Publisher's Synopsis
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. The materials are drawn from a wide range of sources, including popular newspapers, women's and fashion magazines, academic journals and textbooks. Together they reveal how the mass media, music, and pornography industries portray women, how advertising promotes unattainable standards of beauty for women, and how, for example, cultural expectations can promote date rape and sexual harassment, as well as exploring women's contributions to culture. Divided into three parts - Cultural Construction of Gender: Cultural Institutions Defining Women: Opportunities for Women in Culture - the anthology offers not only a wide range of readings, but also detailed introductions, questions, suggested activities and bibliographies of key works (including films and videos) for further study.
