Women’s Voices in a Weary World

February 16, 2021

Women’s Voices in a Weary World

Event Series: Free Speech at the Crossroads: International Dialogues

“The Women Are Coming” announces a new YouTube video over upbeat music, introducing 23 female world leaders in rapid-fire succession, from Barbados to Bangladesh, Norway to Namibia, bookended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and American Vice President Kamala Harris. But have women truly arrived where they want to be and need to be: in positions of influence in government and international affairs, science and health, and business? Are women’s voices being heard and listened to in a time of crisis and chaos? The Free Speech Project at Georgetown University and the Future of the Humanities Project, a collaboration between Georgetown and Blackfriars Hall of Oxford University, held an international dialogue on these important questions.

This event was sponsored by the Free Speech Project and the Future of the Humanities Project at Georgetown University.

Participants

Rosie Campbell

Rosie Campbell is professor of politics and director of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London. She has recently written on barriers to participation in politics, gendered patterns of support for the populist radical right, and what voters want from their elected representatives. She is the principal investigator of the Representative Audit of Britain, which surveyed all candidates standing in the 2015, 2017, and 2019 British General Elections.

Baroness Mary Goudie

Baroness Mary Goudie is a senior member of the British House of Lords and a global advocate for the rights of women and children. In the United Kingdom she is a founding member of the 30% Club, which advocates to bring more women onto corporate boards. She also serves on boards for Vital Voices Global Partnership, EuropEFE, and the U.K. Board of Directors for the Center for Talent Innovation. Goudie is a trustee of the El-Hibri Charitable Foundation.

Paula A. Johnson

Paula A. Johnson is the fourteenth president of Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She is globally recognized for her role in advancing women’s health and well-being through innovation in medical research, clinical care, health policy, and education. A cardiologist, Johnson was a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She previously served as chair of the Boston Public Health Commission from 2007 to 2016.

Nina Sutton

Nina Sutton is a Franco-British writer living in Paris. A former Washington correspondent for Libération and Paris-Match, she was also briefly the Paris correspondent for NPR and the short-lived London Daily News, as well as a regular contributor for the Guardian, among other publications. She is the author of Watergate Story (1974) and Bettelheim, a Life and a Legacy (1996). Sutton is currently working on a book about her family.

Michael Scott

Professor Michael Scott (moderator) is senior dean, fellow of Blackfriars Hall, the University of Oxford, college adviser for postgraduate students, and a member of the Las Casas Institute. He also serves as senior adviser to the president at Georgetown University. Scott was on the editorial board which relaunched Critical Survey from
Oxford University Press. Scott previously served as the pro vice chancellor at De Montfort University and founding vice chancellor of Wrexham Glyndwr University.

Sanford J. Ungar

Sanford J. Ungar (moderator), president emeritus of Goucher College, is director of the Free Speech Project at Georgetown University, which documents challenges to free expression in education, government, and civil society in the United States. Director of the Voice of America under President Bill Clinton, he was dean of the American University School of Communication after a distinguished career in journalism. Ungar is a former co-host of All Things Considered on NPR.

Image Gallery

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Globe with Women Faces