A timely look at the rise of women in sports. The sculpted speed of Marion Jones. The grit and agility of Mia Hamm. The slam-dunk style of Lisa Leslie. The skill and finesse of these sports figures are widely admired, no longer causing the puzzlement and discomfort directed toward earlier generations of athletic women. Built to Win explores this relatively recent phenomenon-the confident, empowered female athletes found everywhere in American popular culture. Leslie Heywood and Shari L. Dworkin examine the role of female athletes through interviews with elementary- and high school-age girls and boys; careful readings of ad campaigns by Nike, Reebok, and others; discussions of movies like Fight Club and Girlfight; and explorations of their own sports experiences. They ask: what, if any, dissonance is there between popular images and the actual experiences of these athletes? Do these images really "redefine femininity" and contribute to a greater inclusion of all women in sport? Are sexualized images of these women damaging their quest to be taken seriously? Do they inspire young boys to respect and admire female athletes, and will this ultimately make a difference in the ways gender and power are constructed and perceived? Proposing a paradigm shift from second- to third-wave feminism, Heywood and Dworkin argue that, in the years since the passage of Title IX, gender stereotypes have been destabilized in profound ways, and they assert that female athletes and their imagery are doing important cultural work to that end. Important, refreshing, and engrossing, Built to Win examines sport in all its complexity. "Built to Win describes a new world--a world where I've always been able to express myself through competition, through my involvement in sport. And though that world still has a long way to go, that world has made my life and my teammates' lives very different from the generations that came before us. We've had the opportunity to play in front of 94,000 screaming fans. We have our own professional leagues. Men in our generation don't assume they're going to be the achievers and we're just going to be their cheerleaders. Built to Win shows the difference this makes--about how far we've come and how far we have left to go." from the foreword by Julie Foudy Leslie Heywood is professor of English at Binghamton University. She is the author of Pretty Good for a Girl: An Athlete's Story (2000), Bodymakers (1998), and coeditor of Third Wave Agenda (1997). A former track and cross-country runner who is currently a competitive powerlifter, Heywood is a vice president of the Women's Sports Foundation. Shari L. Dworkin is a sociologist and works as a research fellow at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at Columbia University. She was a recent guest editor for a special issue on gender and sport in Sociological Perspectives and serves on the editorial board of Gender and Society.

Young feminists have grown up with a plethora of cultural choices and images­­in the distance from Gloria Steinem to Courtney Love, a chasm has been traversed and an entire history made. In Third Wave Agenda, feminists born between the years 1964 and 1973 discuss the things that matter now, both in looking back at the accomplishments and failures of the past and in planning for the challenges of the future. The women and men writing here are activists, teachers, cultural critics, artists, and journalists. They distinguish themselves from a group of young, conservative feminists, including Naomi Wolf and Katie Roiphe, who criticize second wave feminists and are regularly called on to speak for the "next generation" of feminism. In contrast, Third Wave Agenda seeks to complicate our understanding of feminism by not only embracing the second wave critique of beauty culture, sexual abuse, and power structures, but also emphasizing ways that desires and pleasures such as beauty and power can be used to enliven activist work, even while recognizing the importance of maintaining a critique of them. Combining research, theory, and social practice with an autobiographical style, these writers are hard at work creating a new feminism that draws on the submerged histories of other feminisms--black feminism, "womanism," and working-class feminism, among others. Some topics explored in Third Wave Agenda include feminism in popular music, interracial coalitions, and tensions between individual ambitions and collective action. "Yes, the volume's strong thinkers are eager to refine and reshape the feminism they were raised on-and that they're sometimes frustrated with-but they're determined to do so without disregarding its tremendous positive influence. These girls have theory and they know how to use it-while having a good time, of course." --Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture "It is clear from the analyses of popular culture and the personal narratives combined in this collection that feminism continues to find a place in the mainstream of American culture; it is not confined to the ivory tower or the esoteric debates of feminist theorists." --Composition Studies Contents Part I: What is the Third Wave? Third Wave Cultural Contexts Living in McJobdom: Third Wave Feminism and Class Inequity, Michelle Sidler We Learn America like a Script: Activism in the Third Wave; or, Enough Phantoms of Nothing, Leslie Heywood and Jennifer Drake Reading between the Waves: Feminist Historiography in a "Postfeminist" Moment, Deborah L. Siegel Hues Magazine: The Making of a Movement, Tali Edut with Dyann Logwood and Ophira Edut Part II: The Third Wave and Representation Part Animal, Part Machine: Self-Definition, Rollins Style, Leigh Shoemaker Roseanne: A "Killer Bitch" for Generation X, Jennifer Reed A Tale of Two Feminisms: Power and Victimization in Contemporary Feminist Debate, Carolyn Sorisio Part III: Third Wave Negotiations Deconstructing Me: On Being (Out) in the Academy, Carol Guess Feminism and a Discontent, Lidia Yukman Masculinity without Men: Women Reconciling Feminism and Male Identification, Ana Marie Cox, Freya Johnson, Annalee Newitz, and Jillian Sandel Part IV: Third Wave Activism and Youth Music Culture Duality and Redefinition: Young Feminism and the Alternative Music Community, Melissa Klein Doin' It for the Ladies­­Youth Feminism: Cultural Productions/Cultural Activism, Jen Smith Hip-Hop Matters: Rewriting the Sexual Politics of Rap Music, Jeff Niesel Contributors: Barry Baldridge; Ana Marie Cox; Ophira Edut; Tali Edut; Carol Guess; Freya Johnson; Melissa Klein; Dyann Logwood; Annalee Newitz; Jeff Niesel; Jennifer Reed; Jillian Sandel; Leigh Shoemaker; Michelle Sidler; Deborah L. Siegel; Jen Smith; Carolyn Sorisio; Lidia Yukman. Leslie Heywood is assistant professor at the State University of New York at Binghamton, where she teaches gender and cultural studies and twentieth-century literature. She is the author of several books, including Built to Win (2003), Pretty Good for a Girl (2000), and Bodymakers (1998). Jennifer Drake is assistant professor of English and women's studies at Indiana State University, where she teaches multicultural American literature, U.S. women writers, and creative writing.