Rhetoric of Femininity: Female Body Image, Media, and Gender Role Stress/Conflict offers critical and social identity intersectionalities approach to interpretations of femininity among three generations of women for a rhetorical examination of how femininity is made to mean by media and popular culture. Amplified are voices of women across multiple age, ethnic, and sexual orientation groups who shared in focus groups and interviews their perceptions of femininity and feminine ideals. Femininity is explored using theories from communication and mass media, psychology, sociology, and feminist and gender studies. Donnalyn Pompper explores femininities as shaped by cultural rituals and industries, at home and at work in organizations, on sporting fields and arenas, and in politics.

Introduction -- Femininity matters -- Ideal femininity according to family, tradition, and media -- Female gender role stress/conflict: learning about/from femininity -- Consumerist misrepresentations: rituals and industries that shape femininity -- Women's femininity at work -- Women at play: sports and femininity -- Femininity as shaped by intersectionalities of social identity dimensions -- Sexuality, masculine femininity, and feminine masculinity -- Age, health, and femininity -- Femininity and politics -- Lessons and moving forward.