Mapping Femininity: Space, Media and the Boundaries of Gender A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at George Mason University By Teresa Marie McLoone Master of Arts Georgetown University, 1999 Director: Mark D. Jacobs, Professor Cultural Studies Program Fall Semester 2009 George Mason University Fairfax, VA Copyright: 2009 Teresa Marie McLoone All Rights Reserved ii DEDICATION This is dedicated to Troy Schneider, Mateo Schneider and Maria Schneider. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am honored to have worked with the members of my dissertation committee and for their commitment to this project: Director Mark Jacobs, for reminding me to always question the world around me, and Alison Landsberg and Amy Best for helping me address these questions. Thanks are owed to Nancy Hanrahan for her advice about what matters in scholarship and life and to Cindy Fuchs for her guidance in the early stages of this work and her insight into visual and popular culture. The encouragement of my colleagues has been invaluable and there is not enough room here to thank everyone who has helped in some way or another. I am inspired, though, by several people whose generosity as friends and scholars shaped this project: Lynne Constantine, Michelle Meagher, Suzanne Scott, Ellen Gorman, Katy Razzano, Joanne Clarke Dillman, Elaine Cardenas, Karen Misencik, Sean Andrews and Deborah Gelfand. This dissertation would not exist without the support of George Mason University’s Cultural Studies Program and Roger Lancaster, and the financial support of the Office of the Provost and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Thanks also to George Mason's Women and Gender Studies community for pointing me toward the future. I extend my thanks to Matthew Tinkcom and Suzanna Walters and the Communication, Culture and Technology Program at Georgetown University for introducing me to Cultural Studies and encouraging me to pursue my Ph.D. I must also acknowledge the places and spaces that contributed to this dissertation: the coffee houses, neighborhoods, homes, buildings and libraries which were venues for research, inspiration, thinking and writing, particularly Murky Coffee, Starbucks and the Tara- Leeway neighborhood. Lastly and perhaps most deeply I want to thank my family, especially Troy Schneider and Suzette McLoone Lohmeyer, for always being my advocates. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract................................................................................................................………vi Chapter 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................…1 Chapter 2 Spaces of Feminisms ......................................................................................18 Chapter 3 Alias, a Cautionary Tale .................................................................................43 Chapter 4 One True Self : Navigating Choices and Risks ..............................................97 Chapter 5 Girls and Consumer Space: It’s Just Chill ...................................................162 Chapter 6 Conclusion ....................................................................................................206 Appendices ..………….……………………………………………………………....223 Works Cited …….…………………………………………………………………… 239 v ABSTRACT MAPPING FEMININITY: SPACE, MEDIA AND THE BOUNDARIES OF GENDER Teresa Marie McLoone, Ph.D. George Mason University, 2009 Dissertation Director: Dr. Mark D. Jacobs Images of girl power have saturated visual and other forms of culture for the better part of two decades and suggested a reclaiming of the term “girl” to describe a wide range of ages and embodiments. Intertwined with this new form of girlhood is a rethinking of public and private, distinctions which are instrumental in determining gender norms and which illustrate that space and identity are mutually determined. This blurring of boundaries between public and private in terms of physical space as well as for images and information is central to a popular narrative depicting a schism between feminist generations. A main argument between what are termed second-wave and third- wave feminisms seemed to be about visibility: when, how and in what context a girl is visible and the consequent value of notice and recognition. In this dissertation I explore how media worlds intersect with lived worlds to function as a blueprint for social tensions about feminisms and femininity. Through the lens of media, my analysis uncovers masked relationships of social structure, power and identity which underpin feminist and Cultural Studies scholarship. Using qualitative methods of semiotic textual analysis of the television series Alias alongside ethnographies of girls interacting in private as they discuss media images and in public as they carry out social relations, my research draws from television theory, feminist theory and cultural sociology and geography. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION GIRLS AND GOOD MANNERS One grey winter afternoon in 2001 as I sat reading in my neighborhood Starbucks coffee house I watched as a lone teenage girl who appeared to be fifteen sat at a table, hunched over a textbook and writing in a spiral notebook. She rested her feet on a chair, which allowed her to cradle the book in her lap and still reach her notebook and her drink, which were on the table. She was dressed casually and her clothes were at once youthful, clean and neat. If she wore makeup, it was not obvious, and her overall appearance resembled that of many other local teenage girls on a school day: she was pretty, but in no way flashy such that she would obviously invite attention. Sitting together nearby, about ten feet away, were a man and woman perhaps in their fifties. They also were unremarkable given local norms of appearance: dressed casually according to local adult standards in loose-fitting slacks (probably khakis) and neat but comfortable sweaters. They appeared to be a couple out for coffee, with nothing to indicate it was a business meeting. They sat sometimes quietly and occasionally commenting to one another, not saying anything that grabbed my attention. I noticed when the couple began murmuring to one another in urgent tones, quite a difference from their earlier quiet patter, and glancing pointedly at the girl. The woman’s voice rose to a loud whisper and she seemed upset. My first thought was that 1 they were concerned that it was a bit early in the afternoon for someone of the girl’s age to be off school grounds. The shop was quite empty and for the moment there was no barista at the counter. The woman got up and walked behind the coffee counter into the employee area and to the doorway leading to the kitchen and firmly asked for the manager. A Starbucks employee in a green company apron who looked to be in his early twenties came to the door and said the manager was out for the moment, but that he could help her. The woman began speaking to the barista, and I heard her use the words “disgusting” and “filthy”; I could not see her face but I could see his, and as he appeared to be concerned I hoped her complaint did not involve cockroaches. The barista nodded respectfully as the woman talked for a minute, after which she returned to her table, never looking at the girl. The girl stared intently at her book as though unaware of this exchange, although that seemed impossible given the proximity of the parties and how quiet the shop was at that point. When the woman was again seated at her table, the employee approached the teenage girl and, standing about two feet away from her, loudly but politely asked her to please remove her feet from the furniture, as it was disturbing some of the other customers. The girl responded with a look I can only describe as, “What the hell?” and the barista slightly shrugged his shoulders as if to indicate he had no choice. The girl took her feet off the chair and awkwardly rearranged her position, including shuffling her books and papers, while the woman and her companion looked down at their coffee cups. The barista then walked over to the woman and, also loudly but politely, asked: “There, ma’am. Is that okay now?” The woman thanked him as the girl glared at the couple; the woman did not return the girl’s gaze and both she and her 2 companion continued to look down into their drinks. I watched the girl as she began reading again. She leaned back to position her notebook so that she could write with it on her lap, placed her feet on the chair, then caught and corrected herself and quickly removed them. Soon, she closed her book and her notebook and stared out the front window into the parking lot. Within minutes several teenagers carrying backpacks walked into the Starbucks. It was about five minutes after the end of the school day at a nearby public high school. A group of five or six students, clearly friends of the girl, sat down at her small table and spilled over to an adjacent table as well, gathering chairs from nearby tables. Other teenagers filtered into the shop in groups of two or more, staking out space by moving tables and chairs to accommodate their groups. The noise level rose and the music of Miles Davis playing in the background was drowned out by lively greetings and teenager chatter and, as business picked up, the hissing of the drink machines and the baristas – two more had materialized – shouting orders. I could not hear much of the conversation among the girl and her friends, but I did see her point to the older couple and hear the one of the boys sitting with her declare, “bitch” in an accusatory tone, loud enough for the couple to hear; neither the man or woman in the couple looked up in response and pointedly seemed to keep their eyes fixed downward and away from the girl and her friends. The kids in the group were laughing and one boy exaggeratedly placed his foot on the table, stared purposefully at the older couple, and quickly brought his foot back down to the floor with a thud. A boy in the group commented on the placing of “asses” on furniture, and how that was more disgusting than feet.