Diane Balser

Diane Balser has been teaching Women’s Studies courses at Boston University for the past seven years and is also the director of undergraduate studies for Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies minors. She teaches WS 113, Women, Society, and Culture, and she also teaches seminars in Women and Politics.

Professor Balser holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Brandeis University. Her doctoral dissertation, “Sisterhood and Solidarity: Feminism and Labor in Modern Times,” was published by South End Press (1987). From 1983 – 1994, Dr. Balser founded and built the Women’s Statewide Legislative Network of Massachusetts. It is the largest network of individuals and organizations in Massachusetts representing women on public policy issues. The Network trained thousands of women in effective participation in the legislative process and in public policy decision making. It provided women with access to legislators, congressional delegations, and gubernatorial administrations, and also offered consultation to public policy makers on issues concerning women and children.

For more than twenty-five years, Diane Balser has been an international trainer on women’s issues and leadership development thorough the Reevaluation Counseling communities. She has led workshops for women (and women and men) in the context of this peer empowerment support network in various locations throughout the world, including North and South America, Western and Eastern Europe, Japan, Africa, and Australia. She has given talks to conferences/seminars in South Africa, the Netherlands, Israel, and other countries.

Dr. Balser has led delegations of women to the Third and Fourth NGO International Conferences for Women. At the Fourth World Women’s Conference, in China, she led training workshops on global issues pertaining to women’s lives.