| Women Making Meaning: New Feminist Directions in Communication | Lana F. Rakow (ed) | Routledge | 1992 |
Lana Rakow’s timely book assesses some of the many themes and issues raised by feminist scholarship in the field of communication since the mid-1980s. The title has a dual purpose: to show how women have been “active participants in naming the world and making sense of it, even if their contributions and challenges more often than not have been disdained or rendered invisible” (p. vii); and to highlight recent work by feminist scholars whose subjects are the experiences and meanings of other women. Of particular importance is its attention to issues of gender, race, class, and culture, and its inclusion of a multicultural range of female voices.
If the book were a compulsory text for all college students, it could make a significant contribution to the development of a better world.
Dale Spender
Table of Contents
Part One: The Politics of Making Meaning
1. The Field Reconsidered / Lana F. Rakow
2. Male is to Female as ___ Is to ___: A Guided Your of Five Feminist Frameworks for Communication Studies / Kathryn Cirksena and Lisa Cuklanz
3. The Politics of Difference: Race, Class, and Women’s Communication / Marsha Houston
4. Accounting for Others: Feminism and Representation / Keya Ganguly
Part Two: Beyond the Field’s Boundaries
5. Theorizing through the Body / Elspeth Probyn
6. Harassment and Everyday Life / Cheris Kramarae
7. The History and Structure of Women’s Alternative Media / Linda Steiner
8. Pornography’s Active Subordination of Women: Radical Feminists Re-Claim Speech Rights / Ann Russo
9. Women’s Revolutionary Place / Angharad N. Valdivia
Part Three: Case Studies in Meaning Making
10. Big Differences on the Small Screen: Race, Class, Gender, Feminine Beauty and the Characters at Frank’s Place / Jackie Byars and Chad Dell
11. Mary Ann Shadd Cary and the Legacy of African-American Women Journalists / Jane Rhodes
12. The Construction of Chinese American Women’s Identity / Victoria Chen
13. Women’s Narratives in a New York Puerto Rican Community / Lourdes Torres
14. Telling Stories about Reality: Women’s Responses to a Workplace Organizing Campaign / Nina Gregg