This book deals with the cultural constructions of gender, the many troubles that underlie them, and U.S. television's place in the overall process. It investigates the 'struggle over meanings'--specifically the meanings of woman, women, and femininity; the role of television networks, production companies, production teams, and publicity firms in generating and circulating these meanings; the ways in which TV viewers, the press, and numerous interest groups produce meanings and countermeanings of their own; and how all of these meanings clash and compete for social and semiotic space and power.