Susanne Beechey
Associate Professor of Politics
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Maxey Hall 129
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509-527-5126
Susanne Beechey, Associate Professor of Politics, is an interdisciplinary, feminist scholar of public policy. Her teaching and research interrogate questions of gender, race, and sexuality in US social policies.
Professor Beechey holds a PhD in Public Policy in the field of Gender and Social Policy from George Washington University and a BA from Macalester College.
Professor Beechey frequently includes Whitman students in her research, which engages interpretive methods to understand the meanings constructed, challenged, and circulated through social policies and policy debates. Her book, Social Security and the Politics of Deservingness, analyzed the Congressional Record and interviews with advocates to explored the role of whiteness, gender, age, and family in constructing and maintaining a politics of deservingness which informs Social Security policy debates. Her current research project explores shifts in federal sex education policy and the meanings around sexuality, gender, and race circulated in public school sex education curricula.
Politics 109 Introduction to U.S. Politics and Policymaking
Politics 200 Gender, Race, and Elections
Politics 250 Reproduction and State
Politics 254 Gender and Race in Law and Policy
Politics 311 Deservingness in U.S. Social Policy
Politics 325 Queer Politics and Policy
Politics 365 Political Economy of Care/Work
Politics 490 Knowledge, Power, and Politics (Capstone Senior Seminar)
Robert Y. Fluno Award for Distinguished Teaching in the Social Sciences, 2017
Suzanne L. Martin Award for Excellence in Mentoring, 2014
Book
Social Security and the Politics of Deservingness (Palgrave, 2016) https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781349918898
Book Chapters
“The Pedagogy of the Human Zoo and Whitman College” in Scenes & Types, edited by Elyse Semerdjian, Elizabeth Miller and David Schultz. Whitman College, 2016.
“When Feminism is Your Job: Age and Power in National Women’s Policy Organizations” in Different Wavelengths: Studies of the Contemporary Women’s Movement edited by Jo Reger; Routledge Press, 2005.
Book Reviews
Elder Care Journey: A View From the Front Lines, New Political Science, 40:2, 428-429, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1080/07393148.2018.1449282
Trans: Gender and Race in an Age of Unsettled Identities by Rogers Brubaker. Politics & Gender 13(3), 522-524, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X17000125