The Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) is the largest gender

Gender

Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...

-focused, social science research-and-action organization in the U.S.

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, and a member of the The National Council for Research on Women . Based at Wellesley College, WCW was established when the Center for Research on Women (founded 1974) and the Stone Center for Development Services and Studies at Wellesley College (founded 1981) merged into a single organization. It is home to several prominent American feminist scholars, including Jean Kilbourne

Jean Kilbourne

Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D. is a feminist author, speaker, and filmmaker who is internationally recognized for her work on the image of women in advertising and her critical studies of alcohol and tobacco advertising...

 and Peggy McIntosh

Peggy McIntosh

Peggy McIntosh is an American feminist and anti-racist activist, the associate director of the Wellesley Centers for Women, and a speaker and the founder and co-director of the National S.E.E.D...

.

Research Topics

The WCW has seven key areas of research: Education, Child and Adolescent Development, Childcare, Work, Family and Society, Women's Human Rights, Gender Violence and Social-Emotional Well-Being.