Wanted Women

Strunk (associate, Five Colleges, Inc.) brings together the stories of ten outlaw women from two separate eras: Bonnie Parker, Kathryn Kelly, and Ma Barker of the 1930s; and Patricia Hearst, Assata Shakur, and the five women of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) of the 1970s. Strunk argues that during J. Edgar Hoover's tenure as director of the FBI, he was preoccupied with representing these ten women as outlaws in an effort to promote the federalization of law enforcement and the masculinist figure of the G-man. These representations underscore, however, the anxieties around race, class, sexuality, and gender norms during Hoover's tenure. These women were "outlaws," writes Strunk. In other words, they defied social norms and the law, setting themselves apart from gangsters and revolutionaries. Using FBI archival materials, popular culture, and film, Strunk skillfully tells the story of these women before and after their wanted status and describes how their popular representations emerged. She also, importantly, demonstrates how these women struggled to reinvent and represent themselves.