Adoption
Motherhood
Teen Pregnancy and Young Parenthood
Wealth, Poverty, Inequality
In Richness and in Wealth: What does it mean to be a modern day trophy wife?
Bitch: A Feminist Response to Pop Culture, Spring/Summer Issue 2012.
The Dignity of Reproductive Choice
The American Prospect, as cited in article by E.J. Graff, April 2012.
Adoption in the United States: Harder and More Complicated Than Most Believe, but “Open” to Change
RH Reality Check, November 2012.
Finding a Way to Offer Something More: Reframing Teen Pregnancy Prevention
Journal of Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 9(1), May 2011.
Betty Confidential, May 2011.
Voices from the Inside: Readings on the Experiences of Mental Illness
Ed. with David Karp, Oxford University Press, 2009.
Additionally, Gretchen’s writing has been featured on blogs including Abortion Gang, Scarleteen, Bitch Flicks, The PushBack, and Sociological Images.
Situating Adoption in the Reproductive Justice Movement
Bay Area Doula Project Salon Series, November 2012
Teen Families Take the Lead (Panel Moderator)
From Abortion Rights to Social Justice: Building the Movement for Reproductive Freedom Conference by the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program and Hampshire College, April 2012
It Takes a Movement: Exploring the social, political, and economic context of building and supporting families (Panel Member)
From Abortion Rights to Social Justice: Building the Movement for Reproductive Freedom Conference by the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program and Hampshire College, April 2012
Faces of Feminism (Panel Member)
International Women’s Day Panel, Brandeis University, March 2012
Finding a Way to Offer Something More: Reframing Teen Pregnancy Prevention
Boston College Department of Sociology, November 2011
Teen Pregnancy Institute, November 2011
Ibis Reproductive Health, June 2011
Creating Online Communities for Young Parents
Teen Pregnancy Institute, November 2011
Women of Color and the Pro-Choice Movement (Panel Member)
Harvard Law School, November 2011
Gretchen is a research sociologist with ANSIRH (Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health), a “think and do” tank at the University of California, San Francisco. Her work focuses on issues of parenthood, reproductive health, and social justice, including teen pregnancy and parenthood, adoption, abortion, and infertility.
Gretchen graduated in 2006 from Amherst College with degrees in psychology and women’s and gender studies before heading to Boston College to study sociology for graduate school. In 2007, she was awarded the Severyn Bruyn Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Social Economy and Social Justice for her paper The Power and Uses of Sonogram Imagery in Contemporary Visual Culture, and later received the Benedict S. Alper Fellowship for demonstrating engaged critical scholarship toward social justice issues. Gretchen completed her doctorate in May 2011, with her dissertation entitled Parenthood as Privilege: The Cultural Tensions of Acceptable Reproduction.
Gretchen currently serves on the board of directors for Backline, an organization promoting unconditional support for decisions, feelings, and experiences with pregnancy, parenting, abortion, and adoption. She has previously worked as the communications manager for the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy and as a volunteer with the Eastern Massachusetts Abortion (EMA) Fund.
In addition to her academic and activist work, Gretchen is a member of the inaugural class of Bay Area Pipeline Fellows, investing in women-led, for-profit social ventures.