Xena, Buffy, Lara Croft. WWF, The Sopranos, Witchblade, La Femme Nikita. The women of pop culture are center stage and as tough as ever. Action Chicks is a groundbreaking collection highlighting the heroines we've grown to worship. What can they tell us about women in the Twent-first-century? What can they tell us about how popular culture depicts women? Do the characters escape traditional gender role expectations? Or do they adhere to sexual, racial, ethnic, and class stereotypes? The essays in Action Chicks provide fans with a new look at their favourite icons and their relationship to the popular media machine. A fascinating collection that's bound to stir up some excitement.

SHERRIE A. INNESS is Professor of English at Miami University. She is the author/editor of several books including Disco Divas: Women, Gender, and Popular Culture in the 1970s, Cooking Lessons: The Politics of Gender and Food, and Delinquents and Debutantes: Twentieth-Century American Girls' Cultures. She lives in Fairfield, Ohio, USA.

Boxing Gloves and Bustiers': New Images of Tough Women; S.A.Inness Lara's Lethal and Loaded Mission: Transposing Reproduction and Destruction; C.Herbst Gender, Sexuality, and Toughness: The Bad Girls of Action Film and Comic Books; J.A.Brown 'It's a Girl Thing': Tough Female Action Figures in the Toy Store; S.A.Inness Embodying an Image: Gender, Race, and Sexuality in La Femme Nikita ; C.Tung Throwing Down the Gauntlet: Defiant Women, Decadent Men, Objects of Power, and Witchblade; D.Greven The Cruelest Season: Female Heroes Snapped into Sacrificial Heroines; S.Crosby Can No Cage Hold Her Rage? Gender, Transgression, and the World Wrestling Federation's; C.D.Heinecken Tough Love: Mamas, Molls, and Mob Wives; M.Yaquinto 'Tough Enough': Female Friendship and Heroism in Xena and Buffy ; S.Ross Little Miss Tough Chick of the Universe: Farscape 's Inverted Sexual Dynamics; R.Christopher