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Sherrie A. Inness is Professor of English, Miami University. She is the author and editor of over a dozen books including Action Chicks (Palgrave 2004) and Secret Ingredients (Palgrave 2005).

Using popular culture as a fertile environment for challenging the stereotype that the most brilliant geeks or nerds must be men, the essays in this book demonstrate how the popular media repeatedly affirms stereotypes of femininity while paradoxically challenging the stigmatization of smart women. Contributors salute a wide range of popular characters and real female role models, from Daria to Hillary Rodham Clinton, weaving in references to television shows like Gilmore Girls and analyses of classic icons like Sabrina.

List of Figures     ix
Acknowledgments     xi
Introduction: Who Remembers Sabrina? Intelligence, Gender, and the Media   Sherrie A. Inness     1
Beauty and the Geek: Changing Gender Stereotypes on the Gilmore Girls   Karin E. Westman     11
Lab Coats and Lipstick: Smart Women Reshape Science on Television   Lorna Jowett     31
"You Can See Things that Other People Can't": Changing Images of the Girl with Glasses, from Gidget to Daria   Cindy Conaway     49
"Pretty Smart": Subversive Intelligence in Girl Power Cartoons   Rebecca C. Hains     65
Super Slacker Girls: Dropping Out but Divinely Inspired   Michele Paule     85
Back to the Future: The Brilliant Witches in Bewitched   Linda Baughman   Allison Burr-Miller   Linda Manning     103
Dangerous Minds: The Woman Professor on Television   Leigh H. Edwards     121
Raising the Bar: Brilliant Women Lawyers from Ann Kelsey to Miranda Hobbes   Sharon Sutherland   Sarah Swan     137
Savvy Women, Old Boys' School Politics, and The West Wing   Beth Berila     153
Heckling Hillary: Jokes, Late-Night Television, and Hillary Rodham Clinton   Jeannie Banks Thomas     171
Contributors     189
Index     193