This is U of T: Judith Taylor, a 'difficult woman' who helps students grow

Judith Taylor doesn’t shy away from difficult topics in her classroom. In fact, she embraces them. 

“I don’t care about keeping it all careful,” says Taylor, an associate professor in the department of sociology in the Faculty of Arts & Science and the Women and Gender Studies Institute. “We get into it and everyone is better for it.”

Taylor is a scholar of social movements whose research focuses on feminist activism, neighbourhood community organizing and social change-making within public institutions. 

While the Brett Kavanaugh U.S. Supreme Court hearings were in progress, Taylor wrote an op-ed for the Toronto Star about her experiment emulating white male privilege. 

Her story was widely shared, inspiring many readers – and angering more than a few. 

In her classes, she similarly encourages students to tackle controversial subjects head-on. Sometimes they’ll make mistakes or say something others don’t want to hear. 

And that’s OK, she says, “Because that’s how you grow intellectually, that’s how you grow personally and that’s how you grow politically.”