Gender Policy Journal

  In my senior year of high school, I spent months gathering everything I could find on LGBTQ+ history for a research presentation. As the day approached, I panicked. It wasn’t that I feared my classmates would explicitly belittle me during the presentation, but rather a feeling of isolation. No one had ever spoken about […]

  *The names of the subjects in this article have been changed to protect their identity. A heavy stench of sewage permeates the air where 11-year-old Amina roams in search of change. With tattered sandals and stained clothing nearly sliding off her frail frame, she entertains herself by kicking dust on a busy, trash-filled street […]

  Katya* was on her fifth pregnancy and still without a child. When I met her this summer on the Maternal Fetal Medicine service, she had experienced three miscarriages and terminated one pregnancy. She is a carrier of a genetic mutation that prevents her pregnancies from surviving both inside and outside of the womb. Advances […]

  The media narrative on artificial intelligence (AI) is not far removed from the plot of a science-fiction movie: robots will one day become smarter than the humans who created them, leading to cataclysmic events we cannot control. While this scenario depicts the risks that AI may pose in the future, a more immediate threat […]

  Early in my career, while working as a legislative aide in Washington, D.C., a male colleague and I received a promotion at the same time. With the promotion came more responsibilities and higher pay. But as our workloads increased by the same amount, I soon realized that his raise was $5,000 larger than mine. […]

The 2016 elections dealt a crushing blow to women. But in its wake, a new urgency and optimism emerged. After the elections, over 26,000 women reached out to the pro-choice political action committee, EMILY’s List for help launching a campaign, about thirty times more women than in the previous cycle. A record number of women […]

  In early Fall 2017, the husband of Ghanaian entertainer Afia Schwarzenegger uploaded videos of what appeared to be Schwarzenegger engaging in an extramarital affair. Ghana’s digital publics swiftly demonized her. That September, several women used the hashtag #MenAreTheirOwnEnemies to expose the misogyny pervading media coverage of the Schwarzenegger affair. Regardless of the facts of […]

  Less than half a mile from the U.S. border on a street corner in Tijuana, Mexico sits a small orange kitchen. Like other restaurants on the block, El Comedor typically has a steady stream of people lingering and picking up conversations while music bumps in the background. Yet there is no shortage of things […]

  In October 2018, the Supreme Court of India turned down a plea by the Central and Chhattisgarh governments to adjourn a case challenging the retention of members of a banned tribal[1] militia in official state forces. The governments justified their appeal on the grounds that the matter was “sensitive” and could affect the results […]

  In November 2018, Sheryl Sculley retired as San Antonio’s City Manager after 13 years in the position. Her replacement, chosen by San Antonio’s City Council, was Erik Walsh. The story was covered by local news with little fanfare – a 40-year management veteran to be replaced by a 24-year management veteran. But this event […]

Introduction On 16 November 2017, in light of the prominence of the global #MeToo movement and discussions of sexual harassment and assault, the Gender Policy Union and the Live Poets Society of the Harvard Kennedy School organized a campus-wide event to share these stories. Our goal was to raise awareness of the trauma that sexual […]