In the past; more often than not; aggressive women have been rebuked; told to keep a lid on; turn the other cheek; get over it. Repression more than aggression was seen as womans domain. But recently theres been a noticeable cultural shift. With growing frequency; womens aggression is now celebrated in contemporary culture -- in movies and TV; online ventures; and art. In Push Comes to Shove; Maud Lavin examines these new images of aggressive women and how they affect womens lives. Aggression; says Lavin; need not entail causing harm to another; we can think of it as the use of force to create change -- fruitful; destructive; or both. And over the past twenty years; contemporary culture has shown women seizing this power. Lavin chooses provocative examples to explore the complexity of aggression; including the surfer girls in Blue Crush; Helen Mirren as Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect; the homicidal women in Kill Bill; and artist Marlene McCartys mural-sized Murder Girls. Women need aggression and need to use it consciously; Lavin writes. With Push Comes to Shove; she explores the crucial questions of how to manifest aggression; how to represent it; and how to keep open a cultural space for it.
#1622778 in eBooks 2009-05-01 2009-04-28File Name: B0056N1ZKA
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