Rating: 3.0
What it's about:
"Where the Girls Are" is about the confusing and contradictory images of women in American pop culture. Media critic Susan J. Douglas looks back at the television programs, popular music, advertising, and nightly news reports of the past four decades to reveal the mixed messages conveyed to girls and women coming of age in America. In a humorous and provocative analysis of our postwar cultural heritage, Douglas deconstructs these ambiguous messages and examines their influence on her life and the lives of her contemporaries....It is no accident, she argues, that 'girl groups' like the Shirelles emerged in the early 1960s, singing sexually charged songs like "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?;" or that cultural anxiety over female assertiveness showed up in sitcoms like "Bewitched" whose heroines had magical powers; or that the news coverage of the Equal Rights Amendment degenerated into a spat among women, absolving men of any responsibility....And yet for all the images that reinforced a traditional view of servile and dependent women, Douglas powerfully reveals how American mass culture also undermined these images by offering countless examples of girls and women who were actors in the wider world and who controlled their own destinies. -taken from Barnes&Noble.com
My thoughts:
I found Where the Girls are to be an interesting read. I think the target audience was maybe my mother's generation though and much of the book I just couldn't relate to. It was written in the early 90's and it feels outdated. Douglas came off at times a bit too whiny for my taste and somewhat repetitive. She does make interesting points though and at times Where the Girls Are was an eye-opening read.
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