In the 2023-2024 academic year, almost two years after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and protections surrounding reproductive health and freedom in the United States were once again under scrutiny, PhD student Hannah Olsen combed through the archives of La bibliothèque nationale de France, the French National Library, scanning letters and reading publications concerning contraception and abortion from mid 20th century France. Now, in her sixth year as a PhD student in French and Francophone studies, Olsen is nearly finished writing her dissertation concerning the accessibility of contraception and information on reproductive health in France following contraception and abortion’s legalization.
“My research is on women’s experiences with family planning in France following the legalization of contraception and abortion,” Olsen said. “Doing the graduate specialization in Women’s and Gender Studies [WGS] at Michigan State was amazing for contextualizing a lot of that historical context within the larger scheme of understanding what gender as a social construct is, because the movement for the legalization of modern forms of contraception was very much part of a global movement and I think I have a better understanding of where my research falls into the historical context [...] than I would have otherwise had I not done the graduate certificate.”
Olsen was the recipient of the 2023-2024 Women’s and Gender Studies Research Fellowship which funded her semester of research in France. She also received the writing fellowship, which supported her in completing her dissertation.
“I was really, really privileged to be able to receive one of the graduate research fellowships [because] as I was working on this, another challenge I encountered really early was that people weren’t talking about their experience, even with contraception. There was really no sex education [and] just talking about contraception was still so taboo, so it was really hard to find primary sources,” Olsen said. “The GenCen was incredibly helpful because that research fellowship allowed me to go to France, and I went to the National Library [...] and everything that’s ever been printed in French is housed there and that was a landmine of documents that I was able to find. I [also] went to a really small archive in Leon at a Family Planning Center. [...] And that was very much because of the GenCen’s support, I would not have been able to do that otherwise because those archives are not digitized, and they’re run by just one person.”
The GenCen has also offered Olsen opportunities to further her teaching experience, supporting her in her goals to continue working in academia. She has taught two WGS classes over summer semesters and greatly valued the opportunity to engage in these topics with undergraduates from across university disciplines.
“That was an amazing experience, and I was really impressed by the engagement of the students, honestly. I had students from every college, every department, and they all kind of came into the class with their own reasoning for being interested in Women’s and Gender Studies and the insights that they had were just really incredible,” Olsen said. “Like, some students wanted to go into healthcare and being doctors and nurses, and they had a lot of amazing input, other students were more interested in political science and law, and it was very impressive. I was very impressed as the instructor of the class.”
Olsen has a lot of gratitude for the GenCen and the support they have demonstrated for her research. She sees WGS as an important discipline necessary in creating well-rounded individuals, and praises GenCen for supporting and furthering that education.
“I think no matter which way you look at it, every person comes face to face with social constructs of gender and sexuality and those have ramifications for all of us, no matter what field you go to, and I think we’re kind of being confronted with that right now in the current environment that we live in. [...] When we ignore these issues, they don’t just go away, especially when we think of intersections of gender and sexuality with race, with immigration status, etcetera,” Olsen said. “The support from the GenCen, like the moral support, the advice I’ve gotten from Mindy Smith, from Pat Arnold, from other grad students in the GenCen has been invaluable. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the grants are amazing, and incredibly helpful, and I wouldn’t have been able to finish my dissertation otherwise, but the camaraderie, the advice, the encouragement too from the GenCen, you can’t put a price on that.”
The GenCen offers research and writing fellowship grants for graduate students in the WGS and Gender, Justice, and Environmental Change (GJEC) specializations each year. These grants, along with personal support from the GenCen staff, foster a future of more informed thinkers and educators.