Gender and Popular Culture: A Visual Study presents students with a thought-provoking and contemporary collection of readings that question, and even undermine, key binary dichotomies present in Western culture. The readings address three long-standing and pervasive dichotomies: male-female, intellectual-popular, and text-image. Students are encouraged to consider and reconsider cultural classifications, what or who is left out, mismatched, or forced into these groups, and what power differentials exist between them.

The collection provides readers with a series of critical tools that allow them to critically examine the ways in which gender functions in contemporary Western, and especially American, culture. The anthology begins with a series of essays that present key theories and provide essential context. Later sections address stereotypes and tropes, the representation of women in media and culture, theories regarding single gender cultures, race and representation, the concept of space in relation to gender, attitudes toward sex, parenting, reactions to feminism, and more.

Designed to elicit thoughtful self-reflection and the development of new perspectives, Gender and Popular Culture is a valuable text for courses in popular culture, gender studies, and women’s studies.

Tara L. Ward holds a Ph.D. from Boston University. She is a lecturer in the History of Art Department at the University of Michigan, where she teaches courses in gender and popular culture, as well as the history and theory of twentieth- and twenty-first-century art and visual culture. Dr. Ward’s research interests include the French avant-garde, questions of abstraction, and gender issues.