Fantasies of Femininity

Download or read book Fantasies of Femininity written by Jane M. Ussher and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Fantasies of Femininity, Jane Ussher focuses on unraveling the contradictory visions of feminine sexuality: the fact that representations of the definition of woman seethe with sexuality yet for centuries women have been condemned for exploring their own sexual desires. In her quest for the sources of feminine representation, Ussher interviewed dozens of women - as well as some men - and combed popular media - from Seventeen to Cosmopolitan and Dallas to Donahue - to identify what shapes women's symbolic images of sex and femininity. Ussher argues that women have effectively resisted and subverted these archetypal fantasies of femininity, and in the process of so doing, reframed the very boundaries of sex. In this way, she exposes as myth much of what we think we know about "woman" and about "sex."