Celebrating Women's History Month
March is Women's History Month! Mason students, faculty, and staff are celebrating through honoring and acknowledging the contributions and achievements of women throughout history, society, and culture. Through the Women and Gender Studies Program at Mason, students have opportunities to pursue education on social inequalities grounded in the concepts of gender, and sexuality; as well as explore local social justice activism through our Women and Gender Studies Center.
Kakenya's Dream Founder and President, Dr. Kakenya Ntaiya, is a world-renowned educator and advocate for girls' health and human rights. She has dedicated her life to creating lasting change both in rural communities in Kenya and across Africa.
Shining a Spotlight
Dr. Tianna Cobb
Post-Doctoral Research and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Communication
Dr. Tianna L. Cobb is a Post-Doctoral Research and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Communication with joint appointments with African and African American Studies and Women and Gender Studies. She was one of three finalists for the 2022 RCA Top Dissertation Award, her program of research focusing on eliminating mental health disparities affecting Black communities.
Dr. Cobb's recent work builds on this program, with findings indicating that Black women religious leaders combat the norm of stigmatized messages shared by communicating sense breaking messages to promote the importance of mental health with their congregants and community members.
Holly Mason Badra
Women and Gender Studies' Associate Director
Holly Mason Badra is the Associate Director of Women and Gender Studies. Her research predominantly focuses in Kurdish literary tradition, Kurdish poetry in translation, and Kurdish female and nonbinary writers. She received her MFA in Poetry from Mason in 2017; and since has had extensive experience as an educator, teaching elementary, middle, high school, and college English, Creative Writing, Humanities, and Literature courses.
Yevette Richards
Associate professor in the Department of History and Art History
Yevette Richards is an associate professor in the Department of History and Art History. A specialist in African American history, U.S. women’s history, labor studies, and Pan-Africanism; she has focused her research lens on African American history, with an emphasis on racist violence from the 1920s through the 1940s. Recently, her work has led her to uncover a hidden history of racial violence that struck her own family, and the trauma of that violence that continues today. With the help of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Richards will continue to pursue the details of this hidden narrative.
Women and Gender Studies Center
The Women and Gender Studies Center studies strives to bridge academic coursework with student development, leadership, and coalition building. The center hosts lectures, offers student development opportunities, and participates in important programs such as the Consent Carnival to raise awareness and promote a sense of community on campus. To learn more about events or access women and gender studies resources, visit the Women and Gender Studies Center.
Women and Gender Studies Program
The Women and Gender Studies Program provides a physical and intellectual space for exploring social inequalities for students interested in gender, sexuality, and feminist perspectives. Students interested in feminist and gender issues choose their elective courses from a broad range of offerings; while those who wish to focus on LGBTQ issues take an introductory course focused on these issues and two electives that incorporate such perspectives more specifically.