Center for the Study of Women in Society facts for kids

The Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS) is located at the University of Oregon in the United States. It helps with research, teaching, and activities that support women and understand their roles in society. CSWS started in 1973. It is a non-profit group that works with the University of Oregon's Women's Center and the University itself. Many people see CSWS as a very important place for studying women and gender.

How the Center Started

In 1970, a study looked at how women were treated at the University of Oregon. It found that only about 10.5% of the full-time teachers were women. This meant there were far fewer women teachers than men.

Joan Acker, one of the teachers who wrote the study, asked the university to create a plan to help more women get jobs. This plan, called affirmative action, was finally made after a law called Title IX passed in 1972. Title IX made it a rule for schools getting money from the government to have such plans.

Around that time, a small Women's Research and Study Center began. It received money from a research grant. Even though the state was cutting money for education, the university supported a special meeting called Women on the Move in June 1972. This meeting helped many people at the university who believed in women's rights to push for bigger changes. It led to the idea of creating a center to study women from different subjects.

In 1973, the university president, Robert D. Clark, supported Joan Acker and other teachers. They started the Center for the Sociological Study of Women. Its first budget was small, about US$5,244 each year. Joan Acker became its first director.

A Special Donation

During the same time, a librarian named Edward Kemp was collecting old papers about women's roles. He became interested in the papers of Jane Grant. She was a writer and helped start The New Yorker magazine.

Edward Kemp contacted Jane Grant's husband, William B. Harris. Mr. Harris wanted to give money to honor his wife. In 1976, he gave Jane Grant's papers to the University of Oregon. Later, after he passed away, Mr. Harris left a large gift of US$3.5 million to the university in 1983. This was the biggest donation the university had ever received from one person at that time.

Growing the Center's Work

In 1983, the Center's goals grew bigger. It was renamed the Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS). This new name showed its wider goal to create, support, and share research about women.

The large gift from the Harris-Grant family made it possible for CSWS to give out US$100,000 each year. This money helped teachers and students do research. It also helped bring visiting scholars, hold conferences, and plan new classes.

With this new money, CSWS started to support research on women from many different fields, not just sociology. This included studies on women in science, arts, and law. By the late 1980s, CSWS was working with the art museum, women's studies classes, and the library's special collections. CSWS also created grants for women of color and graduate students studying women.

Important Research and Programs

In the late 1980s, Cheris Kramarae, who was the director of CSWS, talked about many different projects the Center helped with. These included:

• A film about women who were migrant workers and the dangers of pesticides.
• Studies on the lives of Macedonian women.
• Research on how women are shown in literature.
• Studies on violence in the lives of low-income Black women.
• Projects about health care for low-income women and children's health.
• Work on housing for women who had experienced violence.
• Studies on women's ability to hold public office and get financial help.
• Education about AIDS in Africa.

In the 1990s, CSWS continued to support research and also held meetings for scholars to share their ideas. One project, "Women in the Northwest," received a US$100,000 gift in 1997. This helped with ongoing research about women, work, families, and social policies. CSWS also started groups for research on feminist humanities, "wired" humanities (using technology), and women's health and aging. By 2009, CSWS had given over US$2 million to faculty and student research in more than 20 different departments.

In 2013, the Center gave out its first Le Guin Feminist Science Fiction Fellowship. This US$3,000 award helps people travel to research and work with the papers of feminist science fiction writers.

CSWS is one of the oldest women's research centers in the United States. It is also a member of the National Council for Research on Women.