WID Spotlight on...

Rita Gallin

Dr. Rita S. Gallin served as Director of the Women and International Development (WID) Program for 13 years (1983-1996) to promote women and international development as an integral and institutionalized part of MSU's research and educational agenda. Under her leadership, WID became one of the most highly respected programs of its type in the US. In collaboration with the Center for Advanced Study of International Development, she obtained US Department of Education Title VI grants for programs to support faculty development of courses and curriculum related to women, gender international development and globalization.

Dr. Gallin began her professional career as an occupational therapist with a degree from Columbia University. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from Michigan State University and later joined the Sociology Department. She first went to Taiwan with her husband, Dr. Bernard Gallin, where she studied women's productive and reproductive labor. She continued her research in Taiwan throughout her career and has spent over 30 years working within the same families in both the rural and urban areas of Taiwan. Currently, she is examining manners of women's resistance in the form of how women's "talk," their speech and conversation, are contextualized among Taiwanese women.

The Women and International Development Program first began as a committee partially supported by funds from USAID to train specialists to incorporate gender into their work. A grant from the Ford Foundation, which incorporated gender specialists from Wisconsin, Harvard, and Michigan State University, enabled those interested in issues of women and development to come together. Within MSU, this grant began the formation of a committee evolved into the Women and International Development Program.

Dr. Gallin was initially hired to start the Working Papers series, which features article-length manuscripts by scholars from a broad range of disciplines. She became WID's third director in 1983, writing the initial U.S. Department of Education Title IV Grant with assistance from the Center for the Advanced Study of International Development (CASID). Today, WID and CASID operate jointly as a U.S. Department of Education, Title IV National Resource Center.

During her time as Director of WID, Dr. Gallin wrote a grant on behalf of the MUCIA/WID (Midwest Universities Consortium for International Activities) project to build gender into USAID's programs. Other areas of contribution centered on the collaboration with the Women's Studies Department at MSU. The emphasis of this partnership was to break down the dichotomy between the theoretical aspects of Women's Studies programs and the practical application of Women and International Development. Dr. Gallin also created the award entitled WID Best Paper, which included two prizes, one for undergraduates and one for graduates. After she stepped down as Director, the paper competition was named after her: Rita S. Gallin Award for the Best Graduate Student Paper in Women and International Development.

Reflecting on how concepts of gender have shifted throughout her time at WID and at MSU, Dr. Gallin notes the chilly climate for women has somewhat improved as she reflected upon her PhD committee, which consisted of all male faculty. When she first came on board as faculty member and WID Director, she was the only woman working in her building and faced issues of invisibility. Analyzing current trends in gender studies, she argues, "Gender must also be contextualized along with class, race/ethnicity, sexuality, and other hierarchical social markers," whereas the study of gender itself has come a long way in academia – it must now involve these other power relations. She also explains how transnational feminism is a current theme in gender studies, particularly when examining the theoretical shifts from WID (Women in Development), WAD (Women and Development), and GAD (Gender and Development) to transnationalism feminism.

Looking ahead, Dr. Gallin caution researchers concerned with gender and development against working solely with issues in the United States, specifically when technology has influenced how women are organizing themselves via the Internet. Women in urban areas and in more rural, remote regions are in touch with themes that span the globe and isolating issues within one region does not provide a complete picture.