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Whose Fantasy Is This: Postfeminist America

Harry , Shannon A.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1385983884

Abstract Details

2013, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, Interdisciplinary Arts (Fine Arts).
Throughout this dissertation, I argue that postfeminism is a universalized approach to the representation of gender and sexuality that most often assumes whiteness, Judeo-Christian backgrounds, Western nationalities/cultures/ethnicities, heterosexuality, and upper middle class status for the femininity it produces. Primarily through the lens of popular films and television shows, the dissertation is an intervention into postfeminist studies in order to place current constructions of femininity in popular culture into a broader frame of American identities. I attempt to carefully illuminate the ongoing Othering constructions in our most frequently shared mediascape that may be particularly secretive and insidious in texts that can be superficially read as "feminist" or "woman-centered." While Simone de Beauvoir argues that "Woman is other," in postfeminist texts there is another radical move, a "double Othering," in which women are constructed both as "Others" to men and the construction of the woman as postfeminist subject also requires an Othering of class, race/ethnicity, sexuality, or age. I argue in this work that the production of a postfeminist character or attitude is not legible without these specific, assumed double Others. The terms of "double Othering," as I argue about postfeminist texts, are invoked to produce very particular American subjects and often do little toward exploring the lives of people outside postfeminist prescription: neither women as a category, nor women across various identity markers.
Michael Gillespie (Committee Chair)
289 p.
American Studies; Film Studies; Womens Studies
postfeminism; popular culture; feminism

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Harry , S. A. (2013). Whose Fantasy Is This: Postfeminist America [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1385983884

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Harry , Shannon. Whose Fantasy Is This: Postfeminist America. 2013. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1385983884.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Harry , Shannon. "Whose Fantasy Is This: Postfeminist America." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1385983884

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.