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Department of Women’s and Gender Studies

Team

Co-Directors

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Flora Blanchette

Dr. Blanchette, Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina, received her dual PhD in in Social Psychology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Penn State. Dr. Blanchette-Oswald’s program of research focuses broadly on liberation through a feminist lens, with specific areas of interest including: (1) liberating marginalized group members from health disparities through a focus on social determinants of health; (2) fat liberation and upward resistance among fat people; (3) abolitionist politics and liberation from carceral systems; and (4) sexual liberation, particularly liberating marginalized group members from systems of sexualized violence.    In addition to this work, Dr. Blanchette-Oswald is interested in feminist methodologies, feminist philosophies of science, and feminist metascience, particularly in the context of the open science movement. Dr. Blanchette-Oswald’s research has been supported by funders including the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Relationship Researchers Interest Group, Women and Gender Equality Canada, the McCourtney Institute for Democracy, and the Connecticut Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences. 

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Cara Delay

Dr. Delay, Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina, holds degrees from Boston College and Brandeis University. Her research analyzes health, gender, and culture in Europe and the United States, with a particular focus on reproduction, pregnancy, and childbirth, past and present. Her award-winning body of scholarship includes more than 30 scholarly journal articles and chapters. She is also co-author of Birth Control: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford) and Catching Fire: Women’s Health Activism in Ireland and the Global Movement for Reproductive Justice (Oxford). A Fulbright scholar, she also has received awards or fellowships from the American Association of University Women, the Coordinating Council for Women in History, Nursing Clio, and the Donnelly Foundation. She teaches courses in women’s health, women’s history, and reproduction. 

 

Faculty Collaborator 

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Suzanne Swan

Dr. Swan is a Professor in the Departments of Women’s and Gender Studies and Psychology. Dr. Swan received her PhD in Social and Personality Psychology with a Minor in Women's Studies from the University of Illinois. Dr. Swan's program of research follows the tradition of Kurt Lewin's dictum that "there is nothing so practical as a good theory". Her research focuses on 1) health disparities, particularly as related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and 2) gender-based violence, especially intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and drugging (i.e., administering a drug or alcohol to someone without their knowledge or consent). In a landmark study, Dr. Swan and colleagues found that 1 in 13 college students reported that they had been drugged, and 1.4% of students reported drugging someone or knowing a drugger (Swan et al., 2017). In the first empirical study in which individuals who have drugged others are interviewed, Dr. Swan and colleagues use the Theory of Coercive Actions to understand druggers’ motives (Swan et al., in progress). Common motives found in the study include excitement (drugging others “for fun”), compliance (making the drugged person do what the drugger wants), and social identity (drugging someone to establish an identity, such as masculinity). The ultimate goal of Dr. Swan’s research is to create knowledge that will illuminate solutions for the problems of health disparities and gender-based violence and the suffering they cause. Dr. Swan teaches courses in Graduate and Undergraduate Social Psychology and Women's Health. 

 

Friends of the Team

Carolina Consortium on Health, Inequalities, and Populations (CHIP)

The Carolina Consortium on Health, Inequalities, and Populations (CHIP) brings together a collaborative group of interdisciplinary scholars conducting innovative research aimed at understanding and addressing the social processes that influence population dynamics and health inequalities.

Women's Well-Being Initiative

The Women’s Well-Being Initiative (WWBI) was founded in 2001 by two former WGST faculty, Dr. Lynn Weber and Dr. DeAnne Messias. This program engages faculty, staff, and students in campus-community partnerships that promote the well-being of women and girls in the Midlands, and enhance the recognition of the full diversity of women's experiences across race, class, age, ethnicity, ability, and other dimensions of difference.

 

Challenge the conventional. Create the exceptional. No Limits.

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