Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Representing Rural Women seeks to highlight the complexity and diversity of representations of rural women in the U.S. and Canada from the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries. The 15 chapters in the collection offer fresh perspectives on representations of rural women in literature, popular culture, and print, digital, and social media. They explore a wide range of time periods, geographic spaces, and rural women's experiences, including Mormon pioneer women, rural lesbians in the 1970s, Canadian rural women's organizations, and rural trans youth. In their stories, these women and girls navigate multiple settings and address the complex realities of rural life, create spaces for self-expression, develop networks to communicate their experiences, and seek to challenge misconceptions and stereotypes of rural womanhood. The chapters in this collection consider the ways that rural geography may allow freedoms as well as impose constraints on women's lives, and ultimately how cultural representations of rural womanhood both reflect and shape women's experiences.
Synopsis
Representing Rural Women examines representations of the lives and experiences of rural women in North American literature, popular culture, and print, visual, and digital media. It highlights the complexity and diversity of rural women by considering intersecting issues of region, class, race and ethnicity, sexuality, and gender identity.