About Me

Barber's Book, "Styling Masculinity," featured in The New York Times "Gift Ideas for Fashionable

Men, From Books on Style to Custom Shoes."

Kristen Barber is the endowed Martha Jane Phillips Starr Distinguished Professor in Women’s and Gender Studies at University of Missouri-Kansas City and Department Chair of Race, Ethnic, and Gender Studies. Having earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from University of Southern California, Barber’s research and teaching focus on issues of gender inequality through labor and consumption, with a focus on cultural representation, masculinities and privilege, and intersecting identities of race, gender, class and sexuality.

Barber is particularly interested in the political potential of norm violation. Her Rutgers University Press book, Styling Masculinity: Gender, Class and Inequality in the Men’s Grooming Industry, investigates how the woman-dominated service industry of cosmetology supports men’s purchase of beauty services and products—with an outcome that shores up inequalities amongst men as well as between men and women. Her work is published in the academic journals, Gender & Society, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Sociological Perspectives, Canadian Review of Sociology, and more. Barber has a secondary area of research considering how race, class, and gender shapes experiences during and recovery after disaster.

Barber is also co-author of the Oxford University Press textbook, Gendered Worlds, 4th Edition, and is currently working on the 5th edition, due to be published early 2025. She is also writing a Masculinities primer for Oxford. She has served as an Editor for the journal Men and Masculinities since 2020 and is past Editor for the Culture Section of Contexts, the public-facing journal published by the American Sociological Association. Barber has appeared as a guest expert on podcasts, in news articles, and on public radio for outlets including The New York Times, Louie Radio in Paris, and NPR’s Marketplace. She has also written for The Conversation, for example see her piece, "What Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg’s canceled cage match says about masculine anxiety."

Serving the community, Barber is currently a member of the Learning and Engagement Committee for the National Toy and Miniature Museum. She has worked with the museum to support programs and exhibitions (especially the Portraits of Childhood: Black Dolls from the Collection of Deborah Neff exhibition) and  to increase student engagement with the museum. Barber is a member of the Museum’s Stakeholders Advisory Group.