Genius Over Gender

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The prestigious MacArthur fellowships are known as "genius grants," but it doesn't take an Einstein to recognize that men have consistently won the bulk of the awards. Now the balance has shifted: 17 of the 33 fellowships for 1992 will go to women.

This year's crop includes the usual eclectic mix of talent. There are scholars, like historians Suzanne Lebsock of Rutgers and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich of the University of New Hampshire. There are creative artists, among them choreographer Twyla Tharp. There are social activists, including Janet Benshoof, a campaigner for women's reproductive rights, and Unita Blackwell, a ^ small-town mayor and civil rights advocate. Oh, and there are some males, like Harvard philosopher Stanley Cavell. The winners get from $150,000 to $375,000 over five years (younger recipients get less money) to spend as they wish.

-- The MacArthur Foundation wasn't alone in hurdling gender barriers last week. For the first time since the U.S. began naming a poet laureate, in 1986, the position has gone to a woman: Mona Van Duyn, 71. Van Duyn, a 1991 Pulitzer prizewinner, has often written about human relationships, drawing on her 48 years of wedlock to versify about "the complexities, bumps and humor of marriage."