Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies

What’s size got to do with it? Mocking a man’s manhood spurs a reverse #MeToo in South Korea

Jinsook Kim, a postdoc in the Annenberg School for Communication, spoke about the backlash against feminist activism in South Korea. “The younger generation suffers from frustration and economic precarity,” Kim said. “The problem is, these young Korean men, they ascribe their sense of victimhood or precarity not to government or policies but to women who they see as preventing them from receiving their due.”

Pandemic could roll back advancements for women in STEMM

Eve Higginbotham of the Perelman School of Medicine discussed how the pandemic has affected the careers of women in STEMM, as well as what support institutions can offer.

More transgender people are hiding their identity at work in the UK. Why?

Sophie Lewis of the School of Arts & Sciences weighed in on how the current political climate has made life more challenging for transgender people. “The combination of nativist, reactionary politics around Brexit and Trump along with the conditions of a pandemic would, I think, contribute to people being more afraid to be out as trans,” she said.

Where caregiving and gender intersect

The Perelman School of Medicine’s Eve Higginbotham spoke about how the pandemic has affected women caregivers working in academia. The results of a survey on the matter emphasize “the need for institutional acknowledgment and response to these stressors—and the unintended consequences that some policies have on the academic vitality of faculty that may differ between men and women,” she said.

Alice Paul in her graduation gown and a handwritten page from her dissertation.

Alice Paul’s mysterious manuscript

Heather J. Sharkey and three students transcribed a hand-written manuscript of the doctoral dissertation by Alice Paul, who earned her Ph.D. from Penn in 1912. As part of a virtual symposium, they joined John Pollack of the Libraries to discuss their efforts.

teacher leaning on desk speaking to student

COVID-19 and women in the workforce

Experts across Penn explain how the pandemic has exacerbated gender inequality and challenged female career advancement in the STEMM fields, education, and business.

Many Americans opposed the suffrage movement—even women

Kathy Peiss of the School of Arts & Sciences spoke about women who opposed the suffrage movement. “The anti-suffragists were opposed to the idea of women having the right to vote largely because they saw it as a violation of women’s true gender nature—that they were mothers and wives—and that it might distract them from not only the duties of the home, but also their sense of women’s privileges to be in the home,” she said.

Pregnant person looks out the window with a hand on their stomach.

Pregnant Black and Hispanic women more likely to be exposed to coronavirus

Penn researchers found the rate of virus exposure among pregnant Black and Hispanic women to be five times higher than among white and Asian women.

Fearless Girl bronze statue on Wall Street standing in front of the bull statue.

Project Sage 3.0: Key insights from the latest gender lens investing report

Much like the larger umbrella of impact investing, gender lens investing—investing to generate financial returns and a positive impact on women—continues to grow. Exactly how big is this field, and how fast is it growing?

Women already do most domestic work. The coronavirus makes that gap worse

Pilar Gonalons-Pons of the School of Arts & Sciences wrote about the ongoing disparity between men and women’s domestic labor. “When it comes to inequality at home—as with inequalities in health care, access to financial support, employment protections like sick leave, or job security—the COVID-19 crisis is a great magnifier, laying bare these disparities and exacerbating them,” she wrote.

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