Join us on April 4, 2024 at 12pm for “The Gender of Capital,” a lecture by Céline Bessière, professor of sociology at Paris Dauphine University and a senior member at the Institut Universitaire de France. The lecture is presented by the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Wealth and Income Inequality. A reception will follow.
About the Book
Why do women in different social classes accumulate less wealth than men? Why do marital separations impoverish women while they do not prevent men from maintaining or increasing their wealth? In this lecture, Céline Bessière will discuss her new co-authored book, The Gender of Capital, which reconsiders the effectiveness of legal reforms that legislate formal equality between men and women, while permitting inequality to persist in practice.
— “A fantastic, must-read book… this work should be at the top of your reading list. Bessière and Gollac deftly disentangle the complex processes of estate planning, divorce proceedings, and marital arrangements that have brought us to this point.”—Thomas Piketty
— “The Gender of Capital is a rare gem. Illuminating entrenched social and legal practices, Bessière and Gollac expertly demonstrate the grip of gender inequality in shaping the transmission of wealth.”—Viviana A. Zelizer
— “Richly documented and incisively argued […] this book offers welcome confirmation that gender is an important determinant of inequality, both within and across divisions of class.”—Joan Wallach Scott
About the Speaker
Céline Bessière is Professor of sociology at Paris Dauphine University (PSL University) and a senior member at the Institut Universitaire de France. She is currently a visiting professor at the Institute of French Studies at New York University. She studies the material, economic and legal dimensions of family, in particular through the analysis of inheritance and marital breakdown. Her new project is about gender and wealth accumulation in Europe. Her research is at the crossroads of several fields: economic sociology, sociology of law and justice, sociology of gender, class and family. Her most recent book, The Gender of Capital, was recently adapted into a graphic novel with Jeanne Puchol.
About the Stone Center
The James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Wealth and Income Inequality at UC Berkeley was created to serve as a research hub for campus and beyond, enabling UC Berkeley’s world-leading scholars to deepen our understanding of the inequality in society and formulate new approaches to address the challenge of creating a more equitable society. The center serves as the primary convening point at UC Berkeley for research, teaching and data development concerning the causes, nature, and consequences of wealth and income inequalities with a special emphasis on the concentration of wealth at the very top. Learn more.
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