History and Overview
The mentoring award was established in 1990 to honor an SWS member who is an outstanding feminist mentor. While the word “mentoring” is commonly used to describe a faculty-student relationship, this award has shown the breadth of ways that feminists do mentoring. In establishing the award, SWS recognized that feminist mentoring is an important and concrete way to encourage feminist scholarship.
Feminist mentoring includes not only anticipating needs and providing concrete guidance and feedback for students and colleagues, but also:
- compassion and guidance with regard to feminist concerns,
- helping students and colleagues (junior and senior) to write and effectively communicate as authors, activists and teachers;
- providing support, strategies and models for balancing family and work;
- offering gendered understandings of institutional biases and strategies for overcoming them;
- building formal and informal institutions that support feminist interests (personal, career research, and teaching);
- a philosophy and practice of inclusion inside academia, especially with those most marginalized.Eligibility
The nominee and the nominator must be a current member of SWS.
Current officers and officers-elect of SWS are not eligible for nomination for this award, nor is the Editor of Gender & Society.
In 2024, the award will be presented during the SWS Winter Meeting Banquet. SWS awards the recipient 3 gift memberships to go toward a new member who is a student. The gift memberships will be active for the next membership cycle (e.g. 2021 awardee will get 3 gift memberships for 2022 memberships.) In the event that two people win this award, they will each get 3 gift memberships to go toward new student members.
All nominations must be received via the awards submission form within the membership portal. Please visit: sws.memberclicks.net to access the membership portal and awards submissions form. The nomination packet should include:
- The nominee’s curriculum vitae
- One central nomination letter highlighting and summarizing the supporting materials
- No more than 10 supporting letters should be included in the nomination packet. One appropriate option is for a group of people to write one nomination letter and all sign it
- All nomination letters should be submitted via the membership portal awards submissions form.
- Nominators should include their complete contact information (e-mail, surface mail and telephone) in the submission.
SWS Feminist Mentor Award Rubric
Benefits of Award
- Recognition at Winter Meeting Banquet
- 3 1-Year Memberships to Gift to New Student Members
- Winter Meeting Registration
Expectations for Award Winner
- Attendance at Winter Meeting to Receive Award
Please note: Nominators may submit the same file for three years in a row. Please ensure that the date of the letter reflects the first year the material was submitted. A new nomination can be made after a one-year break. It is the nominator’s responsibility to re-submit the nomination each year: files will not be automatically brought forward.
Nominators may also contact the chair of the award committee prior to preparing material for the nomination for more information.
Nominations due October 1, 2024 at 11:59 pm ET.
Contact
Please email Chair of the SWS Mentoring Award Subcommittee, Vrinda Marwah, marwahv@usf.edu
Who is missing? Nominate a feminist mentor today!
Winners of the SWS Mentoring Award
2024: Mindy Fried
2023: Jennifer Reich
2022: Jennifer Edwards and Jane Ku
2021: Heather Laube
2020: Rhacel Salazar Parreñas and Rebecca P.
2019 Feminist Mentoring Award Winners — Manisha Desai and Paula England
2018 – Bandana Purkayastha
2017 — Patti Giuffre and Shelley Correll
2016 — Beth Schneider
2015 — Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Denise Segura
2014 — Nancy Jurik and Michael A. Messner
2013 — Christine Williams
2012 — Laura Kramer and Wendy Simonds
2011 — Sarah Fenstermaker and Nancy Naples
2010 — Joya Misra
2009 — Kum Kum Bhavnani
2008 — Marcia Texler Segal
2007 — Linda Grant and Barbara Risman
2006 — Judith Wittner
2005 — Lora Bex Lempert
2004 — Joey Sprague
2003 — Bonnie Thornton Dill
2002 — Allison Tom
2001 — Sara R. Curran
2000 — Esther Ngan-ling Chow
1999 — Irene Padavic
1998 — Eleanor Miller and Barbara Reskin
1997 — Myra Ferree and Beth Hess
1996 — Judith Lorber
1995 — Barbara Katz Rothman and Verta Taylor
1994 — Donileen Loseke
1993 — Barrie Thorne
1992 — Rachel Rosenfeld
1991 — Rachel Kahn-Hut (first recipient)