Linda Scott, the DP World Chair for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Oxford University’s Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, will speak at the University of Vermont on Thursday, Oct. 24 at 4:30 p.m. in Memorial Lounge in the Waterman Building. Her lecture is titled "Market Feminism: How Businesses are Changing to Meet the Needs of Working Women."

Scott’s research focuses on women’s economic empowerment. She and her team at Oxford have conducted several studies of women’s entrepreneurship programs in developing countries, including the only independent assessment of the Avon system, done in South Africa.  Currently, she is working on evaluations for the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women’s Distance Mentoring program in 27 countries. She has taught for three years on the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Program. Her team began to build a measurement and assessment system for the global Walmart Empowering Women Together program on Oct. 1.

"Linda Scott brings a global perspective to the condition of women around the world," said UVM Marsh Professor-at Large Madeleine Kunin, who is co-sponosring the talk. "She will focus on the progress that women are making in the corporate sector, drawing on her research at Oxford University."

Scott has particular interest and expertise in the impact of consumer goods on women and their communities. For instance, she and her team conducted the first empirical demonstration of the impact of providing sanitary pads on the education of schoolgirls in Africa.

Scott has authored numerous books and articles, including Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Fashion and Feminism (Palgrave 2005), a different take on the historical relationship between American feminism and the beauty industry. She is a regular contributor to Oxford Analytica and has been honored by the Thinkers 50 as a breakthrough thinker and emergent “guru.” Scott also leads The Oxford Forum for Women in the World Economy, an annual symposium more colloquially called “Power Shift.”

In addition to the Marsh Professor-at-Large program, the talk is sponsored by President Tom Sullivan; the Department of Economics; the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies; the Department of Political Science; and the Vermont Council on World Affairs. 

Scott’s talk is the first of two Professor-at-Large Kunin is hosting at UVM in a series titled "Women Challenging Traditions." On Nov. 7, Isobel Coleman, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, will give talk titled "Women, Sharia Law and Reform in the Middle East."

PUBLISHED

10-16-2013
Jeffrey R. Wakefield