Research Overview
The projects listed below are ongoing studies in the ProgressLab, including collaborations with graduate students, postdocs, other faculty. Under each study are the main questions or issues that animate the research.
Reproductive Justice
Americans’ Abortion Attitudes
Attitudes towards abortion play a significant role in U.S. politics. While religious and political affiliations have been important predictors of abortion attitudes, we argue that other social attitudes—specifically anti-Black racism and sexism—are predictive of abortion attitudes as well and remain under-examined when understanding Americans’ perceptions of abortion.
Sexual Pathways Project
How do sex education sources shape what women know about and imagine for their sexual lives? How does this knowledge (or lack thereof) affect sexual outcomes for women across the sexual identity spectrum?
Lesbian, Bisexual & Queer Women’s Sexual Health in Kenya
In close coordination with local LBQ-serving organizations, this project uses feminist and participatory methods to promote health equity among LBQ women in Kenya by understanding cultural and local conceptualizations of sexual wellbeing, health, and sexualities.
Intimate Justice
Sexual Satisfaction & Relationships Study
What are the dimensions of sexual satisfaction? Do these definitions differ for men and women, heterosexual-and LGBT-identified individuals, and those in and out of long-term relationships?
Dating & Relationships Study
How do heterosexual and LGBT men and women define sexual satisfaction? Do limited political rights impact what people believe they deserve in their sexual lives? How do individuals’ sense of fairness and equity affect their sexual relationships? How do people develop a sense of what is “good enough” in their intimate relationships?
Feminist Research Methods
In this line of work, we develop and work with a range of feminist methods which pair empirical procedures (such as interviews and surveys) with assessments of people's expectations and feelings of deservingness. Across many studies, we have found that individuals' expectations, often shaped by unequal political rights, play a central role in participants’ responses and should not be ignored by researchers.
Adolescent Sexuality
Queer Youth Project
What is the phenomenon of sexual attraction and is it being adequately assessed in public health research? How do young people experience and describe same-sex attraction?
Public Policy & Adolescent Sexual Development Project
What is the role of public policy, including abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education, in shaping young people’s sexual development? How do aspects of economic, political, and social desire impact adolescents’ development of sexual desire?
Conceptual Analysis
Ambivalence
This project seeks to explore the status of “ambivalence” as an analytic concept, critical method, social diagnostic, skill or capacity, and political agenda. Our aims include a multi-disciplinary analysis and use of the discourses of ambivalence that are central to contemporary analyses of affect, memoir, witnessing, racism, sexual pleasure, pornography, mothering, and abortion.
Hating
This project is rooted in a theory of hate developed by Opotow and McClelland (2007). In subsequent work, we have relied on historical and contemporary examples of hate, including court documents and testimony, to better the psychological structures of hating. In particular, we examine what hating look like from the perspective of the hater.
Illness & Intimacy
Intimacy & Sexual Quality of Life Study
How do women who have been diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer describe their sexual quality of life? What kinds of patient support and information are described as useful, necessary, or missing? What do existing research methods used to measure sexual health overlook in this population?
Measures of Sexual Quality of Life for Female Cancer Survivors
How is female sexual health defined and measured in research studies of women with breast cancer? What can we learn from a systematic analysis of the content of items written to assess sexual quality of life? Are there aspects of sexual health that remain under-studied?