Publications

"Men Find Trophies Where Women Find Insults: Sharing Nude Images of Others as Collective Rituals of Sexual Pursuit and Rejection" 2021. Gender & Society.

As sexting has become more common, so has the sharing of nude and semi-nude images of others. While women and men may both engage in this practice, when they do so they often participate in distinct gendered rituals. Drawing on 55 in-depth interviews with college students, I examine how the symbolic meanings attached to men and women’s nude images in the context of intimate heterosexual interactions shape collective rituals of sexual pursuit and sexual rejection. I find that men share images of women with their peers to demonstrate sexual prowess and receive praise, whereas women share images of men with their peers to cope with unwelcome sexual advances and receive support. these gendered rituals are linked to the perceived desirability of men’s and women’s nude images. While rituals of domination appear among men and reproduce unequal gender relations, rituals of commiseration appear among women to resist unequal gender relations.

"Standing up for Women? How Party and Gender Influence Politicians’ Strategic Online Discussion of Planned Parenthood" 2020. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy.

Research suggests that women may use social media to overcome disadvantages when running for and serving in public office. However, limited research has explored how party and gender influence politicians’ social media engagement and if the promotion of women’s issues remains gendered and marginalized online. I use negative binomial regression to analyze how gender and party influence U.S. House members’ discussion and framing of one women’s issue, the Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015, on Twitter. I find that Republican women are the most engaged on average and frame the defunding of Planned Parenthood as a women’s issue and fetal rights issue, balancing gender and party expectations, to strategically engage in this debate.

Maher, Thomas, Morgan Johnstonbaugh, and Jennifer Earl. 2020. "One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Connecting Views of Activism with Youth Activist Identification." Mobilization 25(1): 27-44.

Identity is crucial to social movement participation. Existing research examines why active people “avoid” activist identities but has less to say about how active people adopt such identities as if they automatically follow participation. We draw on interviews with high school and college students from a midsize southwestern city to examine how young people make sense of what it means to be an activist, who identifies as such, and why youth are willing—or unwilling—to adopt this label. We find that respondents’ conceptualizations of “activists” are critical to (non)identification. Those who see activism as a broad category are more likely to identify, holding constant their level of activity. Those who see activism as a greedy institution, requiring significant substantive fluency, making the issue their primary focus, and willingness to sacrifice, do not, despite their level of engagement. Our findings have implications for identity formation and movement participation more broadly.

"Where Are All of the Women? Untangling the Effects of Representation, Participation, and Preferences on Gender Differences in Political Press Coverage" 2018. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World 4: 1-12.

The author examines why female politicians continue to be underrepresented in the press by measuring how structural inequalities, engagement in traditional and disruptive dialogue, and gender preferences influence the amount of press coverage U.S. House representatives receive. Drawing on a data set of Tweets, press releases, and news articles and transcripts related to the 114th House of Representatives’ investigations of the Iran deal and Planned Parenthood, the author uses negative binomial regression to test the effects of gender, engagement, and interactions of the two on the press coverage received by male and female House members. The results indicate that female House members’ underrepresentation in the media mirrors their underrepresentation in public office. These findings suggest that although political discourse and gender preferences may not be keeping women out of the media when covering gendered topics, getting more women in public office is likely to be a cumbersome challenge in itself.

"Conquering with capital: social, cultural, and economic capital’s role in combating socioeconomic disadvantage and contributing to educational attainment" 2018. Journal of Youth Studies 21(5): 590 - 606.

While socioeconomic barriers to learning have been well-documented by education, sociology, and social policy scholars, further research is needed to understand how students with low-socioeconomic status excel in high-performing schools. The collection and analysis of 20 in-depth interviews with female college students from different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds provide rich insights into the stark differences between the educational practices of low and high-SES students. Building on Bourdieu’s conceptualization of how habitus and capital influence practices in the field of education exposes unique, strategic practices that low-SES students use to attain educational success within a system of reproduction and power. While entering a high-performing school is often perceived as a definitive step for accessing high-quality educational resources, my findings illustrate how it is actually an important intermediary step within a more complex process. Increasing educational opportunity and attainment for low-SES students requires improving their access to social, cultural, and economic capital through knowledgeable mentors who contribute to a habitus and portfolio of capital which enable practices to successfully navigate and challenge the educational system.