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This book examines the role of popular culture in the construction of gendered identities in contemporary society. It draws on a wide range of popular cultural forms - including popular music, newspapers and television - to illustrate how femininity and masculinity are produced, represented and consumed.
The authors blend primary and secondary research to offer the reader a balanced yet novel overview of the area. Students are introduced to key theories and concepts in the fields of gender studies and popular culture, which are made accessible and interesting through their application to topical examples such as DJs, binge drinking and computer games.
The book is structured into three clear, user-friendly sections:
1. Production, gender and popular culture: An investigation of who produces popular culture, why gendered patterns occur, and how they impact on content.
2. Representation, gender and popular culture: An examination of how men and women are represented in contemporary popular culture, and how notions of (in)appropriate femininity and masculinity are constructed.
3. Consumption, gender and popular culture: An exploration of who consumes what in popular culture, how gendered consumption relates to space, and what the effects of consuming representations of gender are.
Gender and Popular Culture will be essential reading for students and scholars of media and cultural studies at all levels.
About the Book
This book examines the role of popular culture in the construction of gendered identities in contemporary society. It draws on a wide range of popular cultural forms - including popular music, newspapers, and television - to illustrate how femininity and masculinity are produced, represented and consumed.
Review Quotes
1. ""Gender and Popular Culture" expertly ties together the last few decades of research on its title themes, then brings these up to date in an impressive, useful manner. Theoretically rich, it is particularly successful in offering original, smart analyses of recent popular cultural phenomena (from Mad Men through men's magazines). This engaging book should find a wide audience among students and teachers of gender studies, popular culture, and media."Will Straw, McGill University
"This excellent, accessibly written book details how gender is constructed in popular culture through an array of insights into its relationship to production, consumption and representation. It looks at how gender identities are performatively constituted through discourse, power and continuing inequality. This book will prove indispensable to those interested in the cultural politics of gender."Shirley Tate, Leeds University
"Fresh, accessible, and thorough, "Gender and Popular Culture" is an excellent introduction and a valuable resource for anyone interested in gender, media, and culture. Milestone and Meyer offer clear and concise surveys of both foundational and current research as well as engaging case studies that model for readers sophisticated analyses of gender in contemporary popular culture."Mary Celeste Kearney, University of Texas at Austin
2. "Presents readers with a rich analysis of the ways in which gender norms, identities and relations are produced in popular culture ... Well-written, thoroughly well-structured and accessible."
Times Higher Education textbook guide
"Gender and Popular Culture expertly ties together the last few decades of research on its title themes, then brings these up to date in an impressive, useful manner. Theoretically rich, it is particularly successful in offering original, smart analyses of recent popular cultural phenomena (from Mad Men through men's magazines). This engaging book should find a wide audience among students and teachers of gender studies, popular culture, and media."
Will Straw, McGill University
"This excellent, accessibly written book details how gender is constructed in popular culture through an array of insights into its relationship to production, consumption and representation. It looks at how gender identities are performatively constituted through discourse, power and continuing inequality. This book will prove indispensable to those interested in the cultural politics of gender."
Shirley Tate, Leeds University
"Fresh, accessible, and thorough, Gender and Popular Culture is an excellent introduction and a valuable resource for anyone interested in gender, media, and culture. Milestone and Meyer offer clear and concise surveys of both foundational and current research as well as engaging case studies that model for readers sophisticated analyses of gender in contemporary popular culture."
Mary Celeste Kearney, University of Texas at Austin
