Wellesley Centers for Women

Rangita de Silva-de Alwis, S.J.D., Director of International Human Rights Policy Programs at the Wellesley Centers for Women, leads a unique project that brings together women leaders from countries governed by Muslim Law. The Women's Leadership Network: Women's Political, Public, & Economic Participation in the Muslim World project was founded last year with the belief that transnational information sharing networks can help strengthen partnerships between and across disciplines, regions, communities, and national boundaries. This collaboration would then reinforce a more dynamic understanding of women’s leadership in the world. The women leaders in this Network are at the forefront of reform across the Muslim world and are mining the egalitarian core of Islamic jurisprudence. In this presentation, Dr. de Silva-de Alwis will talk more about the work of this network, including a recently published collection of essays written by Network steering committee members. These papers both join and respond to the call for Islamic feminism as part of a modernist movement bent on contextualizing Islam. November 18th, 2010

Kate Price, M.A., Program Associate at the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute presented a lunchtime seminar on U.S. prostituted children. Prostituted children are vulnerable to exploitation through the lack of secure relationships and histories of betrayal. Furthermore, the very assumption that children will be protected is fundamental to our proprietary, private family-based (white, heterosexual) culture. And yet, prostituted children, like all people, require nurturing relationships and belonging. Providing relationship-building and conflict resolution skills, within the framework of prostituted children's relational challenges such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and betrayal histories, provides hope and agency in a culture that is ready to disregard and incriminate children who do not fit in the innocence mold.  The lunchtime seminar series at the Wellesley Centers for Women offers residents and visitors to the Greater Boston Area the opportunity to hear in-person about the work by WCW researchers and program staff. Audio recordings like the following may not be reproduced without the explicit written permission of the original presenter; any cited references to the program must include the original presentation date, presenter’s name, and program title. This information can be found at http://www.wcwonline.org/audioarchive

Amy Hoffman, MFA, editor of Women’s Review of Books, reads an excerpt from her forthcoming memoir, Lies About My Family. The book deals with issues of continuity and discontinuity between generations, immigration, and family bonds. Hoffman is the author of two other books, Hospital Time, a memoir about taking care of friends with AIDS, and An Army of Ex-Lovers, a memoir about Boston’s Gay Community News and the lesbian and gay movement of the late 1970s. The lunchtime seminar series at the Wellesley Centers for Women offers residents and visitors to the Greater Boston Area the opportunity to hear in-person about the work by WCW researchers and program staff. Audio recordings like the following may not be reproduced without the explicit written permission of the original presenter; any cited references to the program must include the original presentation date, presenter’s name, and program title. This information can be found at http://www.wcwonline.org/audioarchive

Sari Kerr, Ph.D. Welfare-to-work programs are based on the principle that the best way out of welfare is to be placed in a job that will eventually provide stable employment and higher earnings. Using data on Detroit’s Work First program, Sari shows that the nature of the job placement (temporary-help versus direct-hire) during the program is a crucial determinant for the success of that strategy. The lunchtime seminar series at the Wellesley Centers for Women offers residents and visitors to the Greater Boston Area the opportunity to hear in-person about the work by WCW researchers and program staff. Audio recordings like the following may not be reproduced without the explicit written permission of the original presenter; any cited references to the program must include the original presentation date, presenter’s name, and program title. This information can be found at http://www.wcwonline.org/audioarchive

Nan Stein, Ed.D., Senior Research Scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women, and Bruce Taylor, Ph.D., Principal Research Scientist, NORC at the University of Chicago, discuss the results and implications from the Dating Violence Prevention Programs in Public Middle Schools research project. This project, funded by the National Institute of Justice and conducted in 30 New York City middle schools (6th & 7th grades), looked at precursors to teen dating violence, in particular sexual harassment, peer violence, and adolescent relationship violence. The lunchtime seminar series at the Wellesley Centers for Women offers residents and visitors to the Greater Boston Area the opportunity to hear in-person about the work by WCW researchers and program staff. Audio recordings like the following may not be reproduced without the explicit written permission of the original presenter; any cited references to the program must include the original presentation date, presenter’s name, and program title. This information can be found at http://www.wcwonline.org/audioarchive

Jennifer Grossman, Ph.D., research scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW), and Michelle Porche, Ed.D., senior research scientist at WCW, present mixed-method data on girls’ aspirations for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) work, what draws girls to STEM careers, and their perceptions of career and family roles. The lunchtime seminar series at the Wellesley Centers for Women offers residents and visitors to the Greater Boston Area the opportunity to hear in-person about the work by WCW researchers and program staff. Audio recordings like the following may not be reproduced without the explicit written permission of the original presenter; any cited references to the program must include the original presentation date, presenter’s name, and program title. This information can be found at http://www.wcwonline.org/audioarchive