Katherine Mason

About me:

I am an Associate Professor of Sociology and Women's & Gender Studies at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. 

I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, where I also completed a Designated Emphasis in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.

In my research and writing, I ask: how do our physical bodies express social status or reproduce social inequality? When we engage in work on our bodies—adopting particular health, exercise, or grooming habits—what do we communicate to employers, peers, doctors, and other audiences about ourselves (whether intentionally or unintentionally)? For that matter, how do others' judgments about our bodies—and, perhaps, their efforts to control our bodies—impact our lives and life chances?

• Middle- and working-class mothers' reproductive body projects

• Weight discrimination in the workplace

• Low-income mothers and children in the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program

• Handbook and encyclopedia entries on bodies and stratification, gender, and race

I am the author of The Reproduction of Inequality (NYU Press 2023) and co-editor, with Natalie Boero, of the Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Body and Embodiment (2020). 

Contact me at: mason_katherine@wheatoncollege.edu.