Defining Women

358 pp., 6 x 9, 25 illus

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8078-4441-0
Published: May 1994
E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-0-8078-6096-0
Published: November 2000
E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-6486-4
Published: November 2000

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Defining Women explores the social and cultural construction of gender and the meanings of woman, women, and femininity as they were negotiated in the pioneering television series Cagney and Lacey, starring two women as New York City police detectives. Julie D'Acci illuminates the tensions between the television industry, the series production team, the mainstream and feminist press, various interest groups, and television viewers over competing notions of what women could or could not be--not only on television but in society at large. Cagney and Lacey, which aired from 1981 to 1988, was widely recognized as an innovative treatment of working women and developed a large and loyal following. While researching this book, D'Acci had unprecedented access to the set, to production meetings, and to the complete production files, including correspondence from network executives, publicity firms, and thousands of viewers. She traces the often heated debates surrounding the development of women characters and the representation of feminism on prime-time television, shows how the series was reconfigured as a 'woman's program,' and investigates questions of female spectatorship and feminist readings. Although she focuses on Cagney and Lacey, D'Acci discusses many other examples from the history of American television.

About the Author

Julie D'Acci is assistant professor of communication arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
For more information about Julie D'Acci, visit the Author Page.

Reviews

"Anyone who deems TV programming 'too trivial' for scholarly analysis will stand corrected after reading Julie D'Acci's fascinating case study of the rise and fall of the prime-time feminist-minded drama, Cagney and Lacey. Unlike most media studies scholars, who rarely venture beyond textual analysis, D'Acci takes the time to go behind the scenes. . . . The result is a meticulous, thought-provoking, and nuanced look at the ways in which TV, its audience, and its advertisers shape and reshape each other's visions of womanhood."--Susan Faludi, author of Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women

"D'Acci's account of Cagney and Lacey provides the kind of specific historical discussion of how television works in cultural, social, and institutional contexts that many scholars have said ought to be attempted. It is of particular value to those scholars considering how creators and audiences of individual programs negotiate over time to make the shows meaningful."--Janet Staiger, University of Texas at Austin