The Gender, Women’s Suffrage, and Political Power: Past, Present, and Future (GWSPP) conference was a multi-day virtual meeting that brought together academics and activists to explore the critical history of women’s suffrage and political power, and the future possibilities for expanding gender equity in political participation and representation in the United States and across the globe. The GWSPP conference was timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment in the United States, the 40th anniversary of the GenCen’s Gendered Perspectives on International Development Papers Series, the 30th anniversary of the Re-Visioning Knowledge and the Curriculum: Feminist Perspectives conference at MSU, and the 25th anniversary of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at UMich.
Thank you to all of the attendees, panelists, sponsors, and co-organizers of the GWSPP Conference! We are so thankful for everyone's support in holding this virtual conference, despite challenges associated with a global pandemic. If you missed the GWSPP Conference, many of our sessions have been recorded and are available as a YouTube playlist.
Seeking a specific panel? Download our conference program (or eReader-accessible program) and click on the individual panel links below.
Moderator: Jocelyn Stitt, University of Michigan Institute for Research on Women & Gender
Whistleblowing Women: Hollywood Representations of Women Labor Activists
Liz Deegan (she/her/hers)
Michigan State University, Department of English
Too Fat for Body Positivity: How the Body Positive Movement Fails Fat Bodies
Katie Paulot (she/her/hers)
Michigan State University, James Madison College
Women in U.S. Postsecondary Education: A Decolonial, Historical Analysis of Women Students’ Access
Alyssa Stefanese Yates (she/her/hers)
Michigan State University, Department of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education
Hortense Spillers’s repairing Black Women’s Power through and against Psychoanalysis
Seohyun “Sen” Kim (she/her/hers)
Michigan State University, Department of English
Equality Towards a New Practice of Societal Structures: The Evolution of Elena Ferrante’s Protagonists
Juliet Guzzetta (she/her/hers)
Michigan State University, Department of English
Moderator: Rebecca Irvine, Michigan State University Center for Gender in Global Context (GenCen)
Sexuality & Reproductive Rights Are for Everyone: Including Women with Disabilities in Advocacy, Activism, and Research
Rebecca Kammes (she/her/hers)
Michigan State University, Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Special Education
Moderator: Lucy Thompson, Michigan State University Center for Gender in Global Context (GenCen)
Finding Chinese Feminisms in Transnational Feminisms
Yuanfang Dai (she/her/hers)
Michigan State University, Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures
International Anticolonial Womanhood: Marthe Moumié’s Political Thought and Chinese Knowledge Production on Cameroon, 1956-1965
Caitlin Barker (she/her/hers)
Michigan State University, Department of History
The Role of Women in Conflict Resolution and the Post-Conflict Environment in Global South
Odirin Omiegbe (he/him/his)
Delta State University, Nigeria, Department of Educational Psychology
Sisters Are Doing it for Themselves: How Female Combatants Gender Peace Agreements in Civil Wars
Jakana Thomas (she/her/hers)
Michigan State University, Department of Political Science
Moderator: Kirsten Fermaglich, Michigan State University Department of History
The Superwoman: How a Jewish Journalist Empowered Women to Fight for the Vote
Lori Harrison-Kahan (she/her/hers)
Boston College, Department of English
American Jewish Women and the Politics of Power in the Turn-of-the-Century Women’s Movement
Melissa R. Klapper (she/her/hers)
Rowan University, Department of History
Moderator: Emily Conroy-Krutz, Michigan State University Department of History
Fair Chances: Suffrage Activism at American World’s Fairs and Expositions, 1876-1915
Tracey Jean Boisseau (she/her/hers)
Purdue University, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program
“Did you see any women in men’s clothes at the polls?” Black Women and Voting Rumors in Reconstruction South Carolina
Cappy Yarbrough (she/her/hers)
The College of Charleston, Department of History
Ballot Please !!!: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, President Ulysses S. Grant, and the Election of 1872
John P. Williams (he/him/his)
Collin College, Department of History
Women’s Suffrage and Pollock’s Covenant: A Faustian Bargain With Racism, or Sleeves Off the Vest?
David A. Collins (he/him/his)
American Bar Foundation
Moderator: Stephanie Nawyn, Michigan State University Center for Gender in Global Context (GenCen)
Women Empowering Women: Engaging a Feminist Mentorship Model in the Academy
Dessie Clark (she/her/hers)
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, ADVANCE Program
Kelly Millenbah (she/her/hers)
Michigan State University, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Sidney Brandhorst (she/her/hers)
Michigan State University, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Moderator: Naoko Wake, Michigan State University Department of History & Lyman Briggs College
Aborting Rights for Politics
Natalia Niedmann Alvarez (she/her/hers)
University of Chicago Law School, JSD Program
Voting Out Human Trafficking: How white supremacy was used to argue for women’s suffrage and against trafficking in England
Anna Forringer-Beal (she/her/hers)
University of Cambridge, Centre for Gender Studies
“I Am Not Madame Bovary,” and I Struggle for My Reproductive and Marital Rights
Lina Qu (she/her/hers)
Michigan State University, Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages
All in the Family: The Effects of Familial Attitudes on Women’s Support for Pro-Women Policies
Lauren Hahn (she/her/hers)
University of Michigan, Department of Communication and Media
Sara Morrell (she/her/hers)
University of Michigan, Department of Political Science
Moderator: Kirsten Fermaglich, Michigan State University Department of History
Discussant: Melissa R. Klapper, Rowan University Department of History
“An Anti-Suffrage Club”: Jewish Women and Domestic Feminism in Progressive-Era San Francisco
Lori Harrison-Kahan (she/her/hers)
Boston College, Department of English
“The information is only to mothers”: Gender, Class, Yiddish, and Reproductive Politics at the 46 Amboy St. Clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn
Cassandra Euphrat Weston (she/her/hers)
University of Michigan, Jean & Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies
Able to Enter: Gender and Disability in Cecilia Razovsky’s Immigration Advocacy
Hannah Greene (she/her/hers)
New York University, Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies
Moderator: Grace Shu Gerloff, Michigan State University Department of Anthropology
Proxy Marriages, Sake Marriages, and the End of the “Military Permission Machinery”: U.S. Law and the Japanese Marriage Cases, 1950-1956
Scott Bullock (he/him/his)
Michigan State University, Department of History
A Model Minority and a Model Mother: U.S. Mother of the Year, Toy Len Goon (1952)
Andrea Louie (she/her/hers)
Michigan State University, Department of Anthropology
Japanese American Women Crossing Racial Boundaries and Resisting World War II Incarceration
Anna Pegler-Gordon (she/her/hers)
Michigan State University, James Madison College
Gender, Disability, and Migration: A Strange Afterlife of the Asia-Pacific War outside the War’s Archives
Naoko Wake (she/her/hers)
Michigan State University, Department of History & Lyman Briggs College
Moderator: Cheryl Bergman, Michigan Women’s Commission
Muna Jondy (she/her/hers)
Michigan Women’s Commission Chair, Flushing
Charity R. Dean (she/her/hers)
Commissioner, Detroit
Kelli Saunders (she/her/hers)
Commissioner, Byron Center
Geneva Williams (she/her/hers)
Commissioner, Detroit
Moderator: Anna Kirkland, University of Michigan Institute for Research on Women & Gender
Holy Ruth, Mother of the Gays
Mx. Mann (they/them/their)
University of Michigan, Department of History
Sounds of Suffragism and Sensuality in Ethel Smyth’s Songs
Penrose M. Allphin (they/them/their)
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Department of Music and Dance
NY City Teachers’ Rising: the Fight for Equal Pay
Tara M. McCarthy (she/her/hers)
Central Michigan University, Department of History
Elective Citizens? The Radcliffe College Community’s Spectral Participation in World War I Activity, 1914-1926
Michael E McGuire (he/him/his)
Mount Saint Mary College, Department of History
Moderator: Carla Lima Aranzaes, Michigan State University School of Human Resources & Labor Relations
Consistent Radicalism: Lucy Parsons’ Anarchism
Marissa Knaak (she/her/hers)
Michigan State University, Department of History
Making Visible a History of Epistemological Violence: Transcribing Primary Archival Sources on Minority Philosophy
William A. B. Parkhurst (he/him/his)
University of South Florida, Department of Philosophy
How Dark is my Future? Reading the Future of Black Girls Through Memory in Toni Morrison’s Beloved
Ankita Sharma (she/her/hers)
Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Department of English
From Power to Empowerment: Irruptions In The Logic Of Power From The Leadership Of Francia Márquez Mina In Colombia
Edwar Ortiz Valencia (he/him/his)
Moderator: Courtney Louis, Michigan State University Department of Psychology
Questioning, Challenging, or Embracing Womxn of Color Identity: Implications for Solidarity
Naseeb Kaur Bhangal (she/her/hers)
Loyola University Chicago, Department of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education
Tenzing Sherpa (she/her/hers)
Loyola University Chicago
Diandra Sarr (she/her/hers)
Loyola University Chicago
Hannah Honor (she/her/hers)
Loyola University Chicago, Womxn’s Initiatives and Community Outreach Program
Johanna Hughes (she/her/hers)
Loyola University Chicago
Wardah Mohammed (she/her/hers)
Loyola University Chicago
Javed Ahmed (he/him/his)
Teach for America
Hosted by:
Michigan State University's Center for Gender in Global Context (GenCen)
Michigan State University's Department of History
University of Michigan's Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG)
Thank you to our sponsors:
The Michael and Elaine Serling Institute for Jewish Studies and Modern Israel
James Madison College at Michigan State University
Michigan State University College of Law
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan's History Department
Michigan State University Asian Studies Center
Michigan State University African Studies Center
Michigan State University Muslim Studies Center
Michigan State University College of Agriculture & Natural Resources
Michigan Women's Commission
Vote Run Lead
Michigan Women Forward
Academic Programs
Learn more about our undergraduate majors and minors
Faculty & Staff Funding
Explore our Strategic Partnership Grants and other funding resources
Study Abroad
Learn more about our study abroad programs in Amsterdam, London, Malawi, and more
Upcoming Events
Engage with global gender and sexuality scholars through our events
