Jane Ward

{{Infobox academic

| image= Jane at Skylight (cropped).jpg

| caption=Jane Ward gives a lecture at Skylight Books in Los Angeles on September 8, 2015.

| occupation =

| alma_mater = University of California Santa Barbara

| discipline = Feminist and Queer Studies

| birth_date = October 15, 1973

| spouse = Kat Ross

}}

Jane Ward is an American scholar, feminist, and author. Ward is Professor and Chair of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is a scholar in feminist and queer studies, known for her work on the social construction of sexuality and whiteness. Ward's research is captured in her books, including Not Gay: Sex between Straight White Men, and The Tragedy of Heterosexuality, which won the 2021 PROSE Award.

Life

Ward is Professor and Chair of Feminist Studies at the [https://www.femst.ucsb.edu/people/jane-ward University of California, Santa Barbara]. {{cite web |date=January 25, 2023 |title=Faculty Profile System: Jane Ward |url=https://www.femst.ucsb.edu/people/jane-ward |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date=January 25, 2023 |website=University of California, Santa Barbara website}} Ward received her PhD in sociology from the University of California Santa Barbara in 2003.

Ward is known for her books The Tragedy of Heterosexuality (New York University Press, 2020), a 2021 PROSE Award Winner,{{cite web | url=https://proseawards.com/winners/ | title=Winners }} and Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men (NYU Press, 2015),{{cite web |url=http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/08/why-straight-men-have-sex-with-each-other.html |title=Why Straight Men Have Sex With Each Other |last=Singal |first=Jesse |work=New York |date=August 5, 2015 |access-date=November 28, 2015}} a 2016 Lambda Literary Award Finalist.{{Cite web |url=http://www.lambdaliterary.org/features/news/03/08/28th-annual-lambda-literary-award-finalists-announced/ |title=28th Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalists Announced |website=Lambda Literary |date=8 March 2016 |language=en-US |access-date=2016-03-10 |last1=Team |first1=Edit }} Ward's research has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, NPR, New York Magazine, The Guardian, Forbes, Salon, Newsweek, Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan, and Vice. Her 2008 book Respectably Queer: Diversity Culture in LGBT Activist Organizations was named a favorite book of 2008 by The Progressive magazine.{{cite magazine |title=The Progressive Magazine 72 |date=December 12, 2008}}

She lives in Southern California with her partner Kat Ross. Ward's published work focuses on a broad range of topics, from feminist pornography, queer parenting, and the racial politics of same-sex marriage, to the social construction of heterosexuality and whiteness.

Works

Ward's first book, Respectably Queer, is based on her observations of three different queer organizations: the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, Bienestar, and Los Angeles-Christopher Street West.{{citation needed|date=May 2021}}

Ward's second book, Not Gay, received positive reviews from New York Magazine and many other outlets. Singal states "[Ward] shows that homosexual contact has been a regular feature of heterosexual life ever since the concepts of homo- and heterosexuality were first created—not just in prisons and frat houses and the military, but in biker gangs and even conservative suburban neighborhoods."{{cite news |last1=Singal |first1=Jesse |title=Why Straight Men Have Sex With Each Other |url=https://www.thecut.com/2015/08/why-straight-men-have-sex-with-each-other.html |work=The Cut |date=5 August 2015 }}

In Not Gay, Ward examines same sex encounters between men who are considered to be heterosexual.{{citation needed|date=May 2021}} Questions that frame her analysis include "does having sexual encounters with men automatically mean that men are gay or bisexual?" To answer such questions, she traces American history to the 1950s, examining same sex encounters such as those in public bathrooms. Ward also uses sociological, psychological, and historical research to link gender and sexuality to race, focusing on the perceived heterosexuality of white men who have sexual encounters with other white men. Ward's work in Not Gay presents a perspective on opposite couple attraction{{cite journal |last1=Westbrook |first1=Laurel |title=Not Gay: Sex between Straight White Men . By Elizabeth Jane Ward. New York: New York University Press, 2015. Pp. xi+239. $25.00 (paper). |journal=American Journal of Sociology |date=May 2016 |volume=121 |issue=6 |pages=1962–1964 |doi=10.1086/685727 }} and a new outlook on heterosexual masculinity.{{cite journal |last1=Meyer |first1=Doug |title=Book Review: Not Gay: Sex between Straight White Men by Jane Ward |journal=Gender & Society |date=February 2017 |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=119–120 |doi=10.1177/0891243216642382 |s2cid=147540782 }} In 2016, Ward published a feminist response to gay male critics of the book.{{cite journal |last1=Ward |first1=Jane |title=Dyke Methods: A Meditation on Queer Studies and the Gay Men Who Hate It |journal=WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly |date=2016 |volume=44 |issue=3 |pages=68–85 |id={{Project MUSE|632147}} |doi=10.1353/wsq.2016.0036 |s2cid=88566406 }} Not Gay was translated into German and published by Mannerschwarm Verlag in 2018.{{Cite web |url=https://www.maennerschwarm.de/index.php/suche-autoren/710-ward-jane |title=Männerschwarm - Ward, Jane |access-date=2021-02-09 |archive-date=2021-02-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210212232517/https://www.maennerschwarm.de/index.php/suche-autoren/710-ward-jane |url-status=dead }}{{full citation needed|date=May 2021}}

In 2020, Ward published her third book, entitled The Tragedy of Heterosexuality, winner of the 2021 PROSE Award in Cultural Anthropology and Sociology.{{cite web | url=https://proseawards.com/winners/ | title=Winners }} As described by a reviewer for The New York Times, “The Tragedy of Heterosexuality wastes absolutely no time getting to the point, but while many of the sentences (including the title) made me laugh out loud, it is at heart a somber, urgent academic examination of the many ways in which opposite-sex coupling can hurt the very individuals who cling to it most."{{cite news |last1=Mlotek |first1=Haley |title=Are Straight People OK? And Other Questions About Love and Sexuality |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/books/review/matrimony-inc-francesca-beauman-ace-angela-chen-the-tragedy-of-heterosexuality-jane-ward.html |work=The New York Times |date=9 October 2020 }}

Publications

{{cite book |last1=Ward |first1=Elizabeth Jane |title=Respectably Queer: Diversity Culture in LGBT Activist Organizations |date=2008 |publisher=Vanderbilt University Press |isbn=978-0-8265-1607-7 }}
{{cite book | last=Ward | first=Jane | title=Not Gay: Sex between Straight White Men (Sexual Cultures, 19) | publisher=NYU Press | date=2015-07-31 | isbn=978-1-4798-2517-2}}
{{cite book |last1=Ward |first1=Jane |title=The Tragedy of Heterosexuality |date=2020 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-1-4798-9506-9 }}