External links
- Heather Widdows Archived 19 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine at University of Birmingham
- Heather Widdows at IMDb
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Heather Widdows | |
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| Born | 29 August 1972 |
| Nationality | British |
| Spouse(s) | Professor Matthew Hilton, Vice-Principal for Humanities and Social Sciences, Queen Mary University of London |
| Awards | Charles Beale Award for Policy Advancement (2013) |
| Education | |
| Alma mater | University of Edinburgh (BD, PhD) |
| Philosophical work | |
| Institutions | University of Edinburgh Imperial College,London University of Birmingham University of Warwick |
| Main interests | Ethics,Policy and governance issues in particular: •Beauty,Everyday Lookism,Public health Crises •Global Ethics,Moral Theory •Feminist Theory,Women's rights •Bioethics,Reproductive Technologies,Medical Tourism,Genetic Ethics and Governance •War on Terror,Global Justice |
| Notable works | Perfect Me:Beauty as an Ethical Ideal |
| Website | https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/philosophy/people/summaries/widdows/ https://everydaylookism.bham.ac.uk |
Heather Widdows (born 29 August 1972) is a British philosopher,specialising in applied ethics. She was at the University of Birmingham for 22 years,beginning as research fellow and finishing as Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and Knowledge Transfer). [1] She is currently a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Warwick. [2] Her research is in the areas of global ethics,feminist philosophy,and philosophy of health and bioethics. In 2005,she was awarded a visiting fellowship at Harvard University.
Her most recent book,Perfect Me:Beauty as an Ethical Ideal (Princeton University Press,2018),explores how the nature of the beauty ideal is changing - becoming more dominant,demanding and global than ever before. [3] Widdows argues that to address the harms caused by the beauty ideal,we must first understand its ethical nature. Vogue described the book as "groundbreaking", [4] and writer and journalist Bri Lee included Perfect Me in her article Books That Changed Me. [5]
Widdows did her undergraduate degree Systematic Theology first class [6] and PhD at the University of Edinburgh. She completed her PhD thesis in 1999 on "The relationship of morality and religion :an investigation of the issue in modern anglophone philosophy". She was supervised by Professor James P. Mackey and Ronald Hepburn. Following the completion of her PhD,spent a year as a post-doctoral research fellow at Imperial College London. She became part of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham as a research fellow in the Centre for the Study of Global Ethics in 2001. Widdows continued to work there until 2022,becoming a lecturer in 2003,senior lecturer in 2005,and professor of global ethics in 2009. She became the deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research Impact in 2017,and Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Knowledge transfer in 2021. In 2022 became a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Warwick.
Widdows is currently the deputy chair of the REF2021 Philosophy sub-panel. Previously she was a member of the REF2014 Philosophy sub-panel.
Heather served as a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics from 2014 to 2020 and previously on the UK Biobank Ethics and Governance Council from 2007 to 2013, [7] and a member of Nuffield Council on Bioethics Working Party on Cosmetic Procedures from 2015 to 2016. [8]
Heather's work on appearance-based discrimination,or lookism,was also cited in the Women and Equalities Committee inquiry into 'Changing the perfect picture:an inquiry into body image'. [9]
She has published four sole-authored books:The Moral Vision of Iris Murdoch (Ashgate Publishing Ltd.,2006);Global Ethics:An Introduction (Acumen,2011);The Connected Self:The Ethics and Governance of the Genetic Individual (Cambridge University Press,2013) and most recently Perfect Me:Beauty as an Ethical Ideal (Princeton University Press,2018).
Perfect Me:Beauty as an Ethical Ideal (Princeton University Press) was published in 2018. Widdows was supported in writing this book by a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship. In Perfect Me Widdows argues that beauty is functioning as ethical ideal,transforming our understandings of the world,our judgements of others and ourselves. [10] Perfect Me was also voted one of the 19 best books of 2018 by The Atlantic, [11] and one of the 100 best books to read in a lifetime by Edarabia. [12] Perfect Me has also been mentioned in Vogue [13] ,Vogue Japan [14] and Paper Magazine. [15] [16]
Widdows is a co-founder of the Beauty Demands Network. [17] The project began with an AHRC Network Grant on 'The Changing Requirements of Beauty' which finished in June 2016. Beauty Demands publishes a blog every two weeks (co-run by Widdows and Dr Fiona MacCallum,University of Warwick), [18] and in 2016 published a Briefing Paper. The briefing paper contains key findings of the network in ethics,psychology and law,and makes policy recommendations based upon these. [19] The briefing paper was launched at the Nuffield Council on Bioethics in June 2016. [20]
Widdows launched a social media campaign to end body shaming at the Annual Global Ethics Conference at the University of Birmingham in June 2019. [21] Widdows argues that lookism is a prejudice that is more prevalent and more damaging in a virtual culture where our bodies are ourselves. Body shaming is shaming people. Lookism has become so common that we have come to accept it,and even worse,expect it. [22] The campaign asks people to share their lookism stories on social media using the hashtag or anonymously via the website. #everydaylookism has been mentioned by The Telegraph, [23] Birmingham Live. [24] and The Body Cons Podcast. [25]
Heather has been quoted in The Guardian, [26] [27] the New York Times, [28] Vogue, [29] BBC Newsround, [30] Seventeen. [31] and Le Monde. [32] She has also appeared on BBC Two's Victoria Derbyshire programme,and been interviewed by BBC Radio 4 and ABC Radio (Australia).
In addition to her books,Widdows has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and chapters in edited collections.
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