OK....heheh...my apologies to Catherine Driscoll, then. I believe that I might have read one of her tomes during my library rat days...but my mind is obviously starting to fail me (old age and all).
I wonder if she was around during Madonna's reign; I'll bet that she might have had quite a lot to say about Teh Material Girl's impact on young women (far, far more than the Spice Girls, I'd think).
Anthony
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 20:36:28 -0400
From: info at pulpculture.org
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Re: Girl Power Betrayed Us (yeah, right)
Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20060722202808.04644d08 at pulpculture.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
heh. Anthony, the reference to Catherine was to a list member, Catherine
Driscoll, who is a prof in Australia who was interested in Girl Power and
defended the Spice Girls against various attacks back in the 90s. She did
so from a, uh, 'pomo' perspective. Driscoll's focus of research is on young
women, and I'd bet what she has to say in her book, Girls: Feminine
Adolescence in Popular Culture and Cultural Theory, would make the author
of this article, Carol Sarler, enraged.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/data/023111/0231119127.HTM
Basically, Sarler is calling out Catherine and any other feminists because
their support for the Spice Girls (or what Sarler reads as their support)
is the 'cause' of what we see today.
This is not unlike what Katha Pollitt has been doing lately when she's
called young women featherheads and has been insulted that 'young women'
criticize her. Her response is to claim that the crits are about their
"girls just wanna have fun" feminism. Although, obviously, Katha wouldn't
blame feminist's failures on the spice girls, etc.
Was hoping Cat had time to reply because I would think she should have some
fascinating insights into the last sex panic.
What always kills me about how easily feminists in bloglandia get riled up
by these articles is that they forget that so much of this 'news' is
manufactured.
Anyhoo, as you probably know, this was what was posted at
iblamethepatriarchy.com today. Surprise!
At 06:08 PM 7/22/2006, you wrote:
>[Bitch | Lab wrote]
>
>Hope Catherine's reading:
>http://www.dailymail.co
uk/pages/live/femail/articlehtml?in_article_id=396834&in_page_id=1879
><...>>
>
>Anthony
>
>(Dontcha wish your pomo theory was hawt like mine...lol)