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Jun. 30 | 2012 Bode-Pearson Prize
Nominations for the 2012 Bode-Pearson Prize for Outstanding Contributions to American Studies due
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Lehman, Katherine. "Whose Girl?: Representations of Single Women, Sexual Politics and The Workplace in 1960s-70s Television and Film," American Studies, University of New Mexico, April 2007. Advisor: Beth Bailey
My dissertation contends that film, television, advertising and print media featuring young, unmarried women not only reflected a growing consumer demographic but also served as a means to manage anxieties about feminist gains and female sexuality during a period of tremendous change in American culture. One primary focus is changing meanings of singleness, as representations of the “single girl” supplanted the pitied, celibate spinster figure. The commodified “single girl” embodies a diluted version of feminism in which sexual playfulness and economic resourcefulness substitute for power in other realms. The “girl’s” implied youth, her feminine appearance and demeanor, serve to distance her from self-actualized, strident feminist women. Yet, in other representations, the sexually active single woman is configured as a clear threat to the social order, a woman whose ambitions and aggressiveness contribute to her own destruction. I’m interested in the ways that these varied texts - alternately coding the single woman as harmless or harmful - both proscribed limits on women’s autonomy and opened new possibilities for female viewers.
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