Hilary Levey Friedman, J.D., P.h.D. is an author and attorney, trained as a sociologist with expertise in afterschool activities, beauty pageants, childhood and family socialization, and popular culture. She holds degrees from Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Cambridge, and the Roger Williams University School of Law and she previously taught at Brown University. She currently works in the legal field, focusing on children’s rights and family law (she is a member of the Rhode Island Bar and the Massachusetts Bar).

In August 2020 Beacon Press released Here She Is: The Complicated Reign of the Beauty Pageant in America, which uses beauty pageants to trace the arc of American feminism from the 1840s to the present. A paperback version was released in August 2021. Her first book, Playing to Win: Raising Children in a Competitive Culture followed families with elementary school-age children involved in chess, dance, and soccer covering the history of the activities, what they mean to parents and children, and implications for inequality and gender in the educational system.

Dr. Levey Friedman worked as a Special Assistant Attorney General, primarily prosecuting juvenile offenders; she was also the President of the Rhode Island chapter of the National Organization for Women (RI NOW) from 2018-2021.