"Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism's Work Is Done" (Times Books, 368 pages, $26), by Susan J. Douglas

By LAURA IMPELLIZZERI Associated Press Writer

The title of Susan Douglas' newest work on women and their images in pop culture cuts brilliantly to the chase.

Most Americans have generally embraced the more obvious mores and attitudes that feminism sought to spread: Few would argue either that the key fight is for basic respect or that women shouldn't be treated equally in society and at home.

But a paradoxical effect of all that enlightenment has been a loosening of the reins on denigrating depictions of women in popular culture. The justification Douglas hears is that we're all in on the joke now. Everyone understands that women are strong, even superior, and men can be slobs. So it's OK for the entertainment and news media to focus on superficial or titillating images of women and girls, especially when there are so many women in positions of power in TV news and dramas.

The problem is that teenage girls — and in fact most people — are not in on this, Douglas argues. And there's a constant danger that most people are taking at face value the images and story lines concerning girls who think about nothing but sex, shoes and men. This puzzle is familiar territory to the acclaimed author of "Where the Girls Are," ''The Mommy Myth" and other cultural criticism; Douglas also chairs the communications department at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

Douglas shows in overwhelming detail how TV's images of women in leadership roles at work and at home serve mainly to feed "fantasies of power." Of particular importance, she writes, is that women still are held to "deeply contradictory standards." For example, the news media simultaneously asked two contradictory questions during the 2008 presidential campaign: Could Hillary "Clinton, a girl, really be commander in chief? Or was she too tough and unladylike for the job?"

And more change is called for than a rethinking of how female physicians and teenagers are portrayed on TV, Douglas says. But only the converted may hear Douglas' argument, in part because of the sheer volume of evidence she offers. She gives short shrift to the thoroughgoing solutions she favors.

"It's about us and changing what we can imagine," Douglas concludes. The change must be political, social and economic. And, by the way, American women probably should re-embrace feminism — just a modern version, with a better sense of humor, better taste in clothes, more confidence and specific demands for laws and policies that support bearing and raising children.

But turning off the TV might not be a bad place to start.

Douglas has a couple of local appearances slated: At the Ann Arbor City Club, 1830 Washtenaw Ave., at 6:30 p.m. March 11. Admission: $11.50. RSVP: 734-662-3279. She will also discuss and sign her book in a free apperance at Nicola's Books in Westgate at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 18.