Sarah Richardson
@profrichardson.bsky.social
740 followers 450 following 41 posts
Aramont Professor of the History of Science and Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard University More about my work at https://scholar.harvard.edu/srichard/
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
I'm quoted along w/ Martine Lappé and Marga Viceda in this piece: " We live in an era of intensive pressure around parenting and expectations that one will do whatever possible to optimize outcome. And there's very little tolerance for the idea that there are many things not under our control."
'Long history of blaming mothers': Trump's Tylenol warning echoes past misconceptions
Medical scholars say, efforts to find a singular cause for autism has historically led to scrutinizing parents and fueling stigma about autism
www.npr.org
I engage in scholarly debate as well as address public audiences and speak to media about my work, but I do not engage with inflammatory personal attacks and threats.
The goal of my work is to build conversations across fields and disciplines about how to conduct rigorous and ethical research on sex-related biological variation.
Sex is an important biological developmental process, a vital concept for scientific research, and also a polysemic, plural, and contextual concept.
There are many plain language resources and open access materials on my website and the GenderSci Lab site that thoroughly explain and answer common questions about my position on sex.
As a historian and philosopher of science, I study how scientists across fields and over time use the concept of sex.
They seem to have reading comprehension issues and are distorting my words and the piece as part of their rage machine. Already getting trickles of hate in my email inbox. It's been round after round of this. I guess I've gotten under their skin! Too bad Twitter is such a partisan bubble now.
Friends tell me that now Steven Pinker, Michael Shermer and crowd are on Twitter still dragging me for the 2-page book review essay I wrote for the Lancet this summer. A few comments below.
Reminder! Submission deadline: Dec. 1
***Call for Papers***

Gametic Politics: Eggs, Sperm, and Gender/Sex in the 21st Century

A workshop for early-career researchers organized by Rene Almeling and Sarah Richardson.

April 16-17, 2026
Yale University
New Haven, CT

Details and application form:
www.renealmeling.com/gametic-poli...
Gametic Politics Workshop
Call for papers for social science and humanities scholars studying eggs, sperm, and gender/sex in the 21st century
www.renealmeling.com
Reposted by Sarah Richardson
Call for Papers! 🚨

Gametic Politics: Eggs, Sperm, and Gender/Sex in the 21st Century

A Workshop for Early-Career Researchers organized by Rene Almeling (@ralmeling.bsky.social) and Sarah Richardson (@profrichardson.bsky.social)

April 16-17, 2026; Yale University, New Haven, CT
Gametic Politics Workshop
Call for papers for social science and humanities scholars studying eggs, sperm, and gender/sex in the 21st century
www.renealmeling.com
Reposted by Sarah Richardson
"Defending research and clinical practice in gender-related areas must be a priority in the face of perilous new attacks on science and academic freedom" - "Gender Under Attack," by GenderSci Lab director Sarah Richardson (@profrichardson.bsky.social) , in today's Lancet.
Q&A about my new paper, extending my work on "sex contextualism." Analyzing a debate over whether estrous cycle needs to be accounted for in sex difference research designs, the paper shows how scientists make contextual judgments about what counts as "sex itself" in laboratory rodent research.
Riddles of Sex Difference Science: Q&A with Sarah Richardson — GenderSci Lab
In a new open access article recently published in the journal Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology , GenderSci Lab Director Sarah Richardson extends and develops her framework of “sex con...
www.genderscilab.org
New sex contextualism article out in PTPBio! "Sex and the Riddle of Variability" - check it out.
Check out our latest issue with some outstanding papers from outstanding authors! As always, we are fully #openaccess, free for both authors and readers.

🌱🐋 🌎

journals.publishing.umich.edu/ptpbio/issue...

Research Articles
The Price Equation Since Price: An Accessible Account and a Generalization to Categorical Variables

Stephen Francis Mann

2025-06-11 Volume 17 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Article 1
Plant Individuality: A Physiological Approach

Özlem Yilmaz and John Dupré

2025-06-11 Volume 17 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Article 2
Sex and the Riddle of Variability

Sarah S. Richardson

2025-06-11 Volume 17 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Article 3
Generalized Selected Effects Functions and Ecology

Antoine C. Dussault and Frédéric Bouchard

2025-06-11 Volume 17 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Article 4
Debiasing Collection in Field Biology

Derek Halm and Carlos Santana

2025-06-11 Volume 17 • Issue 1 • 2025 • Article 5
Reposted by Sarah Richardson
Resharing with the update that the GenderSci Lab's NSF grant was terminated last week, leaving us with a $500K shortfall. I am seeking both small donors and partners w/ capacity to provide serious bridge funding for our work while Harvard fights for the future of US higher ed and science.
Today I am launching a direct fundraising effort for the Harvard GenderSci Lab, which I founded in 2018. In the current political and funding climate, private contributions are essential to sustaining our vital work. Please share to help us spread the word!
📣 Donate to support the Harvard GenderSci Lab! 📣 If you believe in feminist science, in research that challenges bias, and in training the next generation of feminist scholars — please consider supporting or sharing! Learn more at this link:
www.genderscilab.org/donate
Reposted by Sarah Richardson
Today I am launching a direct fundraising effort for the Harvard GenderSci Lab, which I founded in 2018. In the current political and funding climate, private contributions are essential to sustaining our vital work. Please share to help us spread the word!
📣 Donate to support the Harvard GenderSci Lab! 📣 If you believe in feminist science, in research that challenges bias, and in training the next generation of feminist scholars — please consider supporting or sharing! Learn more at this link:
www.genderscilab.org/donate
Donate — GenderSci Lab
www.genderscilab.org
Today I am launching a direct fundraising effort for the Harvard GenderSci Lab, which I founded in 2018. In the current political and funding climate, private contributions are essential to sustaining our vital work. Please share to help us spread the word!
📣 Donate to support the Harvard GenderSci Lab! 📣 If you believe in feminist science, in research that challenges bias, and in training the next generation of feminist scholars — please consider supporting or sharing! Learn more at this link:
www.genderscilab.org/donate
Donate — GenderSci Lab
www.genderscilab.org
Reposted by Sarah Richardson
New work out! Thread at the link.
🌟Scholars and activists interested in women’s health, femtech, and capitalism.🌟 Our new piece, forthcoming in Signs, introduces the concept of “investment feminism” as a useful way to understand how financialization shapes the conversation around femtech and gender health equity.
tinyurl.com/ffcs67h
Investment Feminism and Women's Health
This essay introduces the term investment feminism to characterize the phenomenon in which financial actors position investment as a powerful lever for advancing gender equity. We offer investment fem...
dash.harvard.edu
Reposted by Sarah Richardson
Sex Based Medicine: Helpful or Harmful?

Join The Moynihan Center on Thursday, March 13 from 2:00 to 3:30PM EDT for a panel featuring Catherine Clune-Taylor, Anais Hausvater, Sarah Richardson (@profrichardson.bsky.social), and Angela Saini.

Register here: www.eventbrite.com/e/sex-based-...
Sex Based Medicine: Helpful or Harmful?
Join The Moynihan Center for a panel featuring Catherine Clune-Taylor, Anais Hausvater, Sarah Richardson, and Angela Saini.
www.eventbrite.com
They could, but the question is, will the NIH allow these budget line items? And, of course, this will reduce the amount available for research.
The amount of the cut in indirect costs will vary depending on the institution's negotiated rate. So for an institution that has 30% now, their cut will be 50%. For my institution which has 69%, it's close to 80%! Indirect costs are a large, but not the sole, source of a university's budget.