Carrie N. Baker

Carrie N. Baker is the Sylvia Dlugasch Bauman Chair in American Studies and a Professor in the Program for the Study of Women and Gender at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She teaches courses on gender, law, public policy, and feminist activism, including topical courses on reproductive justice, sexual harassment and sex trafficking. She is a co-founder and former co-director of the Five College Certificate in Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice. Baker is affiliated with the American Studies Program, the Pubic Policy Program, and the Archives Concentration. Baker has a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy from Yale University, a juris doctor degree from Emory University School of Law, and master of arts and doctor of philosophy degrees from Emory's Institute of Women's Studies. She was editor-in-chief of the Emory Law Journal while in law school and later served as a law clerk to United States District Court Judge Marvin H. Shoob in Atlanta. Baker's primary areas of research are women's legal history, gender and public policy, and feminist activism. Her first book The Women's Movement Against Sexual Harassment (Cambridge University Press, 2008) won the National Women's Studies Association 2008 Sara A. Whaley book prize. This book examines how a diverse grassroots social movement created public policy on sexual harassment in the 1970s and 1980s. Baker’s second book, Fighting the US Youth Sex Trade: Gender, Race and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2018), tells the story of activism against youth involvement in the sex trade in the United States between 1970 and 2015. Baker co-authored a law school textbook, Sexual Harassment Law: History, Cases, and Practice (Carolina Academic Press, 2020), with Jennifer Ann Drobac and Rigel C. Olivieri. In May of 2023, she and co-author Aviva Dove-Viebahn will publish Public Feminisms: From Academy to Community (Lever Press 2023), an anthology about how feminist scholars are engaging outside of the academy through public writing, community education, art and activism. Baker’s research, including several articles on sex trafficking, has been published in Feminist Studies, Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, Violence Against Women, Journal of Women, Politics, and Policy, Women in Politics, The Journal of Women's History, Feminist Formations, Journal of Human Trafficking, Journal of Feminist Scholarship, NWSA Journal, Journal of Law and Inequality, Emory Law Journal and Women and Social Movements in the United States. Baker writes for Ms. magazine (http://msmagazine.com/blog/author/carriebaker/), has a monthly column in the Daily Hampshire Gazette (https://www.gazettenet.com/Byline?byline=By%20Carrie%20N.%20Baker), and is co-chair of the Ms. Committee of Scholars.