May-Britt Stumbaum

May-Britt Stumbaum, chair of WIIS-Germany and Harvard Weatherhead Fellow

Tuesday, April 21 | 6:00pm-7:30pm
The Red House, 98 Winthrop Street, Cambridge

A discussion on May-Britt Stumbaum's new book "The European Union and China: Decision-Making in EU Foreign and Security Policy towards the PR China."

RSVP: hope_lebeau@hks.harvard.edu, space is limited

Women, Power and Politics: Becoming the Change We want to see in the world

S. Michele Nix, Senior Strategist and Chief Communications Advisor, The Honorable Tom Ridge; Former Speechwriter, President George H. W. Bush

Wednesday, April 22 | 3:00 pm
Littauer 166

S. Michele Nix serves as Senior Strategist and Chief Communications Advisor to The Honorable Tom Ridge, the nation’s first secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and a two-term governor of Pennsylvania. Previously, Ms. Nix worked at the Department as a senior staff member of the Office of Public Affairs, Director of Speechwriting and Chief Speechwriter to the Secretary.  For eight years prior, Ms. Nix was a consultant, specializing in speechwriting and ghostwriting for high-profile clients, including corporate CEOs and prominent national political figures.  Before beginning her own business, Ms. Nix served as a member of President George H. W. Bush's White House speechwriting team and later as a senior speechwriter to the chairman and senior executives of MCI.  In Fall 2000, HarperCollins released Ms. Nix’s Women at the Podium:  Memorable Speeches in History – a first-ever collection of speeches by some of the world’s most famous women, including Elizabeth I, Sojourner Truth, Eleanor Roosevelt, Golda Meir, Clare Boothe Luce, Barbara Jordan, Margaret Thatcher, Katharine Graham and many others.

Based in the Washington, D.C., area, Ms. Nix has lectured on the subjects of presidential address, historical oratory, speechwriting and executive communications.  She holds a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Texas and an M.A. in Public Communication from American University. 

Co-Sponsored with the Institute of Politics.

Gender Hierarchy (as opposed to anarchy) as a Permissive Cause of War

Laura Sjoberg, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and 2006 joint WAPPP/ISP fellow

Thursday, April 23 | 11:40-1pm
Taubman 401, Taubman building 4th floor

Realist political scientists argue that the lack of supranational government – international anarchy – is a permissive cause of war.  That is, war is only possible because there is no authority over states to stop them from fighting.  I argue that there is nothing inherent in anarchy that leads to conflict; instead, there has to be a missing link. I propose that this missing link can be discovered by using gendered lenses to study international politics. I make the case that it is gendered hierarchy between (among?) states that accounts for the possibility of states fighting wars and explains variation in states’ propensities to fight wars.  Though it is not governed, the international system is ordered – by gendered competition.  This, I argue, can be understood as fundamental to the nature of war between states and to the causal logic by which wars can be explained and predicted.

Laura Sjoberg is Assistant Professor of Political Science and a Faculty Affiliate in Women’s Studies at Virginia Tech.  She is the Chair of the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section of the International Studies Association, and the President of the International Studies Association-West.  She is author of Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq (Lexington Books, 2006) and (with Caron Gentry) Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women’s Violence in Global Politics. Her work on gender and international security has been published in International Studies Quarterly, International Studies Review, International Studies Perspectives, International Relations, International Politics, Politics and Gender,  and the International Feminist Journal of Politics, among other journals.

Part of the Gender and Security Seminar Series

May 2009

Measuring Truth and Reconciliation? Lessons from Sierra Leone

Brown Bag Lunch
Series: International Security Brown Bag Seminar
Open to the Public - Belfer Center Library, Littauer-369
May 14, 2009
12:15-2:00 p.m.

Over the last decade, truth and reconciliation commissions have been initiated in many countries emerging out of conflicts. A broad consensus has developed that truth-seeking not only contributes to reconciliation, but also alleviates victims' suffering, promotes trust, contributes to the consolidation of democracy, and helps  prevent future conflict. In spite of the development of truth and reconciliation commissions as an international norm, empirically assessing these assumed benign effects has been challenging. In fact, there is little knowledge and next to no consensus about the long-term consequences of truth and reconciliation commissions. Moreover, there are virtually no widely-acceptable methodologies for measuring these consequences and therefore for assessing the overall success of the commissions. In this seminar, the speakers introduce a community-level survey methodology for assessing the impact of truth and reconciliation commissions. They develop and present the initial application of this methodology to the case of the truth and reconciliation commission in Sierra Leone (2000).

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Sponsored by the Belfer Center.