RIKHIL BHAVNANI and HILARY CHART, graduate students in political science and anthropology, respectively, are the recipients of this year’s Marjorie Lozoff Graduate Essay Prize from the Clayman Institute for Gender Research.
Marjorie Lozoff
The prize, established in 2002, is given to a graduate student conducting research on issues related to reproductive rights for women, equal rights for women, and protections for women, aging and the family. It is named for the late MARJORIE LOZOFF, an author, lecturer and social worker who conducted research on student development and student life at Stanford’s Department of Psychiatry.
Hilary Chart
Chart’s essay, titled “Child Care and the Commodification of ‘Women’s Work’ in Botswana: New Perspectives on Three Critiques of Capitalism,” results from her research in and around Botswana’s capital city of Gaborone. A graduate student in the Department of Anthropology, Chart studies women’s micro-enterprise, and in particular the rapid expansion of for-profit daycare centers.
Rikhil Bhavnani
In his essay, “Do Electoral Quotas Work After They Are Withdrawn? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in India,” which was published last year in the American Political Science Review, Bhavnani looked at evidence from an experiment in India, where randomly chosen seats in local legislatures are set aside for women, one election at a time. He found that women were five times as likely to win office when the constituency was reserved for women in the previous election. While the mechanisms require further investigation, Bhavnani believes that reservations work in part by inducting “new” women into politics, and by giving parties the opportunity to learn that women can win elections.
The full story on Lozoff and the essay prize are available on the Clayman Institute website.
