Lives together/worlds apart: Mothers and daughters in popular culture.
Item
-
Title
-
Lives together/worlds apart: Mothers and daughters in popular culture.
-
Identifier
-
AAI9020817
-
identifier
-
9020817
-
Creator
-
Walters, Suzanna Danuta.
-
Contributor
-
Adviser: Stanley Aronowitz
-
Date
-
1990
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Women's Studies | Cinema | Mass Communications
-
Abstract
-
This research spans the years from 1935 to 1989, and traces the changes in the mother/daughter relationship through a critical analysis of popular culture. Focusing on film, television, and women's magazines, I address central questions of social history, feminism, and popular culture. Fundamental to this is an analysis of how the relationship of mother and daughter shifts from one rooted in "other" discourses (of class and ethnicity, for example) to one discussed solely in psychological terms. It is argued that, since World War II, the dominant culture has by and large constructed the relationship as one of never-ending conflict and thus promoted an ideology of separation to achieve (daughter's) maturity. This ideological move is placed in a social context of the anti-woman backlash of the early post-war period, and the renewed anti-feminism of the Reagan decade. In addition, specifically feminist discourses of mothers and daughters are examined to determine the extent to which feminist cultural work has gone beyond the "bond/separate" double-bind. Generally, this work has reproduced the dominant framework by adopting the psychological paradigm and a de-contextualized and de-historicized interpretation. I argue for an examination of the mother/daughter relationship that recognizes it's social constructedness while at the same time understanding its centrality for enhancing women's solidarity.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
