Women in Culture

This anthology collects key texts on women in culture and offers an ideal introduction, for students in women's studies and feminism, to the cultural dimensions of women's experience today.

Preface x Acknowledgements xii Introduction 1 Part I The Cultural Construction of Gender 13 1 Women in Culture 15 Introduction 15 Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture 23 Sherry B. Ortner Oppression 45 Marilyn Frye Suggested Activities 50 Bibliography 52 2 Commonalities and Differences among Women 55 Introduction 55 Commonalities and Differences (excerpt) 63 Johnnetta B. Cole Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference 69 Audre Lorde And A’n’t I a Woman? 77 Sojourner Truth When you Meet a Lesbian: Hints for the Heterosexual Woman 80 Indiana University Empowerment Workshop Heterosexuality Questionnaire 81 Gay and Lesbian Speaker’s Bureau Suggested Activities 82 Bibliography 85 3 Cultural Representations of Women 91 Introduction 91 Ways of Seeing (excerpt) 97 John Berger Beyond caring: the De-moralization of Gender 105 Marilyn Friedman Suggested Activities 112 Bibliography 114 Part II Cultural Institutions Defining Women 117 4 Women and Popular Culture I: Advertising, Print Media, and Pornography 119 Introduction 119 Beauty and the Beast of Advertising 127 Jean Kilbourne Fresh Lipstick: Rethinking Images of Women in Advertising 131 Linda M. Scott Suggested Activities 141 Bibliography 145 5 Women and Popular Culture II: Television and Film 149 Introduction 149 Solace in Soapland 153 Elayne Rapping No Way to Treat a Lawyer 160 Terry Kay Diggs Suggested Activities 165 Bibliography 167 6 Fashion, Beauty, and Women’s Health 171 Introduction 171 The Beauty Myth (excerpt) 179 Naomi Wolf Madonna, Fashion, and Identity (excerpt) 187 Douglas Kellner Obsession: the Tyranny of Slenderness 201 Kim Chernin Suggested Activities 216 Bibliography 219 7 Motherhood and Families 223 Introduction 223 Shifting the Center: Race, Class, and Feminist Theorizing about Motherhood (excerpt) 231 Patricia Hill Collins Fall from Grace: Twentieth-century Mom (excerpt) 244 Shari L. Thurer Out of the Stream: an Essay on Unconventional Motherhood 251 Shirley Glubka Abortion through a Feminist Ethics Lens (excerpt) 261 Susan Sherwin Suggested Activities 272 Bibliography 275 8 Sex, Sexism, Sexual Harassment, and Sexual Abuse 283 Introduction  283 High School Lowdown 301 Miranda J. Van Gelder Scope of the Problem 304 Carol Bohmer and Andrea Parrot Legal Images of Battered Women (excerpt) 323 Martha R. Mahoney In the Truth Itself, There is Healing (excerpt) 338 Ellen Bass Suggested Activities 349 Bibliography 356 Part III Opportunities for Women in Culture 363 9 Women Creating Culture 365 Introduction 365 The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Woman in Nineteenth-Century America (excerpt) 372 Carroll Smith-Rosenberg Revolution, Girl Style 391 Farai Chideya, with Melissa Rossi and Dogen Hannah Witchcraft as Goddess Religion 394 Starhawk Suggested Activities 401 Bibliography 404 10 Feminism and the Future 409 Introduction 409 Feminism: a Transformational Politic 418 bell hooks Recognizing, Accepting, and Celebrating our Differences 427 Papusa Molina Healing the Wounds: Feminism, Ecology, and the Nature/Culture Dualism (excerpt) 433 Ynestra King Still I Rise 440 Maya Angelou Suggested Activities 441 Bibliography 444 Index 449