Television for Women New Directions

Television for Women brings together emerging and established scholars to reconsider the question of ‘television for women’. In the context of the 2000s, when the potential meanings of both terms have expanded and changed so significantly, in what ways might the concept of programming, addressed explicitly to a group identified by gender still matter? The essays in this collection take the existing scholarship in this field in significant new directions. They expand its reach in terms of territory (looking beyond, for example, the paradigmatic Anglo-American axis) and also historical span. Additionally, whilst the influential methodological formation of production, text and audience is still visible here, the new research in Television for Women frequently reconfigures that relationship. The topics included here are far-reaching; from television as material culture at the British exhibition in the first half of thetwentieth century, women’s roles in television production past and present, to popular 1960s television such as The Liver Birds and, in thetwenty-first century, highly successful programmes including Orange is the New Black, Call the Midwife, One Born Every Minute and Wanted Down Under. This book presents ground-breaking research on historical and contemporary relationships between women and television around the world and is an ideal resource for students of television, media and gender studies.

List of Figures Preface Acknowledgements List of Contributors Introduction: Television for Women - what new directions? Rachel Moseley, Helen Wheatley, Helen Wood Part I: Women and Work Chapter 1: Women’s History, Women’s Work: Popular Television as Feminine Historiography Moya Luckett Chapter 2: The Feminization of Contemporary British Television Drama: Sally Wainwright and Red Productions Ruth McElroy Chapter 3: "Women pushed their way forward and became quite a force within the BBC": Women’s roles in television production and the production of programmes for women Vanessa Jackson Part II: Women and Identity Chapter 4: Catfight! Camp and Queer Visibility in Orange is the New Black Dana A. Heller Chapter 5: Brown Girls Who Don’t Need Saving: Social Media and the Role of ‘Possessive Investment’ in The Mindy Project and The Good Wife Sujata Moorti Chapter 6: Watching One Born Every Minute: Negotiating the terms of the ‘good birth’ Sara De Benedictis Chapter 7: Sex, Class and Consumerism: British Sitcom’s Negotiation of the Single Girl Vicky Ball Part III: Formations of Women's Television Chapter 8: Feminist Television or Television for Women? Revisiting the Launch of Canada’s Women’s Television Network Sarah A. Matheson Chapter 9: Tradition and Innovation: Italian Women’s Channels, Factual Entertainment and the Significance of Generation in Women’s Viewing Preferences Cecilia Penati and Anna Sfardini Chapter 10: Producing Domestic Abuse in Pakistani Television: Between Commerce, Ratings and Social Responsibility Munira Cheema Part IV: Women and the Home Chapter 11: Television in the Ideal Home Helen Wheatley Chapter 12: "I’ve Been Having Fantasies about Regan and Carter Three Times a Week": Television, Women and Desire Hazel Collie Chapter 13: Dreaming of the ‘Good Life’: Gender, Mobility and Anxiety in Wanted Down Under Jilly Boyce Kay and Helen Wood

Rachel Moseley is Director of the Centre for Television History, Heritage and Memory Research in the Department of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick. She has published widely on popular television and film, with a particular interest in questions of history, address and representation. She is the author of Hand-Made Television: Stop-Frame Animation for Children in Britain, 1961-1974 (2016). Helen Wheatley is Associate Professor (Reader)in Film and Television at the University of Warwick, UK,and co-founder of the Centre for Television History, Heritage and Memory Research. She has published widely on television history and aesthetics and is the author of Gothic Television (2006) and Spectacular Television: Exploring Televisual Pleasure (2016). She is also editor of Re-viewing Television History: Critical Issues in Television Historiography (2007). Helen Wood is Professor of Media and Communication at the University of Leicester and has published widely on television, audiences, class, and gender. She is author of Talking with Television (2009) and with Beverley Skeggs, Reacting to Reality Television (2012); she has also edited Reality Television and Class with Beverley Skeggs (2011) and iseditor of the European Journal of Cultural Studies.