ABSTRACT
In this final chapter, I will argue that we are witnessing a dramatic shift in the mother-paradigm analogous to that which took place in 1830 and which made that period a convenient starting place for this study. In a sense, the 1980s might well provide the starting-point for another book, although it might be difficult to write that book before the passage of enough decades to permit dominant tendencies to be traced. Partly, then, because I am too close to the period I want to write about to see it clearly, but also because of space limits (adequate treatment of the period from the 1960s to the 1990s really would require a book to itself), this chapter will consist in supplementary comments rather than a sustained argument. I will rely on data accumulated from representations in popular materials – in films and novels, but also in television programs, news articles, advertisements and women’s magazines. In earlier periods, dominant paradigms were most clearly articulated in the theatre, commercial novel and film, which were the main popular media. After 1960, however, television increased, as did also coverage of relevant cultural events in newspapers and magazines, warranting some attention to these areas. The overwhelming mass of materials available necessitates even more selectivity than in previous chapters, however. I focus on different kinds of materials in different parts of the chapter, depending on which avenues seem to have offered the most significant data. The suggestions made in this chapter will provide the basis for later researchers to argue from.
