Elise M. Boulding

Boulding held many leadership positions in peace- and social justice-related groups, from chairing the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) to creating the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) to work with the United Nations through UNESCO and the University of the United Nations. She is considered to be one of the most influential peace researchers and activists of the 20th century. On June 11, 2000 the Peace Abbey, in Sherborn, Massachusetts, awarded Elise Boulding with the Courage of Conscience award for her lifelong commitment and contributions to peace and justice, envisioning the Peaceable Kingdom as a shared reality.

Boulding's book The Underside of History: A View of Women through Time, first published 1976, explored the changing roles of women from Paleolithic times to the present. She attempted to understand what she described as women's "underlife" and men's' "overlife" in social roles. Boulding likened modern women's roles to that of inmates: the household imprisons them and expects them to be "on call" at all times to provide for their husbands and children. Women are, in a sense, stripped of their identity, autonomy and privacy and considered "under" their family and husbands.

Elise M. Boulding (/ˈboʊldɪŋ/; July 6, 1920 – June 24, 2010) was a Norwegian-born American Quaker sociologist, and author credited as a major contributor to creating the academic discipline of Peace and Conflict Studies. Her holistic, multidimensional approach to peace research sets her apart as an important scholar and activist in multiple fields. Her written works span several decades and range from discussion of family as a foundation for peace, to Quaker spirituality to reinventing the international "global culture". Particularly of note is her emphasis on women and family in the peace process. Boulding was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1996.

Elise Biorn-Hansen was born in Oslo, Norway in 1920. Her family moved to the United States when she was three years old. She and her family were greatly affected by the outbreak of World War II and the German invasion of Norway. Elise became strongly convinced by living through the World War II years that violence was not the answer to the world's problems and that if even her peaceful homeland was at risk, violence was truly a systemic world concern. In her youth, she became active in anti-war activities and converted to a historic peace church, the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). It was at a Quaker meeting in May 1941 that she met her future husband, Kenneth Boulding (1910–1993), a respected English economist who would collaborate extensively with Elise on her peace work.