Relative Intimacy (Gender and American Culture) - Softcover

Book 39 of 95: Gender and American Culture

Devlin, Rachel

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9780807856055: Relative Intimacy (Gender and American Culture)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0807856053 ISBN 13: 9780807856055
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005

Synopsis

Celebrated as new consumers and condemned for their growing delinquencies, teenage girls emerged as one of the most visible segments of American society during and after World War II. Contrary to the generally accepted view that teenagers grew more alienated from adults during this period, Rachel Devlin argues that postwar culture fostered a father-daughter relationship characterized by new forms of psychological intimacy and tinged with eroticism.

According to Devlin, psychiatric professionals turned to the Oedipus complex during World War II to explain girls' delinquencies and antisocial acts. Fathers were encouraged to become actively involved in the clothing and makeup choices of their teenage daughters, thus domesticating and keeping under paternal authority their sexual maturation.

In Broadway plays, girls' and women’s magazines, and works of literature, fathers often appeared as governing figures in their daughters' sexual coming of age. It became the common sense of the era that adolescent girls were fundamentally motivated by their Oedipal needs, dependent upon paternal sexual approval, and interested in their fathers' romantic lives. As Devlin demonstrates, the pervasiveness of depictions of father–adolescent daughter eroticism on all levels of culture raises questions about the extent of girls' independence in modern American society and the character of fatherhood during America’s fabled embrace of domesticity in the 1940s and 1950s.

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About the Author

Rachel Devlin is associate professor of history at Tulane University.

From the Back Cover

Devlin examines the prominent role that postwar fathers played in shaping the sexual maturation of their teenage daughters and the way popular culture reinforced this dynamic in teen magazines, Broadway plays, novels, and other media.

From the Inside Flap

Devlin examines the prominent role that postwar fathers played in shaping the sexual maturation of their teenage daughters and the way popular culture reinforced this dynamic in teen magazines, Broadway plays, novels, and other media.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date
2005
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0807856053
ISBN 13 
9780807856055
Binding
Paperback
Edition number
1
Number of pages
272
Rating
  • 3.11 out of 5 stars
    19 ratings by Goodreads

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780807829462: Relative Intimacy: Fathers, Adolescent Daughters, and Modern American Culture (Gender and American Culture)

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  0807829463 ISBN 13:  9780807829462
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr, 2005
Hardcover