RESEARCH and CV

My scholarship broadly focuses on organizations at the intersections of gender, inequality, identity, and victimizations. In my research, I take the view that those who are at risk of violence and exploitation reveals much about the structure of inequality in society. I explore broad questions around why organizational inequality persists and how it is reinforced at multiple levels. I examine how inequality and violence are embedded in social interactions, identities, organizations, and bureaucracy. 

My book (with Oxford University Press) examines the social processes that contribute to sexual harassment and assault in the U.S. military. Drawing primarily on in-depth interviews with fifty current and former servicewomen, my book privileges their voices to describe how they navigate the combination of a sexist institutional climate, hostile forms of workplace harassment, and threats of sexual assault, while attempting to maintain military careers. I show how sexism adapts to and functions through institutional rules, policies, practices, and interactions. 

I am a qualitative researcher and have published articles that employ a variety of methods including in-depth interviewing, participant observation, visual methods, and critical discourse analysis. Over the next several years my scholarship will focus on understanding the relationship between organizations, identity, victimization, violence, and gender and racial inequality. As a critical criminologist, I work to advance scholarship on victimization that does not prop up the carceral state and instead explore opportunities for change on organizational, structural, and interactional levels. My research also contributes to the scholarship on masculinity and femininity and their relationship to victimization within organizations. 

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles 

Bonnes, Stephanie. 2024. "Sacrificing the Feminine to Fit In and Embracing the Feminine to Stand Out: Servicewomen’s Response to the Essentialist Gendered Practices of the U.S. Military." Journal of Femininities vol. 1, no. 1. 

Bonnes, Stephanie, Kylie McCarthy, and Samantha Tosto. 2024. "'My Coping Doesn't Really Matter:' How Military Lawyers Navigate Vicarious Trauma through Emotional Labor and Emotion Work" Feminist Criminology.  

Bonnes, Stephanie and Samantha Tosto. 2023. “Prosecuting Military Sexual Assault: The Entanglement of Military Discourse and Victim Stereotypes in Prosecutor Case Strategies.” Feminist Criminology vol. 18, no. 5: 459-489. 

Bonnes, Stephanie. 2022. “Femininity Anchors: Heterosexual relationships and pregnancy as sites of harassment for U.S. Service Women." American Sociological Review vol. 87, no. 4: 618-643. 

Tosto, Samantha and Stephanie Bonnes. 2022. “She clearly thought that something bad had happened to her:” How military lawyers construct narratives of victim legitimacy and perceived harm in sexual assault cases.” Armed Forces and Society.  

Bonnes, Stephanie. 2021. “An Intersectional Approach to Military Sexual Violence.” Sociology Compass vol 15, no 12.

Bonnes, Stephanie and Jeffrey Palmer. 2021.“The U.S. Marine Corps’ Response to Intimate Partner Sexual Violence: An Analysis of The Family Advocacy Program and the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program.”Armed Forces and Society vol. 48, no. 3: 609-633.

Bonnes, Stephanie. 2020. “Service-women’s responses to Sexual Harassment: The Importance of Identity Work and Masculinity in a Gendered Organization” Violence Against Women vol. 26, no. 12-13: 1656-1680.   

Bonnes, Stephanie. 2017. “The Bureaucratic Harassment of U.S. Servicewomen.” Gender & Society vol. 31, no. 6: 804-829.

Bonnes, Stephanie and Janet Jacobs. 2017 “Gendered Representations of Apartheid: The Women’s Jail Museum at Constitution Hill.” Museum & Society vol. 15, no. 2: 153-170.

Bonnes, Stephanie. 2016 “Power Differentials Among Married Couples in Malawi as Predictors for Likelihood of Physical and Emotional Intimate Partner Violence.” Violence and Victims vol. 31, no. 1: 51-70.

My research has won awards from the Sociologists for Women in Society, The Sex and Gender Section and The Peace, War, and Social Conflict Section at the American Sociological Association, the Division of Feminist Criminology and the Division of Victimology at the American Society of Criminology, the Crime and Jusitice Division at the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and the Victimology Section at the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.

In 2024, I received the New Scholar Award from the Victimology Section at the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, the Scholarly Achievement Award from the The Crime andJustice Division at the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP),  The Activist of the Year Award from the Division of Victimology at the American Soceity of Criminology, and the Feminist Scholar-Activist Award from the Sex & Gender Section at the American Sociological Association.

In 2023, I received the CoraMae Richey Mann “Inconvenient Woman of the Year” Award From the Division of Feminist Criminology at the American Society of Criminology, received an honorable mention for the Peace, War, and Social Conflict Section of ASA's article of the year arard, and was nominated for the Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for Excellence in Work-Family Research.