Exploitation and Gender Inequality in the Elite 'Global Party Circuit': An Interview with Ashley Mears

Ashley Mears is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Boston University and a former fashion model. She is also the author of Pricing Beauty: The Making of a Fashion Model (2011) and Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit (2020). She studies the connections between economic, gender, and cultural sociology with a focus on the value society places on people and on things. Specifically, the ethnographic study she conducted when writing Very Important People shines a light on the pervasive gender inequality and systems of exploitation built into the global party circuit.

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