
Rosanna Hertz
Class of 1919 – ‘50th Reunion Professor of Sociology and Women’s and Gender Studies
Contemporary Reproduction, Families and Social Inequalities, New Family Forms, Feminist Methodologies and Internet Use for Social Learning and Connectivity.
* Researches the complexities of contemporary reproduction and how the intersection of reproductive technology, social media, and the wish for intimacy are expanding our ideas about families.
* Researches families in a changing economy and how social inequality at home and in the workplace shape the experiences of women and men.
Professor Hertz has taught at Wellesley College in both the sociology and women’s and gender studies departments. She teaches courses on the contemporary reproduction, changing families and social inequalities, global families and social policies, women’s leadership at work. She also teaches a first- year seminar on “The Body.” Hertz believes that working individually with students is one of the hallmarks of a small college and her favorite way of teaching and sharing knowledge. She always has undergraduate research assistants on her projects.
Hertz is known for her research on the intersection of families, work and gender. For the past 25 years, she has focused on the emergence of new family forms and how they expand our understanding of kinship. She is especially interested in how the Internet is revolutionizing the choices people make as they enter into third-party reproduction arrangements (e.g. sperm and egg donor use) and also how the Internet has become a site of new possibilities for connection between genetic relatives. Her 2006 book, Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice captured popular attention with its finding that the age-old desire for motherhood was in fact reinforced by new scientific advances in reproduction. Her latest book, Random Families: Genetic Strangers, Sperm Donor Siblings and the Creation of New Kin, with her coauthor Margaret K. Nelson, examines the contemporary interplay of genetics, social interaction, and culture expectations in the formation of web-based donor sibling kin groups. A new set of complexities emerge as donor siblings attempt to expand our understanding of kinship. (Oxford University Press 2019; paperback 2020).
In 2021 Rosanna and her colleague, Joshua Gamson, began to work on a new project “School-based and Internet-based Sexual Learning Experiences of Heterosexual-identified and LGBQ+ Youth.” Using qualitative methods, the project aims to understand how youth with a range of sexual and gender identities have experienced school-based sex education, how they have explored sexual content online, and how they see the two in relation to each other.
She continues her focus on how social inequality at home and in the workplace shape the experiences of women and men. Her first book, More Equal than Others: Women and Men in Dual-Career Marriages and also Working Families (edited with Nancy Marshall) address inequalities that persist between spouses and within the broader economy and how people attempt to resolve them. She has recently written articles about the impacts of Covid19 and how single mothers and their families coped without their pre-pandemic support networks.
Hertz has had a long-standing interest in social science methodology and feminist inquiries. This includes new conventions in data collection and ethnographic writing. Hertz is especially interested how people narrate and tell stories to make sense of the messiness of life. In other books and articles, she addresses issues of reflexivity and voice as well as studies of elites. In addition, she has edited several volumes about how social scientist autobiographical accounts influence their research. She is the former editor of Qualitative Sociology.
Hertz received her PhD in Sociology from Northwestern University and completed a two-year Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She has held appointments at Harvard’s Law School in the Petrie-Flom Center and at the Brocher Foundation in Switzerland. The National Science Foundation and the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation have also funded her research. Currently, she is the Fulbright Research Chair in Health Law, Policy and Ethics, University of Ottawa, 2023-2024.
Links to books:
Random Families: Genetic Strangers, Sperm Donor Siblings, and the Creation of New Kin
and
Education
- B.A., Brandeis University
- M.A., Northwestern University
- Ph.D., Northwestern University
Current and upcoming courses
Feminist Approaches to Research
WGST224
What is feminist research? What is feminist methods? This course addresses these questions by exploring a wide range of methods of interviewing, ethnography, surveys, archival research, focus groups, and participatory action research from a feminist perspective. The class introduces students to feminist approaches to research from across the humanities, natural and social sciences. The readings for the class explore topics of engaged research and feminist politics of knowledge production. The course focuses on situating multiple methods within feminist epistemologies, and critically examining self- reflectivity among researchers and the ways they influence research.
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First-Year Seminar: The Body. Reproduction, Sex Education, Work, Fashion
WGST104Y
This course explores the ways in which the body, as a reflection and construction of the self, is tied to social, cultural and political relations. Through this examination of the role that our bodies play in daily life we will delve into the study of gender, race, sexuality and power. We focus on several major areas: (1) after Roe and the medicalization of bodies (contraception, abortion, new reproductive technologies), (2) sex education and the Internet as sites of bodily learning (3) body work (nail salons, surrogacy) (4) the use of the body as a vehicle for performance, self-expression and identity (tattoos, getting dressed). Throughout the course we will discuss how ideas about bodies are transported across national borders and social, sexual and class hierarchies. (SOC 104Y and WGST 104Y are cross-listed courses.)