Customer Reviews

Growing Up Girls: Popular Culture and the Construction of Identity

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As the title suggests, this compilation of essays and conversations (between or about mothers and daughters, for example) examines the lives and experiences of adolescent girls at the crossroads of popular culture and the construction of identity. The texts chosen by the editors, Sharon R. Mazzarella and Norma Odom Pecora, are diverse and fairly interesting. While not all chapters might appeal to the reader, there is enough in this text to make it worth purchasing (although it is overpriced for a 228 page anthology). In addition to reading about popular culture and its influence on girls and young women today, this book is also full of historical facts and information; this combination makes the collection especially valuable in that an important component of analyzing the present (in this case, girls and popular culture) is to think about it in relation to the ideologies and influences of the past. Due to the wide array of voices and topics, this book is not overly-academic in tone or purpose nor is it redundant in its scope. A must read for anyone in the field of Women's Studies, Gender Studies, or Media Studies. It is my hope that the "Adolescent Cultures, School, & Society" series will offer a new or revised edition of this 1999 title.

This collection offers a variety of compelling essays, all exploring how pop culture is shaping American girls. These writers succeed in providing an evocative overview of the complex ways in which girls respond to the world around them, and how they see themselves within it.

As all parents know, girls are unpredictably diverse, and so the authors' analyses won't apply to every girl in America. But I'd argue that this is one of the rare cases in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts: Each essay is unique and self-contained, but taken altogether, they speak volumes about the state of girls today and the dire need for social change.

Perticularly noteworthy are:

- an essay written by mother and daughter together, exploring what Barbie represents;

- an essay on reactions to Disney's "Pocahontas," based on focus group interviews with three groups of adolescent girls: whites, reservation-based Native Americans, and city-based Native Americans;

- and an essay about the phenomenon of girl bands and the liberation teenage girls experience when they play "male" instruments, like guitars.

Read this book -- you'll learn a lot!

Mazzarella and Odom have chosen a diverse and exciting selection of topivcs and writers. This collection is both high interest and academically challenging. As a teacher, I recommend this book for high school and college level students.

I belong to a family of four, and myself and my wife are the parents of two girls who are about to enter the teen age. I have to say that the book has been a real disappointment for, according to my opinion, only incidentally does it address any real-life issue we as a family encounter today with our girls or are indirectly exposed to through the experience of friends who are parenting as well. I believe there is a excessive stress in explaining female life or what revolves around it with sexist theories of society.I consider our family a rather open family culture-wise having had the opportunity of living in different countries, including the US for almost two years in a very traditional american mid-west town of 30,000 people.