1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910813176103321

Autore

Vavrus Mary Douglas

Titolo

Postfeminist news : political women in media culture / / Mary Douglas Vavrus

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Albany, : State University of New York Press, c2002

ISBN

0-7914-8834-9

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (238 p.)

Collana

SUNY series Communication studies

Disciplina

302.23/082/0973

Soggetti

Mass media and women - United States

Women politicians - United States

Feminism and mass media - United States

United States Politics and government 1989-

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-216) index.

Nota di contenuto

""Postfeminist News: Political Women in Media Culture""; ""Contents""; ""Acknowledgments""; ""Introduction""; ""1. Theorizing Media Representation of Electoral Feminism""; ""2. Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas,  and the Crisis of White Patriarchal Authority""; ""3. Postfeminist Identities, Neoliberal Ideology, and Women of the Year""; ""4. From Women of the Year to “Soccer Momsâ€?: The Case of the Incredible Shrinking Women""; ""5. “Pray Tell, Who Is the â€?Sheâ€?â€??: Campaign 2000, or the Year of One Woman""; ""AFTERWORD: Putting Ally on Trial: Contesting Postfeminism in Media Culture""

""Notes""""Index""; ""A""; ""B""; ""C""; ""D""; ""E""; ""F""; ""G""; ""H""; ""I""; ""J""; ""K""; ""L""; ""M""; ""N""; ""O""; ""P""; ""Q""; ""R""; ""S""; ""T""; ""U""; ""V""; ""W""; ""Y""

Sommario/riassunto

Winner of the 2003 Diamond Anniversary Book Award presented by the National Communication AssociationIn the media-saturated decade of the 1990s, news reports shaped public sentiment about women in electoral politics and beyond. Mary Douglas Vavrus explores the process of representing political women in media, and argues that contemporary news accounts promote a postfeminist politics that encourages women's private, consumer lifestyles and middle-class aspirations, while it discourages public life and political activism. The



author discusses the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings of 1991, the 1991–92 "Year of the Woman" in politics, the 1996 presidential campaign's use of "soccer moms," and Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign for Senate in 2000. Vavrus assesses the logic that emerges in these narratives' recurrent themes about gender and explores their significance for women and for feminism, ultimately arguing that feminism has been supplanted by postfeminism in news accounts of political women.