Biography

I am a sociologist who has spent my career studying how subordinated groups are sometimes able to gain power by creating new cultural meaning.

To date, I have pursued these interests through several distinct lines of inquiry. These include: 1) how and why the United States and France developed different legal and corporate approaches to sexual harassment; 2) how fatness has come to be understood as a public health crisis, and how and why fat rights groups have promoted alternative understandings of bigger bodies; and 3) how and why various groups talk of “coming out” as members of these groups to resist stigma and collectively mobilize for social change. My current research examines how different conceptions of “gender” have been used to promote the liberation of women, gender nonconforming people, and transgender people. It examines tensions and conflicts within and between these different liberation projects and considers how they may be reconciled.