Emily K. Carian

 

Research

Women have made astounding gains in the past century, including in law, education, the labor market, and at home, yet research shows that gender inequality persists. Moreover, nearly every indicator suggests that progress toward gender equality stalled or even reversed beginning in the 1990s. The gender wage gap has not closed, the desegregation of college majors has slowed, and attitudes toward gender (like believing men are better politicians) have remained unchanged. Why? My research asks why gender inequality remains the status quo. I tackle this question on two fronts: (1) masculinity and male supremacism and (2) cultural understandings of gender.

Masculinity and Male Supremacism

Much of my research analyzes how men and masculinity contribute to gender inequality. I examine mundane processes, like masculine overcompensation, and extreme ones, like male supremacist mobilizations including the men’s rights movement. My book, Good Guys, Bad Guys: The Perils of Men’s Gender Activism, now available from NYU Press, draws on 62 in-depth interviews with two very different groups of men gender activists: men who are feminists and men who are men’s rights activists (antifeminists). I describe what feminist men and men’s rights activists share in common, and how those similarities make gender inequality difficult to eradicate. I argue that, despite identifying differently, these two groups of men share the same subconscious motivation for their gender activism, which leads to the same outcome: gender inequality. My other work on masculinity and male supremacism has appeared in Socius, Sociological Focus, Mobilization, and Men and Masculinities.

Building on this work, I co-founded the non-profit Institute for Research on Male Supremacism. Our goals are to bring researchers studying male supremacist movements into community together and to connect journalists and organizers with research and resources for reporting on and challenging male supremacism.

Cultural Understandings of Gender

In other research, I investigate how young people’s cultural understandings of gender maintain gender inequality (Social Problems, with Amy L. Johnson) and what makes gender bias so difficult to eradicate in employee performance evaluations (Social Problems, with Alison T. Wynn). With my colleagues, Jurgita Abromaviciute and Ethel Mickey, I have also examined how the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated gender inequality. Our work has appeared in Sociological Perspectives, Men and Masculinities, and Sociological Forum.

 
 

Recent Publications

Abromaviciute, Jurgita, Emily K. Carian, and Ethel Mickey. 2025. “A Game of Chutes and Ladders: Gender and Aspirational Resources during the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Sociological Forum Early View. https://doi.org/10.1111/socf.13045.

Carian, Emily K. 2024. Good Guys, Bad Guys: The Perils of Men’s Gender Activism. New York: NYU Press.

Wynn, Alison T. and Emily K. Carian. 2023. "High-Hanging Fruit: How Gender Bias Remains Entrenched in Employee Evaluations." Social Problems OnlineFirst. https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spad044.

Carian, Emily K. and Jurgita Abromaviciute. 2023. “‘It’s Certainly Fair for Me’: Hybrid Masculinities and the Gendered Division of Labor during COVID-19.” Men and Masculinities. OnlineFirst. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X231192026.

Carian, Emily K., Alex DiBranco, and Megan Kelly. “Intervening in Problematic Research Approaches to Incel Violence. Men and Masculinities 27(5):533-42. https://doi.org/10.1177/1097184X231200825.

Abromaviciute, Jurgita and Emily K. Carian. 2022. “The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Gender Gap in Newly Created Domains of Household Labor.” Sociological Perspectives 65(6):1169-87. https://doi.org/10.1177/07311214221103268.

Carian, Emily K. 2022 “‘We’re All in This Together’: Leveraging a Personal Action Frame in Two Men’s Rights Forums.” Mobilization 27(1):47-68. https://doi.org/10.17813/1086-671X-27-1-47.

Carian, Emily K. 2022. “‘No Seat at the Party’: Mobilizing White Masculinity in the Men’s Rights Movement.” Sociological Focus 55:1-27-47. https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2021.2009075.

Carian, Emily K. and Amy L. Johnson. 2022. “The Agency Myth: Persistence in Individual Explanations for Gender Inequality.” Social Problems 69-123-142. https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spaa072.

Carian, Emily K., Alex DiBranco, and Chelsea Ebins, eds. 2022. Male Supremacism in the United States: From Patriarchal Traditionalism to Misogynist Incels and the Alt-Right. New York: Routledge.

 

Recent Media Coverage and Interviews

Carian, Emily K. 2024. “Good Guys, Bad Guys: The Perils of Men’s Gender Activism.” UCI School of Social Sciences https://www.socsci.uci.edu/newsevents/news/2024/2024-05-13-emily-carian-good-guys-bad-guys.php.

Walker, Alicia M. 2024. “3Q with Emily K. Carian Good Guys, Bad Guys: The Perils of Men’s Gender Activism.” The Society Pages, October 29. https://thesocietypages.org/ccf/2024/10/29/3q-with-emily-k-carian-good-guys-bad-guys-the-perils-of-mens-gender-activism/.

Conger, Cristen. 2024. “Good Guy Feminism.” Unladylike Podcast, November 19. (https://pod.link/1333193523/episode/373415c470f56d876abf19d904e8c219).

Recent Presentations

You can see some of my presentations here:

Most recently, I have presented my research at:

  • The Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Stanford University, Stanford, CA. 2025.

  • Masculinity in America Series, University of California, Santa Barbara. 2024.

  • The annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Philadelphia, PA. 2023.

  • The annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Los Angeles, CA. 2022.

  • The winter meeting of Sociologists for Women in Society, Santa Ana Pueblo, NM, 2022.