Lila Leibowitz

Lila Leibowitz, anthropologist and Associate Professor of Anthropology at Northeastern University, was born Lila Shapiro in New York City. She received her B.A. from Brooklyn College in 1952 (magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa), and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1959 and 1971. In 1956 she married Richard Leibowitz; they had two daughters, Karla (born 1958) and Jean (1960). She joined the Department of Sociology and Anthropology in 1965 and served as Executive Officer, 1971-1974, 1975-1976. LL lived in Arlington, Massachusetts, until her death in June 1984.

LL was known for her cross-disciplinary research encompassing sociology, anthropology, biology, and psychology. She researched the sexual division of labor and was a critic of sociobiology, which stresses innate gender differences and the natural superiority of males. She wrote many articles and was author of Females, Males and Families: A BioSocial Approach (1978), Evolution in Tuberculin Treatment (1966), and a community study of Eastport, Maine, which was not completed. LL was guest lecturer at many universities, and was a member of such local groups as the Boston Genes and Gender Study Group and the Sociobiology Study Group of Science for the People. She was a member of the Association of Women in Sociology (AWIS) and the American Anthropological Association, board member of the Anthropology Research Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and member and president (1976-1977) of the Northeastern Anthropological Association. For further biographical information, see the curriculum vitae in #62.