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Professor Sylvia Walby

Sociology: UNESCO Chair in Gender Research & Professor of Sociology

Associated research centres and groups: UNESCO Chair in Gender Research Group

Research Interests

I am interested in both theoretical development and policy impact, and enjoy collaborative research. My research is situated within the tension between general social theory and specific forms of inequality, especially gender. This has led from theorizing patriarchy to mainstreaming complex inequalities into social theory. Substantively, I am interested in economic change, fascinated by new political forms (e.g. European Union) and concerned about marginalised groups (domestic violence matters). These issues are framed by globalisation, the understanding of which requires the use of complexity theory, and 'human rights' which has become the most important framing of contemporary projects for global justice.

New Report

Jude Towers and Sylvia Walby (2012) Measuring the impact of cuts in public expenditure on the provision of services to prevent violence against women and girls. Trust for London and Northern Rock Foundation.

Summary: http://www.trustforlondon.org.uk/SummaryVAWG.pdf

Full report: http://www.trustforlondon.org.uk/VAWG%20Full%20report.pdf

New Report

Jo Armstrong and Sylvia Walby (2012) Gender quotas in management boards. European Parliament FEMM/Women's Rights Committee.

Full report: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/JURI/studiesdownload.html?languageDocument=EN&file=66951

New Book

Sylvia Walby (2011) The Future of Feminism (Polity Press) Details: http://politybooks.com/book.asp?ref=9780745647562

The book addresses the changing nature and success of contemporary feminism. Feminism is not dead. This is not a postfeminst era. But feminism faces a challenge from neoliberalism, which can only be met by broad alliances.

PreviousBook

Globalization and Inequalities: Complexity and Contested Modernitiesis published by Sage: http://www.uk.sagepub.com/booksProdDesc.nav?prodId=Book204568

OBE

An OBE was awarded in 2008 for services to equal opportunities and diversity.

UNESCO Chair in Gender Research Group

Professor Sylvia Walby was appointed to the UNESCO Chair in Gender Research in 2008.

Members of the UNESCO Chair in Gender Research Group include Dr Jo Armstrong and Dr Sofia Strid.

The objectives of the Chair are to:

• facilitate the development of policy-relevant research on gender equality and women's human rights around the world;
• support and develop international networking to facilitate the exchange of ideas, research and policy developments, especially between the North and South;
• support research and build capacity on policy-relevant gender equality issues; curriculum development, student training at graduate level; staff exchanges;

• facilitate exchanges between researchers and policy makers, in the context of UN instruments for promoting women's human rights and the Millennium Development Goals;
• collaborate with UNESCO in its Gender Equality policy and strategy.

The Chair was launched with a seminar: 'What is gender equality in a global age?' Presentations from the seminar are here.

Projects of the Group include: 'Equalities and violence' and 'gender and the financial crisis'

'Equalities and violence'

The Chair group is carrying out research for the Equality and Human Rights Commission on equalities and violence, examining the way to measure changes in physical and legal security for equality groups.

The Cost of Domestic Violence: Up-Dates 2009 reviews and up-dates the cost of domestic violence from the 2004 report for the Women and Equality Unit. The report was published to coincide with the re-launch of the Corporate Alliance Against Domestic Violence on 30 November 2009, and is available here.

'Gender and the financial crisis'

AUNESCO project on 'Gender and the Financial Crisis', which examines the implications of the crisis for women's human rights.

A paper on 'Gender and the financial crisis' is here.

A paper 'Auditing the gender implications of recovery plans' is here.

A paper: 'Contested futures: Is the financial crisis a tipping point' is here.

A response to the EU consultation on the future structure of the regulation of finance is here.

Measuring Gender Equality in a global era

• 'Key indicators of "fairness": Competing frameworks, multiple strands and ten domains - an array of statistics' Social Policy & Society, 10 (2) 205-218 (with Jo Armstrong).
• A review of physical and legal security to contribute to the Equality Measurement Framework, funded by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, by the UNESCO Chair in Gender Research Group, to report 2010.
• 'A Review of Equality Statistics'. Report from research for the new UK Equality and Human Rights Commission on statistics and indicators to measure equality across gender, ethnicity, disability, age, religion/faith andsexual orientation across ten dimensions. Project Research Associates: Jo Armstrong (Sociology) and Les Humphreys (Applied Statistics).
• 'Gender transformations and global processes: Situating Beijing + 10', International Social Science Journal, September 2005. Originally prepared for UNESCO.
• Contributed research to EU Presidency (Luxembourg) report on 'Beijing+10: Progress Made Within the European Union', 2005. (with Anne-Marie Theisen, Nadine Spoden and Mieke Verloo).
• Modelling Gender Pay Gaps. (with Olsen) Equal Opportunities Commission, 2004.
• 'Gender, Economic Development, Economic Growth and Democracy', ESRC funded project with Wendy Olsen, 2004-5.
• Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.

Globalization and Work Transformation

• President of the International Sociological Association, Research Committee 02, 'Economy and Society'.
• Co-organiser of an international network on Gender Globalization and Work Transformation (GLOW), with members in US, Japan, Germany and UK. Key interests are in the relationship between the new knowledge based economy and new non-standard employment forms in the context of changing forms of regulation and deregulation and globalisation.
• Gendering the Knowledge Economy, (Sylvia Walby, Heidi Gottfried, Karin Gottschall and Mari Osawa (eds) book edited with GLOW (Palgrave 2007).
• 'Gender and the new economy: regulation or deregulation?'
• 'Gender (in)equality and the future of work' Research funded by the Equal Opportunities Commission, 2007.

Gender-based violence

Work for the UN on improving statistics and indicators on violence against women:

• 'Indicators to measure violence against women' UN Expert meeting, Geneva 2007, paper: http://www.unece.org/stats/documents/ece/ces/ge.30/2007/mtg1/wp.1.e.pdf
• 'Improving the statistics on violence against women', Statistical Journal of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, 22, 4, 193-216, 2005.
• Developing Indicators on Violence Against Women, 2006.
• Towards international standards for data collection and statistics on violence against women, 2006
• Member of UN Task Force on Violence Against Women, 2006-.
• Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Stalking: Findings from the British Crime Survey Home Office Research Study 276, 2004, with Jonathan Allen, based on a consultancy to the Home Office British Crime Survey.
• The Cost of Domestic Violence, 2004, from research funded by the DTI Women and Equality Unit.
• 'Comparing the methodology of the new national surveys of violence against women', British Journal of Criminology, 2001, 41, 3, 502-522, with Andrew Myhill, is based on Nuffield Foundation funded work.

QUING: Gender Equality in the EU

Quing is an Integrated Project funded by the European Union under Framework 6 to investigate gender and citizenship in a multicultural context, 2006-2011. We compare the meanings of gender equality in the 27 EU member states, together with 2 candidate countries for EU members. This involves close textual analysis of key policy documents on gender equality in employment, gender-based violence and intimate citizenship, as well as the comparative analysis of the varied institutional and social structural environments under which these meanings develop. Quing will contribute to the development of gender theory, especially in relation to intersectionality and to the theorisation of differences in gender regimes, as well as to more effective gender equality policies. With partners in Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, and Turkey, the project is coordinated by Mieke Verloo in Vienna. The total budget is 4,742,000 Euros, with 634,000 Euros for Lancaster. Sylvia Walby is the Principal Investigator of the Lancaster node, Member of the Executive Board, and Leader of the strand on Intersectionality.

Social theory, Complexity theory

• Globalization and Inequalities: Complexity and Contested Modernities (Sage 2009).
• 'Complexity theory, systems theory and multiple intersecting social inequalities', Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 2007, 37, 4, 449-470 (link to on-line paper).
• 'Against epistemological chasms: the science question in feminism revisited' Signs: A Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 2001, 26, 2, 485-509, led to a debate with Sandra Harding in Signs.(link to on-line paper ).

Politics in a global era

• 'The myth of the nation-state: Theorizing society and polities in a global era', Sociology, 2003, 37, 1, 531-548. (Debate with Bruce and Voas, 2004).
• 'The European Union and gender equality: Emergent varieties of gender regime', Social Politics, 2004, 11, 1, 4-29.
• Feminisim in a global eraEconomy and Society, 2002, 31, 4, 533-557;
• 'From community to coalition: the politics of recognition as the handmaiden of the politics of redistribution', Theory, Culture and Society, 2001, 18, 2-3, 113-135;

ESRC Gender seminars

ESRC funded seminar series, 'Gender Mainstreaming' 2003-4.

• 'Comparative Gender Mainstreaming', International Feminist Journal of Politics, December 2005, 7, 4. Special issue of papers from seminar. 'Introduction: Comparative gender mainstreaming in a global era', International Feminist Journal of Politics, 7, 4, 453-471.
• 'Gender Mainstreaming Theory', Social Politics, Dec 2005, 12, 3. Special issue with papers from seminar. 'Gender mainstreaming: Productive tensions in theory and practice': Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society 2005 12(3):321-343

ESRC funded seminar series, 'What is Gender Equality in a global era', 2005-8,

• 2006, March. Gendering the Knowledge Economy, March 2006, special issue of Gender Work and Organization (forthcoming 2009).
• 2006, May. 'Indicators and statistics of gender based violence'; co-hosted by Royal Statistical Society, Programme and presentations here.
• 2007 May 'Indicators of gender equality'; cohosted by Royal Statistical Society
• 2008, June. 'What is gender equality in a global era?'

Some earlier books

Gendering the Knowledge Economy (co-edited with Gottfried, Gottschall and Osawa) Palgrave 2007.

Gender Transformations, Routledge 1997.

Theorizing Patriarchy, Blackwell 1990.

Patriarchy at Work, Polity 1986.

Contemporary British Society (with Abercrombie, Warde et al) 3rd edition Polity 2000

European Societies: Fusion or Fission? (edited with Boye and Van Steenbergen, Routledge 1999).

New Agendas for Women (edited) (foreword by Clare Short) Macmillan 1999.

Medicine and Nursing: Professions in a Changing Health Service (with Greenwell, MacKay and Soothill) Sage 1994

Sex Crime in the News (with Soothill) Routledge 1991.

Out of the Margins (edited with Aaron) Falmer 1991.

Restructuring Place Class & Gender (with Lancaster Regionalism Group) Sage 1990.

Gender Segregation at Work (edited) Sage 1988.

Localities, Class and Gender (with Lancaster Regionalism Group) Pion 1985.

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Associated Keywords: Complexity theory, Equality, European Union, Gender, Globalisation, Human rights, Sociology

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