Fantasies of femininity
Subtitle: reframing the boundaries of sex
By: Jane M. Ussher.
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: New Brunswick, N.J
Language: eng
Number of pages: 415
Subjects: Sex role; Femininity; Women in art; Women in motion pictures; Pornography
Description: 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."
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [375]-391) and index.