Women On Ice: Feminist Responses to the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan Spectacle

Book Overview

The attack on Nancy Kerrigan at the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships set the stage for a Winter Olympics spectacle: Tonya versus Nancy. Women on Ice collects the writings of a diverse group of feminists who address and question our national obsession with Tonya and Nancy and what this tells us about perceptions of women in twentieth century America.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415911516
• ISBN13: 9780415911511
• Release Date: February 1996
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Comprehensive scholarly essays of superb social analysis

This book is a collection of over a dozen essays from disparate authors (mostly women) on the Harding/Kerrigan debacle of the Winter '93-'94. Its emphasis is on the Social Analysis of what may often be referenced as a preeminent U.S. feminist issue and exercise to determine the "why it happened". As such, this book shines with countless thought provoking aspects that have references back to classic mythology and all the stuff of a consuming dissection. It blows this big media event apart discussing every aspect from dress colors, selected music scores to the class standings of these two women Olympians. If you just want a superficial book on skating, this may not be the book for you. But if you want to deconstruct the how's and why's of what makes the perverse part of human nature and society tick, with the skating included, this collection can't be beat.

A powerful dissection of class and gender roles in skating.

this collection of scholarly essays examines skating as a field by focusing on the events leading up to the 1994 Winter Olympics. The essays are thought-provoking, and cover a wide range of topics -- from the role of the media in creating a spectacle of women's bodies, to an essay on the prominent role of fairy tales and fantsy in skating. Highly recommended for skating fans and those interested in sports culture.