Gwendolyn Mink writes and teaches about the race, class, and gender
dynamics of law, social policy, and social movements. With Wilma
Mankiller, Marysa Navarro, Gloria Steinem and Barbara Smith, she co-edited
The Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History (1998), which is the
first general reference work of its kind. Much of Professor Mink's
research deals with the U.S. welfare system and its reform. Her most
recent book, Welfare's End (1998) analyzes the nation's 30-year
campaign to reform and ultimately to end welfare as a campaign also waged
against poor women's rights. Her other books include The Wages of
Motherhood: Inequality in the Welfare State, 1917-1942 (1995), which
won the Victoria Schuck Book Award from the American Political Science
Association for the best book on women and politics. Between 1993 and
1996, she drew upon her expertise in welfare policy and politics to help
lead a feminist mobilization against punitive welfare reform. Since 1995,
she has co-chaired the Women's Committee of One Hundred, which worked to
defeat the Personal Responsibility Act.
Born in Chicago and
raised in Hawaii and Washington, D.C., Professor Mink attended the
University of Chicago from 1970 to 1972, received her bachelor's degree
from the University of California at Berkeley in 1974, and earned her
Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1982. She is a Professor of Politics at
the University of California at Santa Cruz.