This book is an examination of feminist writers' appropriation of a range of popular genres: detective fiction, science fiction, romance, and the fairy tale. The author argues that feminists can successfully appropriate all four genres because genres, as cultural productions, have accommodated the cultural changes brought about by second-wave feminism. The book provides a history of each of the genres, reinstating women's contributions in those histories, and a comprehensive review of the feminist critical debates on each of the genres.

The aura of passivity that has for centuries surrounded female sexuality in popular culture, psychology, and literature has, in recent years, dissipated. And yet fetishism, one of the most intriguing and mysterious forms of sexual expression, is still cast as an almost exclusively male domain. Most psychoanalytic thought, for instance, excludes the very possibility of female fetishism.

The first book on the subject, Female Fetishism engagingly documents women's involvement in this form of sexuality. Lorraine Gamman and Merja Makinen describe a wide array of female fetishisms,...

The aura of passivity that has for centuries surrounded female sexuality in popular culture, psychology, and literature has, in recent years, dissipated. And yet fetishism, one of the most intriguing and mysterious forms of sexual expression, is still cast as an almost exclusively male domain. Most psychoanalytic thought, for instance, excludes the very possibility of female fetishism.

The first book on the subject, Female Fetishism engagingly documents women's involvement in this form of sexuality. Lorraine Gamman and Merja Makinen describe a wide array of female fetishisms,...

Christie's books depict women as adventurous, independent figures who renegotiate sexual relationships along more equal lines. Women are also allowed to disrupt society and yet the texts refuse to see them as double deviant because of their femininity. This book demonstrates exactly how quietly innovatory Christie was in relation to gender.

In recent years, the Freudian construction of a passive female sexuality has been severely criticised by feminists. This is the first book to tackle the question of female fetishism and to document women's engagement with this form of sexuality. Most psychoanalytic theory excludes the very possibility of the existence of female fetishism. In the face of the wealth of material about fetishistic practices gathered in this book, the authors suggest that Freudian phallocentrism has prevented analysts from seeing the evidence before their eyes.