《Sexing the single girl》.pdfVIP

Sexing the Single Girl by Deborah Siegel Visting Scholar, Center for the Education of Women University of Michigan April, 2002 Center for the Education of Women • University of Michigan 330 E. Liberty St. • Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2289 • 734/998-7080 /~cew “I’ve been down this road before.” -Vonda Shepherd, singing the Ally McBeal theme song An alien traveler visiting our planet need only browse the local bookstore, pick up the paper, or channel surf before coming to the conclusion that earthlings are all sassy, solo vixens whose primary activities consist of dating, mating, and relating. There’s Ally McBeal, Bridget Jones, and Carrie Bradshaw on the big and little screen, but there’s also a torrent of new magazines, handbooks, and self-help guides from Don’t Bet on the Prince to If Men Are Like Buses Then How Do I Catch One. Popular novels by and for this growing demographic compete for attention, with Melissa Bank’s Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing sinking a line next to Harlequin Romance’s latest series, Red Dress Ink. The frenetic fixation on the sexcapades of the citified single gal often blurs the line between fiction and reality. The New York Times has itself become a major chronicler of modern single women’s innermost desires: “Solo in the Big City: Womens Tales From the Front” reads a headline from March 1999. “Castle First, Prince Later: Marketing to Ms.” reads another from October that same year. Everyone—media pundits, television producers, advertisers, and a broad array of “experts” from Mom to grrlfriend—seems to have a vested interest in how we,