Fantasies of Femininity: Reframing the Boundaries of Sex
by By Ussher, Jane M.
Category: Social Science , Feminism & Feminist Theory

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."