Analysis: Those Girls: Single Women in Sixties and Seventies Popular Culture

 Those Girls: Single Women in Sixties and Seventies Popular Culture

            My chosen article explores the sexuality and gender roles of women in the 60’s and 70’s era of popular culture mediums. The article references several movies of this time and describes the increasing role of women’s sexuality and how it related to popular culture of the time period. The author of this article wrote about and often criticized the lack of depth in the original book written by Katherine J. Lehman.

            This article analyzes many of the roles played by single women in this era. On numerous occasions, Roberts points out that a majority of these movies had male directors who were afraid to “reveal the deep fear and suspicion they may have felt toward single women” (1340). Roberts also talks about the exploration of single girls “leaving home” and the “lure of urban life” in relation to television series of the period (1340). Overall, the main points of Robert’s article gave a semi-basic timeline for how women’s sexuality in popular culture transformed over this time period.

            The intended audience for this article seems to be directed toward a younger generation as it references several modern television series such as “Sex and the City” and the HBO series “Girls”. One could also induce the intended audience is that of someone seeking clarity on sexuality, especially that of women. Roberts talks about women’s upcoming sexuality in popular culture mediums and some of the ways it was also suppressed during this era. Because Roberts seemed to be analyzing “Those Girls: Single Women in Sixties and Seventies Popular Culture”, he did not go into detail how this time period in popular culture translated into the increased amount of sexuality and freedom of expression with women in the next few decades.

            The sexuality and the exploration of gender roles in women became prominent in the 60’s and 70’s because of many differing cultural changes during this time. Our culture was changing with the civil rights movement of the 50’s and 60’s and women were no different. Popular culture played an important role in this culture change by exploring, even if just a little, of the change in attitudes and expression. In Roberts’s article he explains how popular press accounts blamed sexually aggressive women for a host of societal problems (1341). Sexuality during this time period was not something that was openly accepted as it is today. Thus, a relative backlash would have been somewhat appropriate given the time period. The traditional family was the cultural stable of the time. Single women, along with sexual promiscuity and sexual expression were not common place.  

            Roberts stated in his article, “All of these films are notable for the ways in which they mute and subvert any real representations of sexuality.” He goes on to say, “Truly, the only theme related to women’s sexuality is the danger involved in even appearing to be sexually available” (1340). This comes as no surprise. Our culture in this time period considered this type of behavior to be a form of deviance. Again, it was thought of as a counter-culture to the traditional family structure.

            This journal article is logically organized. Roberts is very analytic to the key points in Lehman’s original book. It is somewhat disappointing because it offers very little of the authors own opinions. Roberts seemed to analyze Lehman’s writings by chapter and highlighted keys points. I felt the article was very easy to read and very interesting. Sexuality is something that is very important to us all.

            The key points I took away from this article were the way the idea of sexuality was presented. The article summarized how women’s sexuality in pop culture was often suppressed in the 60’s and 70’s and how it gradually became more accepted. The article summarized how naïve we were as a culture during this time period and how we had a tendency to blame our societal problems on sexuality. It outlined the beginnings of cultural change. Comparing our culture now to that of the 60’s and 70’s is like comparing night to day. The sexual expression of women in pop culture today almost dominates the genre.

References

Roberts, Chadwick. (2012). Those Girls: Single Women in Sixties and Seventies Popular Culture. The Journal of Popular Culture, 45(6), 1339-1342. doi: 10.1111/jpcu.12010_5