Introduction There is a certain image that one sees over and over again - it's the image of the apparently heterosexual, ostensibly monogamous, conspicuously consuming, and unnaturally happy couple - on billboards in the city, in advertisements, and in media stories both in print and on television. It is the woman in this image that interests me - the articulate professional, the perfect homemaker, the sexy siren, the unflustered mother, and the delighted consumer - sometimes separately and sometimes in various permutations and combinations of these.