For the first time since being created in 1999, the Institute of Women’s Studies (IWS) applied for funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and was granted the entire amount requested, more than $385,000.
“We can speak of a 100 per cent success rate,” said IWS interim director, Marie-Laure Girou-Swiderski. She notes with satisfaction that “the SSHRC now has a section dedicated to women’s studies.”
Caroline Andrews, dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences said she was pleased “for the Faculty but more specifically for the Institute. This funding is crucial for the IWS and the development of its research. It is living proof of the intellectual vitality of the Institute.”
Dominique Masson, professor at the IWS and the Department of Sociology, received $83,237 in funding over three years for her research project on the status of women and the socio-political changes during a time of neo-liberalism.
For her part, Andréa Martinez, director of the IWF and professor in the Department of Communication, and her team from Canada and Chile will benefit from a grant of close to $153,000 over three years to study sexual behaviour among youth.
Two other researchers, Dominique Bourque and Christabelle Sethna, assistant professors at the IWF, have received a total of $152,000 in grants. The title of Bourque’s study is “Mort annoncée du genre : stratégie de dé-marquage des catégories de sexe dans les œuvres des féministes universalistes depuis le 17e siècle en France.” Sethna, who is also an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education, will direct a research project entitled “Student Affairs: Young, Single Women, Oral Contraception and the University Campus, 1960-1980.”
