Ruth Holliday is a sociologist of gender, culture and the body with expertise in low fertility, medical tourism, cosmetic surgery and identity. She is currently researching the lives and cultures of younger people in Europe and East-Asia who do not have, or resist having, children.
She is an interdisciplinary researcher with a background in sociology, gender studies and cultural studies and a strong commitment to intersectionality and collaborative research. Ruth has led or co-led a number of research projects funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Foundation for Sociology of Health and Illness. She has written or co-written four books, co-edited three more, and written or co-written more than 50 journal articles and book chapters. Her co-authored book Beautyscapes, published by Manchester University Press in 2020, received the BSA’s Sociology of Health and Illness book prize.
Ruth’s research has been influential in the regulation of cosmetic surgery, and she has given evidence to the Women’s and Equalities Select Committee, the Health Select Committee, a Parliamentary Round Table, the Nuffield Council for Bioethics and the Royal College of Surgeons where she was a Member of the Patient Information Sub-Committee of the Keogh Review of cosmetic procedures amongst others. She has given many invited lectures all over the world.
Ruth’s research interests cover a range of different topics, from sexuality, culture and identity across different spaces, to dressing and fashion as communication, to the cultural politics of Kitsch (she appeared on Laurie Taylor’s BBC R4 programme Thinking Allowed to discuss this) to cosmetic surgery and medical tourism and most recently low fertility lives and cultures. Connecting all these elements is feminist theory and the embodied performances of gender. Ruth also has a deep interest in comparative sociology, especially with respect to East-Asia.
Ruth is an expert in gender and feminist theory, the sociology of the body and interdisciplinary research methods. She has designed and delivered many MA Programmes and modules around these topics.
Ruth Has supervised 19 PhD students to successful completion and examined 16 on gender, culture and the body, most recently concerning low fertility cultures, love and singlehood in China and South Korea.