In Who's Afraid of Women's Studies? the authors ask why there persists a fear of feminism and women's studies in the academy. Rogers and Garrett remind us that this field came into being as the result of women's practical efforts of advocacy and activism, to represent marginalized, excluded, and silenced voices. They explain the complex relationship between feminism, women's studies, and their deradicalized 'offspring'--gender studies. Six broad topics that have dominated the field over the past twenty-five years are examined in individual chapters: girls' and women's bodies, anger and...

This book uses one of the most popular accessories of childhood, the Barbie doll, to explain key aspects of cultural meaning.

Some readings would see Barbie as reproducing ethnicity and gender in a particularly coarse and damaging way - a cultural icon of racism and sexism. Rogers develops a broader, more challenging picture. She shows how the cultural meaning of Barbie is more ambiguous than the narrow, appearance-dominated model that is attributed to the doll. For a start, Barbie's sexual identity is not clear-cut. Similarly her class situation is ambiguous. But all interpretations agree...

This feminist exploration of mothers, mothering, and motherhood combines evaluations of empirical and theoretical work with personal narratives by mothers or caregivers. While the authors' analyses yield suggestions for new approaches to motherhood, the narratives vividly demonstrate the relevance of these issues to women's lives. The result is a nuanced picture of the complex realities mothers face, as well as their struggles, joys, and hopes for their children. In the book's first part, "Social Constructions of Motherhood," Chase and Rogers argue that dominant western views of motherhood...

In this volume, Professor Rogers examines the usefulness of a phenomenological approach to sociology.