Kathleen M Rodgers: 3 books

Would life have been different for Johnnie if she’d been named after a woman rather than her dead uncle? Or if her mama hadn’t been quite so beautiful or flighty? The grandparents who raised her were loving, but they didn’t understand the turmoil roiling within her. And they had so many, many...

After Johnnie and her black friend are attacked by a boy inflamed by a liberal bumper sticker, Johnnie recounts the incident in her newspaper column, prompting a reader to reach out with stories from Portion’s untold history of racial strife. More tears and triumphs follow, as Johnnie fears for her son in Afghanistan but learns the power of love and forgiveness at home.

For decades, scholars have repeatedly found the inequity of gender representations in informational and entertainment media. Beginning with the seminal work by Gaye Tuchman and colleagues, we have repeatedly seen a systemic underrepresentation and misrepresentation of women in media. Examining the...