Geek Chic: Smart Women in Popular Culture
Using popular culture as a fertile environment for challenging the stereotype that the most brilliant geeks or nerds must be men, the essays in this book demonstrate how the popular media repeatedly affirms stereotypes of femininity while paradoxically challenging the stigmatization of smart women. Contributors salute a wide range of popular characters and real female role models, from Daria to Hillary Rodham Clinton, weaving in references to television shows like Gilmore Girls and analyses...
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Using popular culture as a fertile environment for challenging the stereotype that the most brilliant geeks or nerds must be men, the essays in this book demonstrate how the popular media repeatedly affirms stereotypes of femininity while paradoxically challenging the stigmatization of smart women. Contributors salute a wide range of popular characters and real female role models, from Daria to Hillary Rodham Clinton, weaving in references to television shows like Gilmore Girls and analyses of classic icons like Sabrina.
List of Figures ixAcknowledgments xiIntroduction: Who Remembers Sabrina? Intelligence, Gender, and the Media Sherrie A. Inness 1Beauty and the Geek: Changing Gender Stereotypes on the Gilmore Girls Karin E. Westman 11Lab Coats and Lipstick: Smart Women Reshape Science on Television Lorna Jowett 31"You Can See Things that Other People Can't": Changing Images of the Girl with Glasses, from Gidget to Daria Cindy Conaway 49"Pretty Smart": Subversive Intelligence in Girl Power Cartoons Rebecca C. Hains 65Super Slacker Girls: Dropping Out but Divinely Inspired Michele Paule 85Back to the Future: The Brilliant Witches in Bewitched Linda Baughman Allison Burr-Miller Linda Manning 103Dangerous Minds: The Woman Professor on Television Leigh H. Edwards 121Raising the Bar: Brilliant Women Lawyers from Ann Kelsey to Miranda Hobbes Sharon Sutherland Sarah Swan 137Savvy Women, Old Boys' School Politics, and The West Wing Beth Berila 153Heckling Hillary: Jokes, Late-Night Television, and Hillary Rodham Clinton Jeannie Banks Thomas 171Contributors 189Index 193
\ From the Publisher\ "A fun read, and a thought-provoking one at that."--Curled Up With a Good Book\ "[Inness] does an excellent job of showing how long girls’ culture has been shaping the gender of American women and how pervasively it does so."--The Lion and the Unicorn\ "A significant contribution to girls’ studies."--Signs "Recommended." --CHOICE\ \ \
