Professor Sarah Richardson has published a paper, “Sex Contextualism”, in the journal Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology. Sex contextualism is a framework for operationalizing and analyzing sex in a way that attends to its context-specific forms across biomedical research.

Members of Professor Richardson's GenderSci Lab created several educational resources that put the paper’s core ideas into a teachable, accessible format. 

• RESEARCH HANDOUT for scientists who use sex-related variables in their research. This is a handy 1-pager by geneticist Mia Miyagi with tips and considerations when designing your experiment.
• SLIDEDECK that explains the key ideas of sex contextualism, how it differs from sex essentialism, and why it matters. This can be adapted for classroom and other teaching settings, including intro biology, feminist science studies, and philosophy of biology classes. If using these slides, please attribute credit to GSL.
• Q&A BLOG: An interview with Dr. Heather Shattuck-Heidorn about the paper, touching on the motivation behind the framework, the strange forms sex takes in preclinical settings, ameliorative concepts, and more

Please join WGS in congratulating Professor Richardson and her lab members!

Professor Richardson directs the GenderSci Lab, an interdisciplinary feminist research group that works to advance the intersectional study of gender in the biomedical and allied sciences, counter bias and hype in sex difference research, and enhance public discourse surrounding the sciences of sex and gender. Her latest book is The Maternal Imprint: The Contested Science of Maternal-Fetal Effects from University of Chicago Press.