Research

I’m Director of Gender Studies and lecturer in Sociology at the University of Sussex, UK, and have been there since 2005. I have an MA in political theory from the University of Manchester, and a PhD in the sociology of education from the University of Cambridge.  My research focuses on gender, power relations and social practices, across a range of different themes from the economy to the body.

My current research is on the politics of the body, especially in relation to sexual violence and sex work. I am particularly concerned with how the cultural politics of class, often played out through bodies, interacts with experiences of and attitudes towards sexual assault and rape. As part of this agenda I am currently developing a pilot project on violence against sex workers. I am also interested in reproductive politics, and am currently supervising a three-year student project funded by Brighton and Sussex Medical School, on GPs’ attitudes to abortion. I am also developing research on women’s narratives of abortion, using data held in the Mass Observation Archive.

Previous projects, funded by the ESRC and the European Commission, explored the politics of labour market segregation – in particular, how the relationship between patriarchy and capitalism is played out in ‘non-traditional’ professional fields and how this delimits the work of activist groups concerned with gender equality. This work also involved looking at perceptions of and engagements with feminism(s) in the activist field.