Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media

This wickedly funny examination of media images of women over the last 50 years, Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media explains how a generation whose role models were Gidget and Patty Duke grew up to be the feminists of the '70s. Baby-boomer women may blush in shame now, but 30 years ago Gidget taught valuable lessons about the power of being perky. Fortysomething Susan J. Douglas deconstructs a number of popular television shows, movies, magazines, and songs to show how female identities were forged from Bewitched, the movie Where the Boys Are, and the song "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" Post-boomers might not have experienced the full force of the cultural schizophrenia that plagued Douglas' generation, but they will surely appreciate the trenchant discussions of TV's Charlie's Angels and Dynasty. A-