gender

Adia Harvey Wingfield, professor of sociology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, recently was elected president of Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS), a national organization dedicated to improving the social position of women through feminist sociological research and writing. She discusses her plans for SWS, sociology and gender research, and why academics need to engage in public discourse.

A panel discussion, titled “Conversations on Gender and Blackness in the Age of Trayvon Martin,” will open WUSTL’s African and African-American Studies fall colloquium series at 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 6, in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge. WUSTL faculty will lead the discussion, which includes a coffee reception at 10 a.m.

The first-ever Dean James E. McLeod Freshman Writing Prize has been awarded, and the inaugural winners are Senit Kidane and Claudia Vaughan. McLeod was a longtime WUSTL leader who died in 2011. The Center for the Humanities provided funding for the contest, and any freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences could submit work for consideration. Original research papers exploring an aspect of race, gender or identity and created for a freshman course were eligible.

Author and political scientist Cathy Cohen studies American politics and particularly how they affect African-Americans, women and the LGBTQ community – never ignoring the intersections between these identity categories. She will be on campus April 9 to give a lecture titled “Race, Sex and Neoliberalism in the Age of Obama.”

A new study published earlier this month found that men and women don’t fit neatly into gender stereotypes, that perhaps men aren’t from Mars nor are women from Venus. But why do we want them to be? Lead author Bobbi Carothers, PhD, senior data analyst at Center for Public Health System Science at Washington University in St. Louis, has some theories as to why.

Researchers at the School of Medicine have received a five-year, $5.3 million grant to explore the way gender and age influence susceptibility to urinary tract infections, one of the most common bacterial infections.

The continuing debate over same-sex marriage has put the issue of gender at the forefront of conversations about whom the law recognizes as a child’s parents. “The shift in family law’s treatment of gender has been transformative,” says Susan Appleton, JD, family law expert and the Lemma Barkeloo and Phoebe Couzins Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Poet Carl Phillips, professor of English and of African and African American Studies, both in Arts & Sciences, at Washington University in St. Louis, has been selected — for the third time — as a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award in poetry. Phillips was nominated for his 10th collection of poetry, “Speak Low,” published in April by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Linda Babcock, co-author of “Women Don’t Ask: Negotiations and the Gender Divide,” will discuss her book and research in a community forum on “societal factors that hold women back from asking for what they want” that runs from 7 – 8:30 p.m. March 5 in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom, Anheuser Busch Hall, Danforth Campus of Washington University.

The conference will explore the many barriers to economic prosperity and well-being for America’s working poor.