Dissertation
The clothes do make the woman: The politics of fashioning femininity in contemporary American Chick lit
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
05/2009
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000006161
Abstract
Chick Lit as a genre is often dismissed by literary and cultural critics for its seemingly formulaic plotlines, obsession with consumer culture, and its inability to engage contemporary issues of gender, race, and class. Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young's 2006 collection of critical essays entitled Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction, however, put Chick Lit on the critical radar as a legitimate area of study for interested scholars. Following in these footsteps, I argue in this dissertation that the Chick Lit genre proves to be fertile ground for examining tensions in contemporary gender relations and the anxiety women feel about navigating dominant ideologies of white femininity. I focus on how several different American Chick Lit texts question the norms that create and maintain popular standards tied to privileged white femininity. My main contention is that while the books--by their close--do in fact rehearse hegemonic cultural norms that enforce conformity with dominant white culture, heroines exhibit moments of hesitation and resistance that reveal just how strict the limits are and just how dangerous conformity may be. These moments of resistance, I argue, reveal a strong desire to resist. This unresolved, resistant desire simmers at the surface of every text and leaves the reader questioning the superficial ending meant to satisfy the everyday reader. While heroines masquerade as having choices and leading "empowered" lives, misadventures at work and personal lives reveal performances of gender restricted to the heteronormative matrix that controls cultural norms. By employing Butlerian theories, as well as cultural theory from whiteness, masculinity, and contemporary Chicana theorists, I argue that the postfeminist fantasy the books project via marketing tactics is entirely misleading for books that, in actuality, provoke a discussion about the dangers of conforming to mainstream norms that govern beauty culture, gender relations, motherhood, and racial stereotyping. Chick Lit, far from celebrating the choices and freedom women supposedly have, points instead to the dangers associated with adopting such a slanted worldview.
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Details
- Title
- The clothes do make the woman
- Creators
- Katie O'Donnell Arosteguy
- Contributors
- Joan Burbick (Chair) - Washington State University, Department of EnglishDonna M. Campbell (Committee Member) - Washington State University, Department of EnglishAlexander Hammond (Committee Member) - Washington State University, Department of English
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Department of English
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 226
- Identifiers
- 99901055124501842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation