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Carrie N. Baker

Sylvia Dlugasch Bauman Chair of American Studies and Professor of the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality, Smith College

About Carrie

Baker's research focuses on women's legal rights and feminist social movements, with a particular expertise in sexual harassment, sex trafficking, and reproductive rights. The overarching theme in Baker's writings include how social movements have changed law and policy in the United States. She has published five books, including The Women's Movement Against Sexual Harassment (Cambridge University Press) and Fighting the US Youth Sex Trade: Gender, Race and Politics (Cambridge University Press). Her most recent book is Abortion Pills: US History and Politics, available open access from Amherst College Press. She is a regular writer and contributing editor at Ms. Magazine.

No Jargon Podcast

In the News

Regular contributions by Carrie N. Baker to Feminist Futures Podcast.
Regular contributions by Carrie N. Baker to The Daily Hampshire Gazette.
Regular contributions by Carrie N. Baker to Ms. Magazine.
Opinion: "How Reproductive Freedom Advocates Outsmarted the Anti-Abortion Movement," Carrie N. Baker, Washington Monthly, April 25, 2025.
Opinion: "The Future for Abortion Access is Already Here," Carrie N. Baker, The Hill, February 9, 2025.
Opinion: "Pregnant? Need Help? They Have an Agenda.," Carrie N. Baker (with Carly Thomsen and Zach Levitt), The New York Times, May 12, 2022.

Publications

Abortion Pills: US History and Politics (Amherst College Press, 2024).

Provides a comprehensive history of abortion pills in the United States, focusing on the decades-long fight by activists to make them accessible.

Public Feminisms: From Academy to Community (with Aviva Dove-Viebahn). (Lever Press, 2023).

Explores how feminist scholars engage with the public beyond academia through art, media, activism, writing, and education. Features essays by scholar-activists who share methods for making feminist work accessible and impactful in communities.

Sexual Harassment Law: History, Cases, and Practice (with Jennifer Ann Drobac and Rigel C. Oliveri). (Carolina Academic Press, 2020).

Provides a comprehensive overview of U.S. sexual harassment law, tracing its development from the 1970s to the #MeToo era. Examines statutory law, federal regulations, case law, and legal reasoning and reviews topics such as street harassment, online harassment, extra-legal responses to misconduct, mandatory arbitration, and nondisclosure agreements.

"Moving beyond 'Slaves, Sinners, and Saviors': An Intersectional Analysis of US Sex-Trafficking Discourses, Law, and Policy" Journal of Feminist Scholars, no. 4 (2013).

Analyzes stories and images of sex trafficking in current mainstream US public discourses, including government publications, nongovernmental organizations (NGO) materials, news media, and popular films. Argues that the dominant criminal justice approach to trafficking based on mainstream frames of the issue — the state rescuing victims and prosecuting traffickers — will not alone end the problem of sex trafficking, but that public policies must address the structural conditions that create populations vulnerable to trafficking and empower those communities to dismantle inequalities that are the root causes of trafficking.

"Obscuring Gender-Based Violence: Marriage Promotion and Teen Dating Violence Research" (with Nan Stein). Journal of Women, Politics, and Policy 37, no. 1 (2016): 87-109.

Argues that United States public policies have prioritized marriage and healthy relationship promotion over research and education about gendered violence in teen dating relationships, despite evidence of the prevalence of intimate partner and teen dating violence that disproportionately impacts women and girls. Explains that the lack of a gender-based analysis reflects a shift from a feminist framing of violence that focuses on the safety and well-being of women and girls based on an analysis of gender, power, and structural inequalities, toward a conservative focus on individualistic solutions to gendered social problems like poverty and violence.

Fighting the US Youth Sex Trade: Gender, Race and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

Examines how a politically and ideologically diverse movement against youth involvement in the sex trade has change perceptions and policies on the issue. Shows that these campaigns were fundamentally shaped by the politics of gender, race, class, and global anti-trafficking campaigns. Argues that the very frames that have made these movements so successful in achieving new laws and programs for youth have limited their ability to achieve systematic reforms that could decrease youth vulnerability to involvement in the sex trade.

"An Intersectional Analysis of Sex Trafficking Films" Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 12, no. 1 (2014): 208-226.

Analyzes the portrayal of sex trafficking in representative dramas and documentaries, both Hollywood and independent films.

The Women's Movement against Sexual Harassment (Cambridge University Press, 2007).

Examines how a diverse grassroots social movement created public policy on sexual harassment in the 1970s and 1980s. Finds that the collaboration of women from varying racial, economic, and geographic backgrounds strengthened the movement by representing the perspectives and activism of a broad range of women. Shows how the movement against sexual harassment fundamentally changed American life in ways that continue to advance women's opportunities today.

"An Examination of the Central Debates on Sex Trafficking in Research and Public Policy in the United States" Journal on Human Trafficking 1, no. 3 (2015): 191-208.

Provides an introduction to some central debates in research and public policy on sex trafficking in the United States, with particular attention to how these debates play out among feminists. Concludes with recommendations for guiding principles on future directions for public policy and research.