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Watching Women

Femininity on TV
  • Sarah Kornfield
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2025
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About this book

The women on television series are spectacularly feminine. They are the most beautiful doctors, lawyers, detectives, scientists, queens, fashion-writers, moms, Victorian ladies, and witches ever seen. Focusing on series that celebrate empowered women from mainstay crime dramas such as Bones (2005-2017) and The Rookie: Feds (2022-2023) to teen dramas, with series such as Sex Education (2019-2023) and Charmed (2018-2022), to romance series such as Bridgerton (2020-), this book analyzes the onscreen portrayals of femme, femininity, and feminism. Specifically, this book maps the televisual trends that objectify femininity and those that visualize femininity as subject, working to demonstrate how televisual style constructs femininity through its onscreen portrayals.
  • The first book to explore femme or fem(me)inine representation on television
  • Identifies the key televisual styles or trends that work to objectify women and femininity
  • Provides a significant breadth of coverage of TV genres

Author / Editor information

Sarah Kornfield (Ph.D., Penn State) is Professor of Communication and an Affiliated Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Hope College. She analyzes the public persuasion of sexism and her research focuses on how gender is performed, produced, and constructed in U.S. television.

Reviews

"Kornfield offers a fresh perspective on fem(me)inine representation, expanding feminist media analysis to include femme epistemologies. Her approach lays bare the complex ways that femininity is embodied, devalued, and regulated and how femmephobic processes are simultaneously challenged and reproduced through televisual mediums. A vital contribution to feminist media studies, Watching Women transforms our understanding of gender representation in media, making it an indispensable resource for anyone interested in femininity and popular culture. Kornfield’s analysis will reshape how we think about fem(me)inine agency and representation in the modern media landscape."
Rhea Ashley Hoskin, PhD, University of Waterloo and St. Jerome’s University, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Femininities

"Deeply researched and meticulously detailed, Watching Women illuminates the ways that televisual style both positions viewers to devalue the feminine and embrace feminist subjectivity. Kornfield offers important insights that challenge readers to reappraise televisual femininity and its relationship to feminist politics."
Kristen Hoerl, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Topics

Frontmatter

Publicly Available Download PDF 		I
Acknowledgements

Publicly Available Download PDF 		VII
Contents

Publicly Available Download PDF 		IX
Introduction

Requires Authentication Unlicensed
Licensed 		1
Chapter 1: Watching Women’s Bodies

Requires Authentication Unlicensed
Licensed 		35
Chapter 2: Watching Men Watch Women

Requires Authentication Unlicensed
Licensed 		72
Chapter 3: Watching Feminists

Requires Authentication Unlicensed
Licensed 		102
Chapter 4: Watching Femme

Requires Authentication Unlicensed
Licensed 		134
Conclusion

Requires Authentication Unlicensed
Licensed 		175
References

Requires Authentication Unlicensed
Licensed 		190
Index

Requires Authentication Unlicensed
Licensed 		203

Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
April 21, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9783111325071
Hardcover published on:
April 21, 2025
Hardcover ISBN:
9783111324937
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Front matter:
10
Main content:
210
Illustrations:
2
Coloured Illustrations:
4
Tables:
1
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111325071
eBook ISBN: 9783111325071
Hardcover ISBN: 9783111324937
Keywords for this book
Television; Women; Femininity; Femme; Gaze
Audience(s) for this book
Scholars and students of Communication, Media Studies, Women’s Studies, Gender Studies, and Sexuality Studies.
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