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73rd out of 580 books
—
753 voters
Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media
Media critic Douglas deconstructs the ambiguous messages sent to American women via TV programs, popular music, advertising, and nightly news reporting over the last 40 years, and fathoms their influence on her own life and the lives of her contemporaries. Photos.
Paperback, 349 pages
Published
March 28th 1995
by Three Rivers Press
(first published 1994)
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I'm sure that there are many negative reviews of this book, and I'm sure one of the main complaints is that the author can't be impartial because she's writing about her life but as a scholar. I have to say that that strikes me as total crap. This author makes no bones about her own experiences and weaves them throughout the book. Her feelings about her experiences serve to make the book richer, more emotional and more understandable. She doesn't hide her bias, she puts it right there in your fa...more
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incredibly witty and exhaustive in its research. this book is also very sophisticated in its unwillingness to paint one portrait of the media and its role in women's lives.
This is an extremely fun history book to read. Using a variety of sources including magazines, movies, music, advertisements, television, and newspapers, Susan Douglas analyzes how the media has depicted women from the 1950s through the early 90s. She places her analysis within the backdrop of larger events in women/gender history in the United States. This book shows how far women's role in American society has changed since the 1950s. I am in my early 20s and after reading this book I had a st...more
This book provided some striking insights into how the female body is objectified and given a lowly ranking in Western society - for example, it speaks of the strong cultural pressures for women to have a youthful appearance at nearly all stages of life, and that a rounded belly is seen as disgusting. The author defends rounded bellies, arguing that they represent childbearing, the enjoyment of a good meal or two, and just plain genetics in some cases. The author also dissects (in a meandering w...more
This analysis of mass media from the early fifties to the mid-nineties is fascinating because not only does Douglas explore how women were portrayed and addressed, she explains how these media affected and shaped women as an audience and as a movement. The contradictory, ever changing role of the woman in American society and the question of how much of a woman is shaped by external influence is well examined. Unfortunately, even an intelligent professor like Douglas can only offer analysis and...more
My review:
An easy, breezy, interesting read. Somewhat rambling. Lots of good insights about pop culture and mass media, particularly music groups and television shows. The tone can be a little sarcastic, which, for me, can get a little tiresome. Also can be a little too judgmental without being journalistic/objective. Very enjoyable, though, and englightening about the influences of women in media, from Mary Tyler Moore to Roseanne Barr and Madonna.
Quotable quotes:
1) "The moral is clear: you ca...more
An easy, breezy, interesting read. Somewhat rambling. Lots of good insights about pop culture and mass media, particularly music groups and television shows. The tone can be a little sarcastic, which, for me, can get a little tiresome. Also can be a little too judgmental without being journalistic/objective. Very enjoyable, though, and englightening about the influences of women in media, from Mary Tyler Moore to Roseanne Barr and Madonna.
Quotable quotes:
1) "The moral is clear: you ca...more
An interesting analyzation of girls shaped by the media and feminism, starting in the late '50s and early '60s and ending on the brink of the '90s. It's interesting to read overall, but a lot of the analysis seems, to me, blown out of proportion. Were the Beatles really popular because they were androgynous, and girls wanted to be like them? Were certain TV show characters meant to show women how to be subservient? Perhaps, but maybe the Beatles just write catchy songs, and TV shows are mindless...more
I was actually quite bored out of my mind while reading this (but I pushed through since a friend of mine sent it to me). I think the problem was that in the beginning of this book, most of what I was reading wasn't new to me at all and were things that even I grew up around, except for the fact that I was born in the early 1980s (but my mom is the same generation as this author, so I saw all the shows mentioned and heard all the music mentioned and knew a lot of the strife and joys of that time...more
Fun analysis of the role of women in media by a media studies professor. She discusses a wide variety of pop culture from the 50's, 60's, and 70's forward and analyses the impact it has had on women's views of themselves and the feminist movement. I'm enjoying seeing myself, my sisters, and my mother's life choices as women placed in the perspective of messages transmitted by mass media, and I've learned some things that I didn't know. I was born in the 70's and I always find it eye-opening to r...more
After seeing this book often included in the reading lists for undergraduate courses on US Women's History, I decided to consider assigning it next semester. Although at some point in the first few chapters I decided not to use it for the course, I wanted to finish reading it myself. I was tempted to give it only two stars, because I didn't find the analysis terribly insightful and the author's too flippant and personal comments often troubled me; nonetheless, I was interested enough to finish t...more
This was an interesting read. It started out talking about the 50’s and 60’s; television programming and girl groups and how they portrayed women to the masses. While I enjoyed Douglas’ commentary, I was not familiar with any of the shows she covered so her writing didn’t have the same impact it may have had on someone older, but I thought she was very insightful. When she started covering the feminist movement in the 60’s (particularly the ’68 Miss America Pageant protest) I got really into it....more
This is a fascinating look at mass media from the 1960's-1990's, and the way it simultaneously portrayed, influenced, and responded to women throughout the second-wave feminist movement. I think it's a valuable read, however I only gave it three stars because it lacks rigorous analysis. Many promising theories presented by the author need to be explained with more convincing data or more persuasive arguments, if the reader is to fully accept the conclusions drawn.
While reading this book, I found...more
While reading this book, I found...more
This book is about the history of women in the media. It was different than what I thought it would be because I thought it would primarily focus on physical expectations the media places on women, but instead I was pleased to learn so much more summarizing the conflicts women have grown through over the past fifty years. It's a little different than what I normally read simply because I love being a girl and and I'm not career minded like this author but it gave good examples of why women strug...more
Douglas argues that the media has a profound affect on women and girls and that this affect needs to be examined. Through a discussion of movies, television shows, music, magazines, and news reporting she illustrates the way the media creates a dual-consciousness for women. The media encourages women to be strong and independent while demonizing those who step too far outside the traditional role. Overall, her argument is very compelling and she is hilarious! Definitely worth reading.
An excellent, highly personal take on what Betty Friedan first articulated in her 1960 book The Feminine Mystique namely, the role of popular culture and media in shaping female identity in the 50s & 60s. As L.A. Times TV critic Mary McNamara pointed out in a recent interview on NPR Talk of the Nation regarding AMC TV's current hit series Mad Men the advertising industry's pivotal role in creating the "new femininity," which centered around the home and childrearing and which was designed to...more
I wanted to love this book. I really did. But it slowly went in a downhill spiral from "interesting" to "oh, here she goes again..." I read it in my Women in Pop Culture class in undergrad, and while I found it informative, it reminded me of a memoir of someone growing up in the dawn of the ad era. I remember hearing the same stuff from my mother, which gives some credibility to the author, but at the same time, I grew annoyed. The author seems to portray herself as this "woe is me, I am warped...more
A wonderful personal history of women's varied and schizophrenic images in the media from the 1960s through the 1990s. This book discusses female TV icons from Annette to Roseanne, musical icons from The Chiffons to Madonna, and exposes the media's undercutting of the feminist movement in the 1960s & 1970s and narrow repackaging of it in the 1980s & 1990s. It makes me excited to read Douglas' new book and continue the journey of women in the media. In some ways I've got hope (Sarah Haski...more
At first, I groaned at the notion of having to read this. To me, it was just another text book for my History of American Women class, and I had a feeling the perspectives would be fairly predictable. I was wrong. Douglas does a really great job of incorporating her own experiences into history, which, enhances the reading significantly. While I didn't always agree with Douglas' points of view - like saying Mary Tyler Moore wasn't progressive enough - it made for a very interesting read. I stron...more
Really funny and really interesting. While some may deem this subject matter trivial, it actually really does matter how the mass media is portraying women, especially in this day and age when our culture is so celebrity obesessed. How are women going to grow up empowered to change the world if all they get are images of weak, materialistic, know-nothing women? Susan J. Douglas's latest, Enlightened Sexism, appears to be an updated look at this topic. I'm looking forward to reading that book as...more
loved this very thorough examination of the media's effect on american women as television and recorded music have permeated our lives through the decades. looks at all types of media and really provides some food for thought. as a pop culture enthusiast + feminist, i loved reading it and still think about a lot of its arguments as i assess media today. recommend it to all my feminist friends.
Douglas provides a cheeky and insightful look at how American popular culture has depicted and shaped women, as told through her very personal perspective of growing up in the media age. The chapter on "Bewitched" and "I Dream of Jeannie" alone is well worth the cover price. All in all, this book shows how academic study can be both smart and entertaining.
Makes me wish I taken her classes while I was at Hampshire. I particularly enjoyed the way the explains the visceral importance of music to young women -- something I can absolutely relate to. She also points out how feminism is the civil rights movement most connected to anti-consumerism and how deeply cynical it is that corporations found a way to coopt the movement (you're worth it! enjoli, etc.) the book was published in the 90s -- I would love to read a follow up if there is one.
A very illuminating look at the ways that mass media has shaped femininity and feminism, women's views of themselves, and the schizophrenic message girls and women receive from Hollywood, advertisers, news outlets, and government. I would be very interested to see what Douglas thinks of media now, over 15 years since this book was released.
Although written and published in the early to mid 1990s, this book is (not/surprisingly?) still quite relevant. A fun, witty, fascinating look at popular culture and (as well as sometimes versus) feminism. I'd recommend it to anyone with interest in either or both topics as well as any baby boomers or those in my age cohort (e.g., who remember B&W TV and metal lunchboxes and the John Hughes era and the advent of MTV).
Great history of American women as portrayed in the media. She's a bit repetitive in driving home her thesis, but I think that she makes valid arguments, uses statistics appropriately, and offers a tongue in cheek history of the way American women have benefited and suffered due to the television and music industries.
This book was fantastic. Informative, fascinating, entertains while encouraging one to see the messages in mass media and connect them with daily experience. Makes you appreciate the BS our mothers (figurative or literal) went through, and helps you spot how culturally, some things haven't yet changed enough.
A super fun and easy read, Douglas reflects on growing up as a girl and the images of women the media presented to her - both positive and negative. This book serves as both a brief history of American pop culture as well as a poignant commentary about the generation gap between mothers and daughters.
Overall, an interesting read. Really, the book is aimed at baby boomers, and much of the analysis pertained to TV shows or movies I'm too young to have seen. Still, I found her writing style to be quite entertaining, and the last chapter (which deals with the 80s and 90s) is still fairly relevant today, sadly.
I read this for a US studies class, and while it fit the curriculum well and was a fun, easy read, it wasn't very... academic? Too much based off personal experience and opinion. The woman is in academia, too, so I suppose that is a red flag.
There is this one chapter towards the end where she is talking about how the "80's work ethic" influenced the popularity of women showing off their hips and thighs in that era, "because getting great looking thighs is fucking impossible after you turn 21!!!"...more
There is this one chapter towards the end where she is talking about how the "80's work ethic" influenced the popularity of women showing off their hips and thighs in that era, "because getting great looking thighs is fucking impossible after you turn 21!!!"...more
Chapter 8, "I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar", describing media coverage of the women's lib movement 1968-70, is infuriating. Now I know where every (modern) negative stereotype of women and every dismissive, tired anti-woman/feminist argument comes from. Even more insidious is why women got day care and right to choose but couldn't make a dent in being seen as lesser people and sex objects. "The more things change..."
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Susan J. Douglas is a prize-winning author, columnist, and cultural critic, and the Catherine Neafie Kellogg Professor of Communication Studies at The University of Michigan. Her book Where the Girls Are was widely praised, and chosen one of the top ten books of 1994 by National Public Radio, Entertainment Weekly and The McLaughlin Group. In her most recent book, Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive...more
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