Lisa Wade

Occidental College, Sociology, Faculty Member

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Lisa Wade has published extensively on U.S. discourse about female genital cutting, has documented the dynamics of hook up culture, and considered the social significance of the body.

She is also the founder and editor of the most widely read sociology blog on the web, Sociological Images.The site is designed to encourage all kinds of people to exercise and develop their sociological imagination by presenting brief discussions of compelling and timely imagery that span the breadth of sociological inquiry. The website receives over 500,000 visits per month and is followed by users on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Lisa Wade is also a regular contributor to Ms., Jezebel, and GlobalPolicyTV. She has been quoted in the New York Times and on CNN and NPR. She has appeared on MTV, been a guest on KPCC, and was featured in the podcast Sounds Familiar.

She frequently travels to deliver public lectures. In 2012 she has had the pleasure of giving talks at Yale, Dartmouth, Harvard, Boston University, UCLA, and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, among others.

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Papers by Lisa Wade

The Function of Balance in U.S. News Coverage of Uncontested Issues: The Case of Female Genital Cutting

Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism 13, 7: 867-883., 2012

Most research on reporter practices examines coverage of contested topics. These require reporter... more Most research on reporter practices examines coverage of contested topics. These require reporters to demonstrate objectivity by counterposing authoritative sources representing opposing sides. I examine news articles about a topic uncontested in the USA, female genital cutting (FGC), to complicate our understanding of how reporters do their job. In contrast to the literature, reporters strike a balance, including the ‘general public’ of FGC-practicing communities extensively. However, because the balance is confined to non-authoritative speakers ‘over there’, the balance nonetheless serves to stigmatize proponents. This research shows that the negative portrayal of members of FGC-practicing communities is due not only to their erasure in news coverage. Instead, whether standing translates into influence depends on context, something reporters can manipulate when there is consensus. Likewise, the separation of topics into contested and uncontested erases the ways in which controversy is not a characteristic of issues, but a function of reporter decisions.

The New Science of Sex Difference

While scientists across the academy have abandoned the nature/nurture dichotomy, evidence for the... more While scientists across the academy have abandoned the nature/nurture dichotomy, evidence for the influences of society on our biology is greater than ever. This article reviews new developments in the biological sciences—in the sub-fields of genetics, hormones, and neuroscience—with special attention to the implications for sociologists interested in gender. The article closes with an argument that embracing these developments has both theoretical and methodological promise and can enhance rather than harm research and activism regarding gender equality and other social hierarchies.

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The Politics of Acculturation: Female Genital Cutting and the Challenge of Building Multicultural Democracies

"Understanding how the idea of culture is mobilized in discursive contests is crucial for both th... more "Understanding how the idea of culture is mobilized in discursive contests is crucial for both theorizing and building multicultural democracies. To investigate this, I analyze a debate over whether we should relieve the “cultural need” for infibulation among immigrants by offering a “nick” in U.S. hospitals. Using interviews, newspaper coverage, and primary documents, I show that physicians and opponents of the procedure with contrasting models of culture disagreed on whether it represented cultural change. Opponents argued that the “nick” was fairly described as “female genital mutilation” and symbolically identical to more extensive cutting. Using a reified model, they imagined Somalis to be “culture-bound”; the adoption of a “nick” was simply a move from one genital cutting procedure to another. Unable to envision meaningful cultural adaptation, and presupposing the incompatibility of multiculturalism and feminism, they supported forced assimilation. Physicians, drawing on a dynamic model of culture, believed that adoption of the “nick” was meaningful cultural change, but overly idealized their ability to protect Somali girls from both Somali and U.S. patriarchy. Unduly confident, they failed to take oppression seriously, dismissing relevant constituencies and their concerns.

Both models, then, influenced the outcome of this cultural conflict by shaping the perceptions of cultural change in problematic ways. Given the high-profile nature of “culture” in contemporary politics, these findings may very well extend to other issues that crystallize the supposed incommensurability of feminism and multiculturalism, as well as the wider debates about how societies can be both diverse and socially just. "

Learning from “Female Genital Mutilation”: Lessons from 30 Years of Academic Discourse

At the intersection of feminism and postcolonial theory is an acrimonious debate over female geni... more At the intersection of feminism and postcolonial theory is an acrimonious debate over female genital cutting (FGC). I subject this debate to an analysis in order to separate productive from destructive discursive strategies. I find that both FGC and the literature about the practice are frequently mischaracterized in consequential ways. Especially prior to the mid-1990s, scholars frame FGC as an example of either cultural inferiority or cultural difference. In the 1990s, postcolonial scholars contest the framing of FGC as a measure of cultural inferiority. However, they often argue that Western feminist engagement with FGCs, writ large, is ‘imperialist’. I contend that both accusations of African ‘barbarism’ and of Western feminist ‘imperialism’ are empirically false and inflammatory. Furthermore, reifying ‘African’ and ‘Western’ perspectives erases African opposition to FGC and Western feminist acknowledgement of transnational power asymmetry. I conclude with a discussion of the role of outrage in academic scholarship.

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Sociological Images: Blogging as Public Sociology

Social Science Computer Review 31, 2: 221-228., 2013

Sociological Images is a website aimed at a broad public audience that encourages readers to deve... more Sociological Images is a website aimed at a broad public audience that encourages readers to develop and apply a sociological imagination. The site includes short, accessible posts published daily. Each includes one or more images and accompanying commentary. Reaching approximately 20,000 readers per day, Sociological Images illustrates the potential for using websites as a platform for public engagement in the social sciences. This report provides an overview of the site’s history, approach, reach, and impact. The authors also discuss some challenges facing academics interested in blogging for a general audience and some of the features that contribute to the popularity of the site.

The Emancipatory Promise of the Habitus: Lindy Hop, the Body, and Social Change

Existing research about the role of the habitus in social change emphasizes inertia.Individuals i... more Existing research about the role of the habitus in social change emphasizes inertia.Individuals in new contexts are understood to face disadvantage, making disruptionof a hierarchical status quo difficult. Recent theory regarding our ability to strategicallychange and use our bodily habits, however, suggests that the habitus may not becondemned to a purely conservative role. Here I examine a community of lindy hopperswho are re-shaping the collective body towards feminist ends. Control over bodies isessential to partner dance. However, these dancers revision the lead/follow dynamic.Instead of an active/passive binary, partners happily negotiate power. This negotiation isdecidedly corporeal and cooperative and occurs spontaneously and constantly.My findings add empirical weight to theory regarding the role of the habitus in wide-spread social change, suggest that the habitus has emancipatory potential, and offer atemplate for how the habitus could be used by social movement actors.

Hooking Up and Opting Out: What Students Learn About Sex in their First Year of College

In Sex for Life: From Virginity to Viagra, How Sexuality Changes Throughout our Lives, edited by John D. DeLamater and Laura Carpenter. New York: New York University Press., 2012

Sexualizing Sarah Palin: The Social and Political Context of the Sexual Objectification of Female Candidates

Sex Roles 65, 3-4: 156-164., 2011

Using Sarah Palin’s candidacy for the vice presidency, Heflick and Goldenberg (2011) empirically ... more Using Sarah Palin’s candidacy for the vice presidency, Heflick and Goldenberg (2011) empirically link female sexual objectification with the negative perceptions and poor performances of female candidates. We argue that the authors undersell the importance of their findings, especially considering shifts in the content and ubiquitousness of mass media. Advances in communication technologies have enabled a new era of objectification, marked by an increasing presence and acceptance of sexual objectification in media, greater pornographic content in mainstream media, and greater acceptance of pornography in U.S. society more broadly. In the years since U.S. scholars began critiquing sexual objectification, its normalization and degree of penetration into our daily lives have increased, largely due to a proliferation of marketing and entertainment media images enabled by the Internet and other communication technology. Given this new era of objectification, we conclude that the phenomenon identified by Heflick and Goldenberg is more likely to influence the success of female politicians now than it was in the 1970s (when the sexual objectification of women was first problematized) and that it may also help explain the recent stagnation in U.S. progress towards gender equity in political representation.

Journalism, Advocacy, and the Social Construction of Consensus

Scholarship examining media coverage of social problems largely examines coverage of contentious ... more Scholarship examining media coverage of social problems largely examines coverage of contentious issues. In this study, I contribute to our understanding of journalist practices by examining coverage of an issue over which there is a US consensus: female genital cutting (FGC). With an analysis of newspaper coverage supplemented by interviews and primary documents, I find that, in contrast to existing literature that shows that reporters must refrain from issue advocacy, when consensus is widespread reporters can and do collaborate with advocates, harmonize with opinion writers, and use their physical presence and access to newsprint to pressure the state. Journalists, however, do not simply respond to consensus. Instead, I find that they can actively construct consensus by offering unique frames that depoliticize advocacy. These findings contribute to our understanding of media coverage of social problems by illustrating how consensus is both shaped by and shapes journalist practices.

The Function of Balance in U.S. News Coverage of Uncontested Issues: The Case of Female Genital Cutting

Journalism 13, 7: 867-883. , 2012

Hook-Up Culture: Setting a New Research Agenda

Sexuality Research and Social Policy 7, 4: 323., 2010

Summarizing the major findings of literature on hook-up culture, we propose a new research agenda... more Summarizing the major findings of literature on hook-up culture, we propose a new research agenda focusing on when and why this sexual subculture emerged. We explore a series of hypotheses to explain this sexual paradigm shift, including college and university policies, the gender distribution of students, changes in the nature of alcohol use, access to and consumption of pornography, the increased sexual content of non-pornographic media, rising self-objectification and narcissism, new marriage norms, and perceptions of sexual risk. We then recommend new directions for research, emphasizing the need to explore structural and psychological as well as cultural factors, the role of discrete events alongside slowly emerging social change, the need for intersectional research and studies of non-college-attending and post-college youth, and the benefits of longitudinal and cross-college designs.

The Incidental Orgasm: The Presence of Clitoral Knowledge and the Absence of Orgasm for Women

Women and Health 42, 1: 117-138., 2005

Women report anorgasmia and other difficulties achieving orgasm. One approach to alleviating this... more Women report anorgasmia and other difficulties achieving orgasm. One approach to alleviating this problem is to teach women about the clitoris. This assumes that women lack information about the clitoris and that knowledge about the clitoris is correlated with orgasm. Using a non-random sample of 833 undergraduate students, our study investigates both assumptions. First, we test the amount of knowledge about the clitoris, the reported sources of this knowledge, and the correlation between citing a source and actual knowledge. Second, we measure the correlation between clitoral knowledge and orgasm in both masturbation and partnered sex. Among a sample of undergraduate students, the most frequently cited sources of clitoral knowledge (school and friends) were associated with the least amount of tested knowledge. The source most likely to correlate with clitoral knowledge (self-exploration) was among the most rarely cited. Despite this, respondents correctly answered, on average, three of the five clitoral knowledge measures. Knowledge correlated significantly with the frequency of women’s orgasm in masturbation but not partnered sex. Our results are discussed in light of gender inequality and a social construction of sexuality, endorsed by both men and women, that privileges men’s sexual pleasure over women’s, such that orgasm for women is pleasing, but ultimately incidental.

Defining Gendered Oppression in U.S. Newspapers: The Strategic Value of "Female Genital Mutilation"

Gender & Society 23, 3: 293-314., 2009

According to the logic of the gendered modernity/tradition binary, women in traditional societies... more According to the logic of the gendered modernity/tradition binary, women in traditional societies are oppressed and women in modern societies liberated. While the binary valorizes modern women, it potentially erases gendered oppression in the West and undermines feminist movements on behalf of Western women. Using U.S. newspaper text, I ask whether female genital cutting (FGC) is used to define women in modern societies as liberated. I find that speakers use FGC to both uphold and challenge the gendered modernity/tradition binary. Speakers use FGC to denigrate non-Western cultures and trivialize the oppressions that U.S. women typically encounter, but also to make feminist arguments on behalf of women everywhere. I argue that in addition to examining how culturally imperialist logics are reproduced, theorists interested in feminist postcolonialism should turn to the distribution of such logics, emphasizing the who, where, when, and how of reinscription of and resistance to such narratives.

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Relationship Dissolution as a Life Stage Transition: Effects on Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors

Journal of Marriage & Family 64, 4: 898-914., 2002

In this paper, with linear regressions to investigate how relationships dissolution affects sexua... more In this paper, with linear regressions to investigate how relationships dissolution affects sexual attitudes and behaviors, the authors address the stereotype that newly single people seek multiple sexual partners. Although the newly single people surveyed did obtain new sexual partners, the rate at which they acquired new partners did not support the stereotype. Specifically, men with custody of their children seemed oriented towards finding a steady partner. Additionally, men and women with low incomes reported relatively high rates of partner acquisition after relationship dissolution. The high rates reported by disadvantaged groups may be more directly related to familial stability accompanying poverty than to cultural characteristics associated with income or race. We argue that a life stage model with categorical stages in a rigid, anachronistic progression provides insufficient means to gain an understanding of newly single people.

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The Potential Relevances of Biology to Social Inquiry

Annual Review of Sociology 29: 233-256., 2003

Sociologists often react with hostility to explanations that evoke biology, and some critics of t... more Sociologists often react with hostility to explanations that evoke biology, and some critics of the discipline contend that this “biophobia” undermines the credibility of sociology and makes it seem increasingly irrelevant in larger public debates. The negative reactions are many times diffuse and undiscerning of the different endeavors lumped together whenever one speaks broadly of biological (or “biosocial”) explanations.We seek to introduce greater awareness of these distinctions with a review organized in terms of some of the distinct ways that the biological can be asserted to be relevant to the conduct of social inquiry. The review has three sections. First, we discuss assertions of the relevance of the human evolutionary past for understanding the character of human nature, for which evolutionary psychology currently receives the most attention. Second, we consider the work of behavioral genetics and the assertion of the relevance of genetic differences between persons for understanding differences in behaviors and outcomes. Third, we consider assertions of the relevance of particular proximate bioindicators for understanding how the biological and social interact, focusing particularly on studies of testosterone and the prospects of developments in neuroscientific measurement. We do not believe that developments in these fields will force sociologists to acquire considerable biological expertise to pursue questions central to the discipline, but we do advocate further efforts from biologically minded sociologists to articulate understandings of the relationship between sociology and biology that will continue to push us past the commonplace view that biological and sociological explanations are inevitably opposed.

Sex Education and Teenage Sexuality

Network News: The Newsletter of Sociologists for Women in Society XXI, 1: 9-12., 2004

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The Evolution of Feminist Thought about Female Genital Cutting

Network News: The Newsletter of Sociologists for Women in Society 26, 326-331., 2009

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Consuming Oppression

Contexts 9, 1: 46-49., 2010

What is Indian Art?

Contexts 9, 3: 76-77., 2010

Selling Sex

In Images that Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media, edited by Lester Paul and Susan Ross. Westport, CT: Praeger. , 2011

The Function of Balance in U.S. News Coverage of Uncontested Issues: The Case of Female Genital Cutting

Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism 13, 7: 867-883., 2012

The New Science of Sex Difference

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The Politics of Acculturation: Female Genital Cutting and the Challenge of Building Multicultural Democracies

Learning from “Female Genital Mutilation”: Lessons from 30 Years of Academic Discourse

Download

Sociological Images: Blogging as Public Sociology

Social Science Computer Review 31, 2: 221-228., 2013

The Emancipatory Promise of the Habitus: Lindy Hop, the Body, and Social Change

Hooking Up and Opting Out: What Students Learn About Sex in their First Year of College

In Sex for Life: From Virginity to Viagra, How Sexuality Changes Throughout our Lives, edited by John D. DeLamater and Laura Carpenter. New York: New York University Press., 2012