Topic: Gender

Two white men in suits and ties address a room full of mostly male journalists at the United Nations Population Conference in Bucharest in 1974.
1970s

“A very small number of men control all the money and the ideas”: Women Revolutionize Population Programs in the 1970s

Women and technocratic elites clashed at the 1974 World Population Conference. At stake was women’s control over their own bodies.

New Research: Prison Plastic Surgery, Indian Fellowships, Thai Nursing Program, and Nam June Paik

The latest RAC New Research series highlights reports from archival research by stipend recipients, covering diverse subjects from prison plastic surgery policies in the Civil Rights era to Indian art fellowship impacts and the roots of Thai nursing education. It includes discussions on the effects of patronage on video art and Thai-Filipino-American healthcare interactions, revealing the historical role of Rockefeller and Ford Foundations in enabling progressive social and cultural studies.

1990s

Centering Women’s Rights in the Population Field: The Ford Foundation and Sexual Health in the 1990s

A 1994 meeting moved women’s empowerment front and center for grantmaking in global population.

1910s 1920s 1930s

Sex Problems as Social Problems: The Bureau of Social Hygiene, 1911-1934

When Dr. Katherine Bement Davis was named general secretary of the Bureau in 1917, her appointment transformed the organization to take into deeper account women’s sexuality.

1910s 1920s 1930s

The Women Pioneers of Global Nursing Education Who Built the Rockefeller Foundation Program

A massive program in nursing education extended to 53 schools across the globe. But it never became a top priority of the foundation that supported it.

A “Constructive and Important Failure”: A Foundation Funds Job Training in the 1970s and 1980s

Prompted by Reagan-era budget cuts, a new program serving low-income single parents receiving public aid failed to meet its constituents’ needs.

1970s

The Fairy Godmothers of Women’s Studies

Moving scholarship by and about women from margin to center.

1990s

In Brief: “Manels” Before #MeToo

A foundation’s early criticism of the all-male conference panel, before #nomoremanels

In Brief: The 1995 Beijing Women’s Conference

The global conversation about women’s issues takes a big step forward.

1960s 1970s

Programming for the People: Diversity in Early Public Television

Philanthropy helped carve out a public space for the expression of race, culture, and critical perspectives.