Wendy Simonds
Professor Director of Graduate Studies - Gerontology Institute Gerontology, Sociology- Education
Ph.D. (Sociology), City University of New York, 1990
- Specializations
Birth and Death; Gender & Sexuality; Health; Reproductive Justice; Qualitative Methods
- Biography
Dr. Simonds received her Ph.D. in Sociology from City University of New York in 2009. She has been at GSU since 1996.
Dr. Simonds is currently working on several team-based discourse analyses of sex educational resources, cartoons, and medical literature for/about aging and old adults’ embodiment, sexualities, and sex lives.
Dr. Simonds’s book Hospital Land USA: Sociological Adventures in Medicalization (Routledge 2017) analyzes the wide-reaching powers of medicalization: the dynamic processes by which medical authorities, institutions, and ideologies impact our everyday experiences, culture, and social life. Simonds documents her own Hospital Land adventures and draws on a wide range of U.S. cultural representations–from memoirs to medical mail, from hospital signs to disaster movies–in order to urge critical thinking about conventional notions of care, health, embodiment, identity, suffering, and mortality.
Much of Simonds’s previous research centers on the sociology of procreative experiences. She is co-author (with Barbara Katz Rothman and Bari Meltzer Norman) of Laboring On: Birth in Transition in the United States (Routledge, 2007), author of Abortion at Work: Ideology and Practice in a Feminist Clinic (Rutgers, 1996) and co-author (with Barbara Katz Rothman) of Centuries of Solace: Expressions of Maternal Grief in Popular Literature (Temple, 1992). She collaborated with researchers at the Population Council, which sponsored the U.S. clinical trials of mifepristone, conducting interviews with users and healthcare workers who participated in the trials. She published articles on how medical providers and patients talk, think about, and experience medication abortion – and their assessments of whether home use would be safe. This research helped pave the way for home use. Another project examines how providers and users of emergency contraception describe their experiences, and their view of emergency contraception as it relates to procreative decision-making.
Simonds is co-editor of Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader (WW Norton), now in its fifth edition (2018).
Simonds has won mentoring awards from Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS) and the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP), as well as SSSP’s Doris Wilkinson Faculty Leadership Award.
- Publications
PUBLICATIONS (*current students and **former students)
Books
Stombler, Mindy, Dawn Baunach, Elisabeth Burgess Wendy Simonds, and **Elroi Windsor, eds. 2019. Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader, 5th edition. New York: WW Norton.Simonds, Wendy. 2017. Hospital Land USA: Sociological Adventures in Medicalization. New York: Routledge.
Reviews: Breast Cancer Consortium (December, 2016). Forbes.com (March 14, 2017: https://www.forbes.com/sites/barronlerner/2017/03/14/should-hospitals-be-upbeat/#4c23c65c3440).
Stombler, Mindy, Dawn Baunach, Wendy Simonds, **Elroi Windsor, and Elisabeth Burgess, eds. 2014. Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader, 4th edition. New York: WW Norton.
Stombler, Mindy, Dawn Baunach, Elisabeth Burgess, Denise Donnelly, Wendy Simonds, and **Elroi Windsor, eds. 2010. Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader, 3rd edition. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Simonds, Wendy, Barbara Katz Rothman, and Bari Meltzer. 2007. Laboring On: Birth in Transition in the United States. New York: Routledge.
Reviews: Choice (May, 2007): 1613; Contemporary Sociology 36 (November, 2007): 585-86; Gender & Society (August, 2008): 529-31; Midwifery Today 82 (Summer, 2007).Stombler, Mindy, Dawn Baunach, Elisabeth Burgess, Denise Donnelly, and Wendy Simonds, eds. 2007.Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader, 2nd edition. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
----, eds. 2004. Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Simonds, Wendy. 1996. Abortion at Work: Ideology and Practice in a Feminist Clinic. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Reviews: Choice (July/Aug., 1996): 187; Contemporary Sociology, v. 27, no. 1 (Jan., 1998): 102-3; Emory Report (April 1, 1996): 7; Feminist Bookstore News, v. 18, no. 4 (Nov./Dec., 1995): 85; Gender & Society, v. 11, no. 2 (April 1997): 257-58; Health, v. 2, no. 2 (April, 1998): 250-53; Pennsylvania Gazette, v. 96, no. 2 (Nov., 1997): 42; Signs, v. 23, no. 2 (Winter 1998): 528-531; Social Forces, v. 75, no. 4 (June, 1997): 1480-81; Sociological Inquiry, v. 67, no. 1 (Winter, 1997): 127-29; Work and Occupations, v. 25, no. 1 (Feb., 1998): 118-120.Simonds, Wendy. 1992. Women and Self-Help Culture: Reading Between the Lines. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Reviews: Choice, v. 30, no. 6 (Feb., 1993): 997; Chronicle of Higher Education “Hot Type” (Oct., 21, 1992): A10; Contemporary Psychology, v. 39, no. 1 (1994): 34; Contemporary Sociology, v. 22, no. 3 (May, 1993): 434-5; Creative Loafing, v. 22, no. 5 (Nov. 13, 1993): 6, 12; Emory Report (Apr. 19, 1993): 11; In These Times (Apr. 5, 1993): 33-35; Journal of Popular Culture, v. 27, no. 1 (Summer, 1993): 211-212; Library Journal (Sept., 1992): 79 80; On Campus with Women, v. 22, no. 4 (Spring, 1993): 6; Psychology of Women Quarterly, v. 17 (June, 1993): 243-44; Publishers Weekly (Aug. 17, 1992); San Francisco Review of Books (Mar./Apr., 1995): 23; Utne Reader (Nov./ Dec.), 1993: 48, 50-51; Village Voice, v. 38, no. 9 (May, 1993): 61; Women’s Review of Books, v. X, no. 1 (Oct.,1992): 3-4.Simonds, Wendy, and Barbara Katz Rothman. 1992. Centuries of Solace: Expressions of Maternal Grief in Popular Literature. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Reviews: American Journal of Sociology, v. 99, no. 1 (1993): 238-240; American Periodicals, v. 4 (1994): 115-17; Birth, v. 20, no. 3 (Sept., 1993): 173; Chronicle of Higher Education “Nota Bene” (Oct.14, 1992): A10; Journal of Popular Culture, v. 27, no. 1 (Summer, 1993): 209-211; Signs (Winter, 1995): 396-426; Wilson Library Bulletin, v. 67, no. 7 (Mar., 1993): 99-100; Waterwheel, v. 6, no. 2 (Summer, 1993): 7; Women & Health, v. 21, no. 1 (1994): 105-6.Articles and Book Chapters
**Wilson, Kristin and Wendy Simonds. 2020. “Tongue-Tied: Medicalizing the Breast-Mouth Latch.” In Breasts Across Motherhood: Lived Experiences and Critical Examinations, eds. Patricia Drew and Rosann Edwards. Bradford, Canada: Demeter Press.**Charania, Moon, and Wendy Simonds. 2018. "Governing the Divorcee: Gender and Sexuality in State Mandated Divorcee Classes." Feminist Studies 44: 600-631.
Simonds, Wendy. 2013. “Presidential Address: The Art of Activism.” Social Problems 60 (Feb.): 1-26.
**Medley-Rath, Stephanie, and Wendy Simonds. 2010. “Consuming Contraceptive Control: Gendered Distinctions in Web-based Contraceptive Advertising.” Culture, Health and Sexuality 12: 783-795.
Simonds, Wendy, and **Amanda Jungels. In Press, 2018. “The Death of the Stork: Sex Education Resources for Parents and Children.” In Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader, 5th edition, Mindy Stombler, Dawn Baunach, Elisabeth Burgess, Wendy Simonds, and **Elroi Windsor, eds. New York: WW Norton.
Simonds, Wendy, and *Amanda Jungels. 2010. “The Death of the Stork: Sex-Ed Books for Children.” In Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader, 3rd edition. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. (revised and updated version of 2004 chapter.) Reprinted in 4th edition.
Donnelly, Denise, Elisabeth Burgess, and Wendy Simonds. 2007. “Sexuality and Social Theorizing.” In Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader, 2nd edition. Mindy Stombler, Dawn Baunach, Elisabeth Burgess, Denise Donnelly, and Wendy Simonds, eds. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. 85-96. Reprinted in 3rd edition (73-83) and 4th edition.
Rothman, Barbara Katz, and Wendy Simonds. 2006. “The Birthplace.” In Motherhood and Space: Configurations of the Maternal through Politics, Home, and the Body, Caroline Wiedmer and Sarah Hardy, eds. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 87-104.
LaRossa, Ralph, Wendy Simonds, and Donald C. Reitzes. 2005. “Culture, Cognition, and Parenthood.” In Sourcebook of Family Theory and Research, V.L. Bengston, A.C. Acock, K.R. Allen, and D.M. Klein, eds. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. 423-436, 443-445.
Simonds, Wendy. 2004. “The Death of the Stork: Sex-Ed Books for Children.” In Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader, Stombler, Baunach, Burgess, Donnelly, and Simonds, eds. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. 125-135. Reprinted in 2007. Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader, 2nd ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. 186-196.
Simonds, Wendy, and Charlotte Ellertson. 2004. “Emergency Contraception and Morality: Reflections of Health Care Workers and Clients.” Social Science & Medicine 58: 1285-1297.
Rothman, Barbara Katz, and Wendy Simonds. 2003. “Breastfeeding: Beyond Milk.” MIDIRS (Midwives Information & Resource Service) Midwifery Digest. v. 13, no. 2: 223-26. 223-26.
Simonds, Wendy. 2002. “Watching the Clock: Keeping Time During Pregnancy, Birth, and Postpartum Experiences.” Social Science & Medicine, v. 55, no. 4 (Aug): 559-570.
Revised version published in 2005. MIDIRS (Midwives Information & Resource Service) Midwifery Digest, v. 13, no. 1 (March): 39-43.Simonds, Wendy, Charlotte Ellertson, Beverly Winikoff, and **Kimberly Springer. 2001. “Providers, Pills, and Power: The U.S. Mifepristone Abortion Trials and Caregivers’ Interpretations of Clinical Power Dynamics.” Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness, and Medicine, v. 5, no. 2 (Spring): 207-231.
Elul, Batya, Elizabeth Pearlman, Annik Sorhaindo, Wendy Simonds, and Carolyn Westhoff. 2000. “In-Depth Interviews with Medical Abortion Clients: Thoughts on the Method and Home Administration of Misoprostol.” Journal of the American Women’s Medical Association (JAMWA), v. 55, no. 3 (Supplement): 169-172.
Ellertson, Charlotte, Wendy Simonds, **Kimberly Springer, Beverly Winikoff, and Debjani Bagchi. 1999. “Providing Mifepristone-Misoprostol Abortion: The View From the Clinic.” Journal of the American Women’s Medical Association (JAMWA), v. 54, no. 2. (Spring): 91-96, 102.
**Cragin, Becca, and Wendy Simonds. 1999. “The Study of Gender in Culture: Feminist Studies/Cultural Studies.” In The Handbook on the Sociology of Gender. J. Chafetz, ed. Plenum. 195-212.
Simonds, Wendy, Charlotte Ellertson, **Kimberly Springer, and Beverly Winikoff. 1998. “Abortion, Revised: Participants in the U.S. Clinical Trials Evaluate Mifepristone.” Social Science & Medicine, v.46, no. 10: 1313-1323.
Simonds, Wendy. 1996. “All Consuming Selves: Self-Help Literature and Women's Identities.” In Constructing the Self in a Mediated World, D. Grodin and T. Lindlof, eds. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
15-29.Simonds, Wendy. 1995. “Feminism on the Job: Confronting Opposition in Abortion Work.” In Feminist Organizations: Harvest of the Women's Movement, M. Marx Ferree and P. Martin, eds. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. pp. 248-62. Reprinted: 1997. Feminist Frontiers IV, L. Richardson, V. Taylor, and N. Whittier, eds. New York: McGraw-Hill. 536-43.
Simonds, Wendy. 1991. “At An Impasse: Inside An Abortion Clinic.” Current Research on Occupations and Professions, v. 6. J.A.I. Press. 99-116.
Simonds, Wendy. 1988. “Confessions of Loss: Maternal Grief in True Story, 1920 - 1985.” Gender and Society, v. 2, no. 2. (June): 149-71. Reprinted: 1997. Mothers & Motherhood: Readings in American History, R.D. Apple and J. Golden, eds. Columbus, OH: University of Ohio Press. 111-130.
Book Reviews, Review Essays, and Short Essays
Simonds, Wendy. 2016. Review of Discounted Life: The Price of Global Surrogacy in India by Sharmila Rudrappa. Gender & Society (Aug): 283-85.
Simonds, Wendy. 2015. Review of Cut It Out: The C-Section Epidemic in America by Theresa Morris. American Journal of Sociology 5: 1583-85.
**Sterling, Evelina, and Wendy Simonds. 2019. “HPV and Vaccines” (revised version of 2014 Box). Box in Sex Matters, 5th ed. p. 450.
----. 2014. “HPV Vaccines: Kids and Controversy.” Box in Sex Matters, 4th ed. p. 470.
Simonds, Wendy. 2013. Review of The Sociology of Architecture by Paul Jones. Contemporary Sociology 42 (January): 89-90.
Simonds, Wendy. 2012. “Occupied Preoccupations.” Social Problems Forum: The SSSP Newsletter 43:1 (February). http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/460/fuseAction/contentpage.main/detailID/2497.
Simonds, Wendy. 2011. Review of Parenting Out of Control by Margaret Nelson. Contemporary Sociology 40 (May): 336-338.
**Charania, Moon, and Wendy Simonds. 2010. Review essay on The Princess and the Frog. Contexts: Understanding People and Their Social Worlds (Summer). 69-71.
Simonds, Wendy. 2009. Review of Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help, by Eva Ilouz. Contemporary Sociology: 27-28.
Simonds, Wendy. 2007. “Bodies on Display.” Review essay on Bodies…The Exhibition. Contexts: Understanding People and Their Social Worlds 6 (Winter): 70-72.
Simonds, Wendy. 2007. “From Contraception to Abortion: A Moral Continuum.” Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader, second edition. Stombler, Mindy, Dawn Baunach, Elisabeth Burgess,
Denise Donnelly, and Wendy Simonds, eds. Boston: Allyn & Bacon: 434-35.Reprinted and updated in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, and 5th editions. Simonds, Wendy. 2006. Commentary on “Direct Access to Emergency Contraception did not Impact
Contraceptive Use or Increase High-Risk Behavior.” Evidence-Based Obstetrics and Gynecology. 101.Simonds, Wendy. 2005. Review of “A Roof Over My Head”: Homeless Women and the Shelter Industry, by Jean Calterone Williams. Gender & Society 19 (Feb.): 124-125.
Simonds, Wendy. 2002. Review of The Rhetoric of Midwifery: Gender, Knowledge, and Power, by Mary M. Lay. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness, and Medicine 6: 261-62.
Simonds, Wendy. 2002. “Abortion and Political Rhetoric.” In Historical and Multicultural Encyclopedia of Women’s Reproductive Rights. J. Baer, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood. 9-11.
Simonds, Wendy. 2001. “Telling Children About Evil.” Sociologists for Women in Society [SWS] Network News 18 (Winter): 4-5.
Simonds, Wendy. 2001. “Talking with Strangers: A Researcher’s Tale.” Chronicle of Higher Education 48 (Nov. 30): B14-15. Reprinted in 2003. The Arlington Reader: Contexts and Connections, eds Lynn Z. Bloom and Louise Z. Smith. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s. 611-615. Reprinted in 2008. The Arlington Reader: Contexts and Connections 2nd ed., eds Lynn Z. Bloom and Louise Z. Smith. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s. 611-615.
Simonds, Wendy. 2001. “The Terrible Thing.” SWS Network News 18 (Fall): 19.
Simonds, Wendy. 2001. Review of Educating About Abortion, by Peggy Brick and Bill Taverner. Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy 12 (Fall): 104-106.
Simonds, Wendy. 1999. Review of Aborting Law: An Exploration of the Politics of Motherhood and Medicine, by Gail Kellough. Social Forces 77 (March): 1226-1228.
Simonds, Wendy. 1999. Review of A Theory of Shopping, by Daniel Miller, and The Shopping Experience, eds. Pasi Falk and Colin Campbell. Contemporary Sociology 28 (July): 439-440.
Simonds, Wendy. 1999. Review essay on Feminism and Social Change: Bridging Theory and Practice, ed. Heidi Gottfried; Opposing Ambitions: Gender and Identity in an Alternative Organization, by Cherryl Kleinman; Rock-a-by Baby: Feminism, Self-Help, and Postpartum Depression, by Verta Taylor. Signs 24: 538-42.
Simonds, Wendy. 1998. Review of Women and Soap Opera: A Cultural Feminist Perspective, by Danielle Blumenthal. Contemporary Sociology 27: 617-18.
Simonds, Wendy. 1997. Review of Situating Selves, by Donal Carbaugh. Contemporary Sociology 26 (Mar.): 232-33.
Simonds, Wendy. 1996. Review essay on All is Never Said: The Narrative of Odette Harper Hines, by Judith Rollins. Qualitative Sociology 19: 553-55.
Simonds, Wendy. 1995. Review of The Prostitution of Sexuality, by Kathleen Barry. Contemporary Sociology 24 (Sept.): 655-56.
Simonds, Wendy. 1995. Review of Sexing the Self: Gendered Positions in Cultural Studies, by Elspeth Probyn. Social Forces 73 (Mar.): 1140.
Simonds, Wendy. 1994. Review of Breaking the Ties That Bind: Popular Stories of the New Woman,1915-1930, Maureen Honey, ed. American Periodicals: A Journal of History, Criticism, and
Bibliography 4: 130-31.Simonds, Wendy. 1994. “Ultrasounds.” SWS Network News (Fall).
Simonds, Wendy. 1993. “The Politics of Abortion.” In The Encyclopedia of Childbearing: Critical Perspectives. B. K. Rothman, ed. Oryx Press. 4-5.
Simonds, Wendy. 1993. Review of Novels, Novelists, and Readers: Toward a Phenomenological Sociology of Literature, by Mary F. Rogers. Gender & Society 7 (June): 303-304.
Simonds, Wendy. 1993. Review of Vocabularies of Public Life: Empirical Essays in Symbolic Structure, Robert Wuthnow, ed. Contemporary Sociology 22 (July): 602-3.
Simonds, Wendy. 1992. “Murphy and Motherhood.” SWS Network News (March).
Simonds, Wendy. 1991. Review of Television and Women's Culture: The Politics of the Popular, Mary Ellen Brown, ed. Contemporary Sociology 20 (July): 611-12.
Simonds, Wendy. 1991. “Reminiscences of the Cable-Ready War.” SWS Network News (June).
Simonds, Wendy. 1989. Review of Madwives: Schizophrenic Women in the 1950s, by Carol B. Warren. Oral History Review 16 (Fall): 143-45.
Simonds, Wendy. 1988. Review of The Myth of Two Minds: What Gender Means and Doesn't Mean, by Beryl Lieff Benderly. Contemporary Sociology 17 (Nov.): 742-43.