Women's History Month Announcement
March 1, 2024
Dear Brandeis Community,
We invite you to celebrate Women’s History Month in March! During this month, we will honor contributions women have made and continue to make in the evolution of our country and the world.
According to the Women’s History Month website: Women’s History Month had its origins as a national celebration in 1981 when Congress passed Pub. L. 97-28 which authorized and requested the President to proclaim the week beginning March 7, 1982 as “Women’s History Week.” Throughout the next five years, Congress continued to pass joint resolutions designating a week in March as “Women’s History Week.” In 1987 after being petitioned by the National Women’s History Project, Congress passed Pub. L. 100-9 which designated the month of March 1987 as “Women’s History Month.”
Here at Brandeis, the roots of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGS) Department can be traced back to 1975 when Women’s Studies began with a single course. Transitioning from a robust program to a full-fledged department in 2020, WGS now offers a minor, major, and several joint master’s programs. Its mission is to explore how gender and sexuality—as they intersect with race, ethnicity, class, religion, and age—form a crucial dimension of identity, society, and politics in different cultural and historical settings. Please view this timeline for more information.
Brandeis enjoys a long and storied feminist history and legacy. We are proud of the notable genealogy of canonical Black feminist thinkers who were students and faculty (including current professors) at the university: Pauli Murray, Angela Davis, Julieanne Richardson, Hortense Spillers, Patricia Hill Collins, Karen E. Fields, M Jacqui Alexander, Anita Hill, Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman, Jasmine Johnson and Faith Smith, among others. Our current Black feminist scholar Shoniqua Roach is a pioneering academic and public intellectual in the fields of Black feminist theory, Black queer studies, and Black popular and quotidian performances studies.
Brandeis feminist alumnae have also been prominent trailblazers in their fields including literary critic Elaine Showalter, sociologist and psychoanalyst Nancy Chodorow, physicist Evelyn Fox Keller, historian Joan Wallach Scott, and many more. Letty Cottin Pogrebin is best known as the founding editor of Ms. Magazine. These are but a few of the prominent feminist names that are associated with Brandeis University.
This month, WGS will host the 2024 Tillie K. Lubin Symposium:
29th Tillie K. Lubin Symposium: The Politics of (Social) Reproduction
2 – 4 p.m., March 8, 2024
Mandel Forum
This year's symposium will feature Professor Khiara Bridges (Berkeley Law), Professor Sameena Mulla (Emory), Professor Sara Kaplan (American University), and Professor Jessica Johnson (Johns Hopkins University). The event will be moderated by Brandeis Professor Shoniqua Roach.
In the wake of so many state-sanctioned infringements on BIPOC, LGBTQ, women and femme reproductive autonomy, this interdisciplinary panel discussion amongst Black and women of color feminists discuss the politics of social reproduction in light of the precarization and disappearance of so many forms of waged work and affordable housing options.
The Women’s Studies Research Center (WSRC) will be hosting the following events:
Voices on Air: Talking to Tiziana Dearing, host of WBUR’s Radio Boston
4 p.m., March 20, 2024
The Women’s Studies Research Center, 515 South Street
Tiziana Dearing, host of WBUR’s Radio Boston, a weekday broadcast that features provocative stories and authentic voices from Greater Boston, will sit in conversation with Professor Harleen Singh, Director of the WSRC and Senior Associate Provost for Faculty and Global Affairs at Brandeis. Prior to joining the Radio Boston team, Tiziana was a professor at Boston College’s School of Social Work where she taught social innovation and leadership and a longtime anti-poverty advocate. She and Professor Singh will touch upon women in the public sphere, women’s voices, and women modulating the conversation.
Tiziana will speak and answer audience questions about her own career trajectory and professional roles ranging from professor to nonprofit executive to radio host. This event is free but registration is required. This event is co-sponsored by the Metrowest Women’s Fund.
Mellon-Sawyer Seminar: "Crip Justice: Gender, Disability, and Sexual Violence
5 — 7 p.m., March 26, 2024
Virtual Seminar – Register
Organized by Brandeis professor Ilana Szobel, this session will examine a wide range of issues unique to the experiences of sexual assault victims who have a cognitive, sensory, emotional, or mobility disability. By locating the conversations about sexual gendered violence in contemporary disability justice frameworks, the session will focus on prevention of sexual violence against people with disabilities, modes of resistance and self-empowerment of disabled victims, as well as on the creation of support systems by and for survivors with disabilities.
We hope that you will join us in our upcoming events and celebrate Women’s History Month at Brandeis and beyond.
In celebration,
ChaeRan Y. Freeze
Chair, Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Professor, Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies
Faculty Associate of the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry
Harleen Singh
Senior Associate Provost for Faculty & Global Affairs
Director, Women's Studies Research Center
Associate Professor of Literature, South Asian Studies, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
LeManuel Lee Bitsóí
Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Associate Research Professor of Health: Science, Society and Policy