Download or read book Nostalgia and Sexual Difference (RLE Feminist Theory) written by Janice Doane and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-20 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dissatisfaction with the present can cause people to gaze nostalgically back to an idealized past; that nostalgia pervades contemporary rhetoric. In lamenting the ‘degeneracy’ of present-day America, social and literary critics as well as contemporary novelists often choose as their scapegoat the women’s movement and its increasing influence. Doane and Hodges show us how these social observers seek to ‘reinstate’ America and American values in ways that, overtly or covertly, do battle with the feminist movement for control of rhetoric, the power of language.