Research Interest

Feminist Theory, Gender Discrimination, Masculinities Studies, Socio-legal Studies Gender and the Law, Feminist Theory, Masculinities Studies, Gender and Education, Feminist Cultural Studies, Socio-Legal Research Methods

Biography

Juliet A. Williams is Professor of Gender Studies and Chair of the UCLA Social Science Interdepartmental Program, where she directs the Master of Social Science Program. Dr. Williams also is Faculty Director of the UCLA Quarter in Washington Program and Faculty Co-Lead of the Mellon UCLA Data & Social Justice Initiative. She holds a B.A. in Government from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University. Dr. Williams is a socio-legal scholar whose research and teaching specializations include feminist theory, masculinities studies, gender and the law, gender and education, and feminist cultural studies. She is the author of The Separation Solution?: Single-Sex Education and the New Politics of Gender Equality (University of California Press, 2016), and contributing co-editor of Public Affairs: Politics in the Age of Sex Scandals (Duke UP, 2004). Dr. Williams has published numerous research articles in academic journals including Signs, Gender & Society, Law & Society Review, Harvard Journal of Law & Gender, and Political Research Quarterly. Her recent research projects include a multi-year study, NSF-supported study of gender neutrality in U.S. law, the media and activism (conducted with Dr. Abigail Saguy). Currently, Dr. Williams is working on a book project entitled The Problem with Pink which examines the ambivalent status of the concept of femininity within feminist theory and politics since the 1960s.

Publications

• “A Little Word That Means A Lot: A Reassessment of Singular They in a New Era of Gender Politics.” 2022. Co-authored with Abigail Saguy. Gender & Society 36(1): 5-31.
• “Reassessing Gender Neutrality.” 2020. Co-authored with Abigail Saguy and Mallory Rees. Law & Society Review 54(1): 7-32.
• Review of Butterfly Politics. By Catharine A. Mackinnon. 2019. Politics & Gender (15) 1: 17-19.
• “Reimagining Gender Neutrality in the News.” 2019. Co-authored with Abigail Saguy. Signs 44(2): 465-489.
• “Sex Scandals, Reputational Management, and Masculinities Under Neoliberal Conditions.” 2019. Co-authored with Paul Apostolidis. Sexualities. Special issue editors Gary A. Fine and Rebecca Plante. 1-22.
• “Feminist Jurisprudence.” 2015. Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory. Eds. Mary Hawkesworth and Lisa Disch. Oxford University Press.
• “The Possibilities and Perils of Social Justice Feminism: What We Can Learn form the Single-Sex Public Education Debates.” 2014. University of Cincinnati Law School Freedom Center Journal, Special Issue on Social Justice Feminism: 87-100.
• “Same DNA, But Born This Way”: Lady Gaga and the Possibilities of Post-Essentialist Feminisms.” 2014. Journal of Popular Music Studies 26 (1): 28-46.
• “Thinking Through ‘The Boy Crisis’: Multiple Masculinities and the Politics of Difference.” 2013. In Exploring Masculinities: Feminist Legal Theory Reflections. Eds. Martha Albertson Fineman and Michael Thompson. Hart Publishing: 163-175.
• “Girls Can Be Anything…But Boys Will Be Boys: On Gender Essentialism and the ‘Boy Crisis.’” 2013. University of Nevada Law Review 13: 533-546.
• “Neo-Orientalism.” Co-authored with Ali Behdad. 2010. In Globalizing American Studies. Eds. Brian Edwards and Dilip Gaonkar. University of Chicago Press, 283-299.
• “Learning Differences: Sex-Role Stereotyping in Single-Sex Public Education.” 2010. Harvard Journal of Law and Gender 33 (2): 555-580.
• “Unholy Matrimony: Feminism, Orientalism, and the Possibility of Double Critique.” 2009. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society34 (3): 611-632.
• “On the Popular Vote.” 2005. Political Research Quarterly 58 (4): 637-646.
• “The Personal is Political: Thinking Through the Clinton/Lewinsky/Starr Affair.” 2001. PS: Political Science and Politics. 24 (1): 93-98.

Awards

• Faculty Co-Lead, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. For “UCLA Mellon Social Justice Curriculum.” $5 million. January 2021-June 2026
• Co-PI, National Science Foundation, Law and Social Science and Sociology Programs. For “How difference matters in the development of legal doctrine” (with Abigail Saguy) $325,000. September 1 2017-August 31 2021
• UCLA Center for American Politics and Public Policy Kenneth L. Sokoloff Fellow, 2015
• Ms. Magazine Writers’ Workshop for Feminist Scholars, 2009

Projects

• The Problem with Pink: On Feminism and Femininity