Executive Director’s Message 

For 35 years, we have worked to answer important questions growing out of the lives of women and girls. We are interested in a wide range of issues. How do women make and benefit from connections in families, friendships, and mentoring relationships? What motivates batterers to stop abusing? What employment gaps still exist and why? How do children respond to the color of their own skin? How can educators and parents stop bullying in elementary schools? How do women define success? How can we prevent depression for at-risk youth?

We are interested in questions about men's and boys' lives too. For instance, why can't mothers comfort their crying sons as they do their daughters? 'Don't baby him,' the culture warns. Well, why not? What nurturing practices best serve boys if we want to create a world of healthy, compassionate people? WCW researchers have asked how young Puerto Rican men made the transition to fatherhood. Others ask, how can mothers build better connections with their growing sons? 

Because we ask non-traditional questions, funding our work can be difficult. We've found that when you ask questions off the beaten path, you may have to spend time creating the path. When one researcher wanted to understand how girls come to understand their sexuality, for example, she couldn't just do a preliminary survey and write a proposal. She had to build a platform of quantitative and qualitative work before she was able to secure significant funding. And, of course, we face a scarcity of funding for issues related to women. Only five percent of philanthropic funds in the U.S. are earmarked for women's issues, and most of that goes to action programs, not research.

Why do we do this work? We know it's important. If you really want to see positive change in policies and practices at every level, from individual decision-making to national and international policy, you need fresh perspectives and solid research. People and governments rarely make new decisions based on old information. We need to build a reservoir of new insights and new data that help us all understand the realities and dynamics of this era of rapid change in technology, social structures, and gender roles. We want personal decisions and public policy to be based on facts rather than myths and headlines. Our role in shaping a better world is to generate and to share information that can influence how people think and act on issues relating to women’s rights, children, families, education, and the workplace.

I've often said that if you're not asking the right questions, then the answers won't matter very much. Asking careful questions is energizing--you can never be sure what answers you will find. We believe our questions matter and our research can shape better lives for women, men, and children in the 21st century.

Susan McGee Bailey
Executive Director
Wellesley Centers for Women

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