Gail Lewis

Gail Lewis (born 1951) is a British writer, psychotherapist, researcher, and activist. She is visiting senior fellow in the Department of Gender Studies at the London School of Economics, and Reader Emerita of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck College, London. She trained as a psychodynamic psychotherapist at the Tavistock Clinic. and she was a member of the Brixton Black Women's Group. She was a founding collective editorial member of the Feminist Review. Lewis was interviewed for the oral history project "Sisterhood and After: The Women's Liberation", archived at the British Library, a project that interviewed "feminists who were at the forefront of the Women's Liberation Movement in the 1970s and 80s".

Biography and education Lewis was born and raised in London; her mother was white and her father was from British Guiana.

Lewis studied Social Anthropology at the London School of Economics (LSE), followed by an MPhil in Development Studies at the University of Sussex. She passed her PhD in Social Policy with the Open University, and taught in the Open University Social Sciences Faculty between 1995 and 2004 and 2007 to 2013.

Career Lewis was Reader in Psychosocial Studies in the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck College until 2019, having joined the department in 2013 and served as Assistant Dean between 2015 and 2017.

She has been a visiting Scholar at Clark University, Massachusetts, USA.

Lewis has held many roles within academic publishing, including:

Co-Editor: European Journal of Women's Studies (2008–2017) Editorial Board: Social Politics (2007–2010) Editorial Board: Free Associations (2012–2018) Advisory Board: Studies in the Maternal (2010–2017) Co-Editor: Feminist Theory (2005–2007) Editorial Collective: Feminist Review (1990–1999)

Lewis gave evidence in 2000 to the "Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain", published as The Parekh Report. Lewis identified the importance of gender to the future of multi-ethnic Britain and the role of social policy in social inclusion.

Honours In 2019, Lewis was invited to give the Feminist Review Annual Lecture. Lewis's lecture was entitled "Lies and Disguises: The Racialisation of "Culture" and Child Sexual Exploitation". In 2019, Lewis was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Tavistock Clinic/Essex University. Lewis was recognised as one of the "feminists who were at the forefront of the Women's Liberation Movement in the 1970s and 80s", and interviewed for the oral history project 'Sisterhood and After: The Women's Liberation', archived at the British Library.

Selected publications Books Editor and co-author of Citizenship: personal lives and social policy (Bristol: The Policy Press in Association with the Open University, 2004). Race, Gender, Social Welfare: Encounters in a postcolonial society (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000).