Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies

Disability awareness at Penn

About one-fifth of all college students identify as having a disability, a figure that has grown in recent decades. At Penn, students form advocacy clubs, work with the Weingarten Center, and study disability.

Kristina García

Former UN official on regressive gender-based policies

Speaking at Perry World House (PWH), former United Nations deputy high commissioner for human rights Kate Gilmore, a PWH Visiting Fellow, addressed regressive reproductive and gender-based policies that have gained traction globally.

Kristen de Groot

Marking a monumental death

In honor of the first anniversary of the killing of Mahsa (Jîna) Amini in Iran and the subsequent outpouring of protest, Penn will host a two-day conference on violence against women.

Kristen de Groot



Media Contact


In the News


Philadelphia Inquirer

A Taylor Swift-themed addiction recovery group started in Philly and became ‘a community with the vibe of a Taylor concert’

Jessa Lingel of the Annenberg School for Communication says that online music fandoms have always been places where people make sense of stigmas.

FULL STORY →



Associated Press

Women’s Day events highlight major gaps in gender equality

Kristen Ghodsee of the School of Arts & Sciences says that International Women’s Day has a history of promoting progressive, socialist causes within the entire working class.

FULL STORY →



Technical.ly Philly

An LGBTQ health initiative at Penn just launched a 5-year partnership with investing group Gaingels

The School of Nursing’s Eidos LGBTQ+ Health Initiative has partnered with Gaingels to leverage academic, intellectual, and research resources across Penn and promote health within queer populations.

FULL STORY →



Chicago Tribune

Review: ‘The First Homosexuals’ at Wrightwood 659 captures the emergence of a ‘new identity’

A review examines “The First Homosexuals,” an exhibition curated by Jonathan D. Katz of the School of Arts & Sciences and colleagues including Pavel Golubev, a visiting scholar taking refuge at Penn.

FULL STORY →



Times Higher Education

Europe is ahead of the U.S. on gender equity. So why is abuse in HE rife?

In an opinion piece, Susan B. Sorenson of the School of Social Policy & Practice contrasts Europe’s pronounced efforts to reduce gender inequality with recent studies which find alarming rates of gender-based violence in European universities.

FULL STORY →



The Washington Post

What Iran’s protest slogans tell us about the uprising

Fatemeh Shams of the School of Arts & Sciences says that Iranian protest chants have shifted emphasis from male political figures and systemic reform to teenaged female martyrs and rejection of any form of autocratic rule.

FULL STORY →