Bygofuva

An interview about a collaboration between a qualitative sociologist and a creative arts therapist/visual artist, which resulted in a book that takes women's interviews about dissatisfying relationships as well as body image, and presents them as short stories and portraits. The book presents alternatives to the narratives and image typically seen in popular culture.

2015

This dissertation explores the immensely popular return of the housewife character in the twenty-first century. From films like The Stepford Wives (2004), to television dramas like Desperate Housewives (2004-2012) and The Good Wife (2009-), to reality shows like Wife Swap (2004-), Bravo's The Real Housewives franchise (2006-), Basketball Wives (2010-), Mob Wives (2011-), and most recently on the blogosphere with personalities like The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, the housewife character has reentered our imaginations on a mass scale. This anachronistic character trend is in stark contrast to the urban, working superwoman ideal of the 1980s and 1990s portrayed in characters like Ally McBeal and Carrie Bradshaw. Arguably, reimagining the housewife in the new millennium is both a part of a larger project to nostalgically return to earlier periods of US history while trying to redefine womanhood and motherhood today, post 9/11. Chapter one links the rise of the housewife as an American stock character to American nationalism in anywhere from early advice books in the nineteenth century, such Lydia M. Child's The American Frugal Housewife (1829), into cinematic narratives such as Cecil B. DeMille's sex comedies like Old Wives For New (1918) and, later, to the classic 1950s June Cleaver television character in Leave it to Beaver. Chapter two analyzes iii the 2004 film remake of The Stepford Wives and its relationship to second-wave feminism and the 1970s popular horror novel by Ira Levin and film directed by Bryan Forbes. Chapter three describes how the television show Desperate Housewives (2004-2012) was the first to bring the character of the suffering housewife imagined by Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique back to life. Chapter four examines the pervasiveness of the housewife character on reality television, as it explores the relationship between so-called real housewives and real feminists within neoliberal constructions of postfeminist and post-racial identities. Chapter five concludes with a brief discussion of new trends in hip domesticity that are popular on the blogosphere, ultimately revealing how the housewife character has been historically aligned with articulating American feminist identities and concerns.

Mother joins a slate of recent studies about representations of ''women's work'' within a postfeminist TV landscape. Like many other television scholars (most notably Lynn Spigel, Nathanson's doctoral advisor at Northwestern University), Nathanson sees programs as occupying a central role within the rhythms of housework, even as they try to distance themselves from more traditional expectations of women's domestic roles. The result, she argues, is a contradiction in how contemporary television represents White, middle-class women's labor: Programs applaud women for their newfound self-determination in the working world, even as they still express anxiety and disapproval with the growing laundry piles and neglected motherly obligations supposedly created by such a work focus. Exploring this contradiction through a wide variety of programs and genres, Nathanson's text emerges as a welcome extension and broadening of other books on the relations between contemporary television and flexible labor, such as Mark Andrejevic's Reality TV , Laurie Ouellette and James Hay's Better Living Through Reality TV (2008), and Brenda Weber's Makeover TV (2009).

Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network, 2018

Fashioning is critical to explorations of television identities and American melodrama-thriller series Scandal (2012-17) provides opportunities to explore representations of ethnicity together with depictions of interracial romance and intercourse. Utilising semiotics I explore the contribution of costume designer Lyn Paolo to the construction of the Black-American heroine of the series, Olivia Pope, successful career woman and lover of a white, male President. Arguing for the potential of female spectacle and soft-core pornography as progressive I consider Paolo’s influences, suggesting that Olivia’s fashioning transformations illustrate her as dandy-flâneuse, one controlling the visualisation of her identity.

Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement, 2002

L i t h is a gregarious yet softly spoken woman whose energy and enthusiasm belie her 70 years of living. She defies every imaginable stereotype I hold of an older person, let alone an older woman. She is active, articulate, and strong (I see her gym equipment in the corner of the room); she is opinionated and, to my complete astonishment, she is sexy. I notice that her eyes sparkle blue every time she throws her head back to laugh with an irresistible combination of wisdom and freedom. I have to admit it, this woman is utterly compelling. L i t h is, however, a mother who has left her children and it is for this reason that I have come to interview her. I just never expected to encounter such a powerful, centred and sensuous woman. I am caught off guard with a reprimanding conscience (asking myself why I assumed an older woman wouldn't possess any or all of L i t h ' s traits) and seduced by the novelty of one who does. I am enamoured with the gift of Lillith's story an...

2021

Suzanne Leonard’s Wife, Inc.: The Business of Marriage in the Twenty-First Century positions women’s work as performing “wifedom” within widespread conceptions of neoliberal postfeminism. While marriage is increasingly seen as declining in social relevance in the United States, the author explores “female media culture” (p. 3)—as presented through popular television, film, literature, news, magazines, and advice culture—and demonstrates how the saturation of female representation in such mediums is heavily reliant on marriage. Leonard explains, “The wife has morphed into postfeminist media culture’s most favored icon, one endlessly utilized to frame discussions of female life cycles” (p. 4).

Index book number 206583 Bachelor's Thesis Written at the Department of English Under the Supervision of Prof. Beata Zawadka. KEY WORDS: 1. Until the 20th century 2. The 20th century and after 3. Film analysis Introduction "It is definitely difficult being a woman and growing up a girl. When you're graceful, people say you lack personality; when you are serene, people say you're boring; when you are confident, people say you are arrogant; when you are feminine, people say you are too girly; and when you climb trees, people say you are too much of a tomboy! As a woman, you need to develop a very strong sense of self and the earlier you can do that, the better! You have to be all the things that you are, without allowing other people's ignorance change you! I realized that they do not know what grace is, they cannot identify serenity, they have inferiority complexes, they are incapable of being feminine, and they do not know how to climb trees!" (C. JoyBell C.) This quotation is a very precise description of how society can influence a woman's life. Their attitudes toward women can be not only

2013

Domestic advice literature is rich in information about design, ideals of domesticity, consumption and issues of identity, yet this literature remains a relatively neglected resource in comparison with magazines and film. Design at Home brings together etiquette, homemaking and home decoration advice as sources in the first systematic demonstration of the historical value of domestic advice literature as a genre of word and image, and a discourse of dominance. This book traces a transatlantic domestic dialogue between the UK and the US as the chapters explore issues of design, domesticity, consumption, social interaction and identity markers including class, gender and age. Areas covered include: the use of domestic advice by historians relationships between advice, housing and the middle class links between advice and gender advice and the teenage consumer Design at Home is essential reading for students and scholars of cultural and social history, design history, and cultural studies.