Television for Women is a timely intervention into the broader analysis of television across genre, across time, and from a range of international perspectives.
The book opens with a Preface from Charlotte Brunsdon, a leading figure in feminist television studies, followed by an introduction by the editors explaining the continued salience of critical analysis of gendered television and its relationship to the formulations of television and women and also television by women.
Bringing together established and emergent scholars the collection re-invigorates the field of feminist television studies by placing the question of television's address to women at the heart of all its contributions.
List of Figures
Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Contributors
Introduction: Television for Women - what new directions?
Rachel Moseley, Helen Wheatley, Helen Wood
Part I: Women and Work
Chapter 1: Women's History, Women's Work: Popular Television as Feminine Historiography
Moya Luckett
Chapter 2: The Feminization of Contemporary British Television Drama: Sally Wainwright and Red Productions
Ruth McElroy
Chapter 3: "Women pushed their way forward and became quite a force within the BBC": Women's roles in television production and the production of programmes for women
Vanessa Jackson
Part II: Women and Identity
Chapter 4: Catfight! Camp and Queer Visibility in Orange is the New Black
Dana A. Heller
Chapter 5: Brown Girls Who Don't Need Saving: Social Media and the Role of 'Possessive Investment' in The Mindy Project and The Good Wife
Sujata Moorti
Chapter 6: Watching One Born Every Minute: Negotiating the terms of the 'good birth'
Sara De Benedictis
Chapter 7: Sex, Class and Consumerism: British Sitcom's Negotiation of the Single Girl
Vicky Ball
Part III: Formations of Women's Television
Chapter 8: Feminist Television or Television for Women? Revisiting the Launch of Canada's Women's Television Network
Sarah A. Matheson
Chapter 9: Tradition and Innovation: Italian Women's Channels, Factual Entertainment and the Significance of Generation in Women's Viewing Preferences
Cecilia Penati and Anna Sfardini
Chapter 10: Producing Domestic Abuse in Pakistani Television: Between Commerce, Ratings and Social Responsibility
Munira Cheema
Part IV: Women and the Home
Chapter 11: Television in the Ideal Home
Helen Wheatley
Chapter 12: "I've Been Having Fantasies about Regan and Carter Three Times a Week": Television, Women and Desire
Hazel Collie
Chapter 13: Dreaming of the 'Good Life': Gender, Mobility and Anxiety in Wanted Down Under
Jilly Boyce Kay and Helen Wood
Index
Rachel Moseley is Director of the Centre for Television History, Heritage and Memory Research in the Department of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick. She has published widely on popular television and film, with a particular interest in questions of history, address and representation. She is the author of Hand-Made Television: Stop-Frame Animation for Children in Britain, 1961-1974 (2016).
Helen Wheatley is Associate Professor (Reader) in Film and Television at the University of Warwick, UK, and co-founder of the Centre for Television History, Heritage and Memory Research. She has published widely on television history and aesthetics and is the author of Gothic Television (2006) and Spectacular Television: Exploring Televisual Pleasure (2016). She is also editor of Re-viewing Television History: Critical Issues in Television Historiography (2007).
Helen Wood is Professor of Media and Communication at the University of Leicester and has published widely on television, audiences, class, and gender. She is author of Talking with Television (2009) and with Beverley Skeggs, Reacting to Reality Television (2012); she has also edited Reality Television and Class with Beverley Skeggs (2011) and is editor of the European Journal of Cultural Studies.