February 8, 2001

Author to discuss why work and

family conflict and what to do about it

Lecture on March 1 is free and open to

the public

MIDDLEBURY, Vt.-“Unbending Gender:

Why Work and Family Conflict and What to Do About It” will be the

subject of a lecture by Joan Williams, author of a book by the same

title. Williams is also a professor of law and co-director of the

Gender, Work and Family Project at the American University School of

Law. The event will take place on the Middlebury College campus at

4:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 1, in the Robert A. Jones Seminar Room

of the Geonomics House on Hillcrest Road off College Street (Route

125). The talk is free and open to the public.

Williams will discuss her book

“Unbending Gender” (Oxford University Press, 1999), in which she

addresses questions vital to the health of our society: Why do family

and work increasingly conflict? Why do men as well as women feel

under enormous strain, at home and at work? Why are nearly one-fourth

of American children, and nearly 40 percent of divorced mothers,

poor? The author asserts that the answers to these questions lie in

our traditional system for organizing work. She offers strategies for

resolving our culture’s work-family dilemma.

The lecture is co-sponsored by the

Geonomics Center for International Studies, the C.A. Johnson

Economics Chair, the Swift Funds Endowment, and the Women’s and

Gender Studies Program. For more information, contact Charlotte Tate

of the Geonomics Center for International Studies at Middlebury

College at 802-443-5795 or tate@middlebury.edu.

— end —