Women today are inundated with conflicting messages from the mass media: they must either be strong leaders in complete command or sex kittens obsessed with finding and pleasing a man. In The Rise Of Enlightened Sexism, Susan J. Douglas, one of America's most entertaining and insightful cultural critics, takes readers on a spirited journey through the television programs, popular songs, movies, and news coverage of recent years, telling a story that is nothing less than the cultural biography of a new generation of American women.
Revisiting cultural touchstones from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Survivor to Desperate Housewives, Douglas uses wit and wisdom to expose these images of women as mere fantasies of female power, assuring women and girls that the battle for equality has been won, so there's nothing wrong with resurrecting sexist stereotypes―all in good fun, of course. She shows that these portrayals not only distract us from the real-world challenges facing women today but also drive a wedge between baby-boom women and their "millennial" daughters.
In seeking to bridge this generation gap, Douglas makes the case for casting aside these retrograde messages, showing us how to decode the mixed messages that restrict the ambitions of women of all ages. And what makes The Rise Of Enlightened Sexism such a pleasure to read is Douglas's unique voice, as she blends humor with insight and offers an empathetic and sisterly guide to the images so many American women love and hate with equal measure.

The Rise of Enlightened Sexism: How Pop Culture Took Us from Girl Power to Girls Gone Wild

Literature & Fiction

Douglas, Susan J.

History & Criticism

St. Martin's: Griffin

Review\n"A clarion call for older women to ‘rip off the invisibility cloak’ and reinvent the world they live in so it stops cheating them." 
― Leslie Bennetts, New York Times Book Review\n"A masterful takedown of gendered ageism." 
― Molly Sprayregen, Associated Press\n"A feminist intervention… to reclaim women’s aging as a social movement and harness their voices, experience, and wisdom toward social change." 
― Andi Zeisler, Bitch magazine\n"Read this book, ladies, and let’s get very, very busy." 
― Katha Pollitt, author of Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights\n"A skilled and stirring call… to confront the ‘double helix of ageism and sexism.’" 
― Ashton Applewhite, author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism\n"In Our Prime is a highly evocative―and necessary―work that exposes the invasive roots of ageism in today’s world. A call-to-action for wise women of all ages, it demands that no woman be viewed as an irrelevant ‘has-been.’ With unassailable documentation, Douglas invites women into an honest, stark review of historical and current issues that affect every female’s optimal well-being. Douglas illuminates the need for today’s women to intensify their engagement in creating standards that rise above sexism and ageism." 
― Carla Marie Manly, PhD, author of Aging Joyfully\n"Susan Douglas’s fierce, funny, engaging book sent me off to Google Maggie Kuhn, the over-fifty warrior who challenged negative ideas about older women at the dawn of Second Wave feminism. Douglas thinks older women are due to rise up again―arm in arm with sisters across the generational divide―and I am ready to storm the barricades with them. I was alarmed by Douglas’s startling-yet-nonhyperbolic depictions of gendered ageism―as well as real threats to Medicare and Social Security. In Our Prime is not just for older women―or exclusively for women. In droll, lively, exhaustively documented prose, it exposes the threat that market fundamentalism poses to people across the economic spectrum." 
― M. G. Lord, author of The Accidental Feminist and Forever Barbie\n"Susan J. Douglas’s hilarious and deeply intelligent book chronicles how older women are rejecting sexist ageism. Required reading for those of us who are fifty or older―and everyone who (with any luck) someday will be. An informative and sharp call to arms, In Our Prime just may help bring the revolution we all need." 
― Liza Featherstone, author of Divining Desire\n“[A] galvanizing manifesto.” ―New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice 
With a sharp sense of justice and wit, Susan J. Douglas raises the alarm about ageist attacks against women, whether pushed out of jobs, caricatured in the media, or preyed upon by the anti-aging industry. Douglas celebrates women defying stereotypes and embracing activism and puts forward a plan for a brighter future for all women. Entertaining and smart, you’ll want to share this book with your best friend.

In Our Prime: How Older Women Are Reinventing the Road Ahead

Self-Help

W.W.Norton&Company

Do you see women your age portrayed as puttering gardeners and docile grannies? Do you feel bombarded by anti-aging products that insist you must “defy” getting older? Do you feel invisible in professional and social situations? And have you had enough and are you ready to challenge the intertwining of sexism and ageism in our culture?
Susan Douglas knows that you are not alone. She declares it is time now for the largest female generation over fifty to reinvent what it means to be an older woman and to challenge the outdated stereotypes―think doddering or shrewish―that Hollywood and TV have assigned them. She zones in on how the anti-aging cosmetics industry targets older and younger women alike with their products, and how Big Pharma ads equate getting older with disease and decline. Douglas exposes the ageism that mature women face at work and why conservatives’ decades-long attacks on Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare disproportionately affect women.
With a sharp sense of justice and fresh wit, In Our Prime sees a social movement emerging that may help to create a different view of and life for older women. It celebrates Gray Panther Maggie Kuhn, who broke down legal barriers in the past, as well as today’s activists, career women, actors, and others who defy stereotypical images by embracing their age and remaining strong and socially involved. Ultimately, Douglas calls on women of all ages to join together now to fight against gendered ageism, to secure our country’s financial safety net, and to make a brighter, more welcome future for older women.

Listening in: Radio and the American Imagination, from Amos 'N' Andy and Edward R. Murrow to Wolfman Jack and Howard Stern

Humor & Entertainment

Radio

Diane Pub Co.

From the author of Where the Girls Are, a sharp and irreverent critique of how women are portrayed in today's popular culture
Women today are inundated with conflicting messages from the mass media: they must either be strong leaders in complete command or sex kittens obsessed with finding and pleasing a man. In Enlightened Sexism, Susan J. Douglas, one of America's most entertaining and insightful cultural critics, takes readers on a spirited journey through the television programs, popular songs, movies, and news coverage of recent years, telling a story that is nothing less than the cultural biography of a new generation of American women.
Revisiting cultural touchstones from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Survivor to Desperate Housewives, Douglas uses wit and wisdom to expose these images of women as mere fantasies of female power, assuring women and girls that the battle for equality has been won, so there's nothing wrong with resurrecting sexist stereotypes―all in good fun, of course. She shows that these portrayals not only distract us from the real-world challenges facing women today but also drive a wedge between baby-boom women and their "millennial" daughters.
In seeking to bridge this generation gap, Douglas makes the case for casting aside these retrograde messages, showing us how to decode the mixed messages that restrict the ambitions of women of all ages. And what makes Enlightened Sexism such a pleasure to read is Douglas's unique voice, as she blends humor with insight and offers an empathetic and sisterly guide to the images so many women love and hate with equal measure.

Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism's Work Is Done

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Times Books

A scholar and media critic takes a provocative look at the portrayal of women in American popular culture from the 1950s to the present day and assesses the impact of such images on women's real lives. 20,000 first printing. Tour.

Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media

Media critic Douglas deconstructs the ambiguous messages sent to American women via TV programs, popular music, advertising, and nightly news reporting over the last 40 years, and fathoms their influence on her own life and the lives of her contemporaries. Photos.

Crown

Susan Douglas, author of the much praised Where the Girls Are, explores how radio -- how we listened, where we listened, and whom we listened to -- has influenced the national psyche.

Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination, from Amos 'n' Andy and Edward R. Murrow to W olfman Jack and Howard Stern

Time Books

Few inventions evoke such nostalgia, such deeply personal and vivid memories as radio. Ask anyone born before World War II about radio, and you'll see that person time-travel to the lost world of Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Arturo Toscanini; to the jokes of Jack Benny and Burns and Allen; to the sobering commentary of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Edward R. Murrow. Those born after World War II grew up tuned to Jean Shepherd in the darkness of their bedrooms; cruising with Sam Cooke, the Beatles, or the Doors; talking back to Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, and Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Listening In is the first in-depth history of how radio culture and content have kneaded and expanded the American psyche. But Listening In is more than a history. It is also a reconsideration of what listening to radio has done to American culture in the twentieth century and how it has brought a completely new auditory dimension to our lives. Susan Douglas explores how listening has altered our day-to-day experiences and our own generational identities, cultivating different modes of listening in different eras; how radio has shaped our views of race, gender roles, ethic barriers, family dynamics, leadership, and the generation gap. How we listened, where we listened, who we listened to and why: With her trademark wit and erudition, Susan Douglas has created an eminently readable cultural history of radio that fixes its place in our lives as shaper and reflector of our passions and obsessions.

Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination

Three Rivers Press

Few inventions evoke such nostalgia, such deeply personal and vivid memories as radio-from Amos 'n' Andy and Edward R. Murrow to Wolfman Jack and Howard Stern. Listening In is the first in-depth history of how radio culture and content have kneaded and expanded the American psyche.But Listening In is more than a history. It is also a reconsideration of what listening to radio has done to American culture in the twentieth century and how it has brought a completely new auditory dimension to our lives. Susan Douglas explores how listening has altered our day-to-day experiences and our own generational identities, cultivating different modes of listening in different eras; how radio has shaped our views of race, gender roles, ethnic barriers, family dynamics, leadership, and the generation gap. With her trademark wit, Douglas has created an eminently readable cultural history of radio."Douglas's wonderful book offers a sophisticated history of radio listening." -Journal of American HistorySusan J. Douglas is professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and author of Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media.

Listening In: Radio And The American Imagination

Univ. of Minnesota Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Douglas, Susan J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Douglas, Susan J.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Douglas, Susan J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Rise of Enlightened Sexism: How Pop Culture Took Us from Girl Power to Girls Gone Wild

In Our Prime: How Older Women Are Reinventing the Road Ahead

In Our Prime: How Older Women Are Reinventing the Road Ahead

Listening in: Radio and the American Imagination, from Amos 'N' Andy and Edward R. Murrow to Wolfman Jack and Howard Stern

Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism's Work Is Done

Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media

Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media

Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination, from Amos 'n' Andy and Edward R. Murrow to W olfman Jack and Howard Stern

Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination

Listening In: Radio And The American Imagination