Introduction : airing the dirty laundry / Culture -- 'W' stands for women, or is it wisteria? : watching Desperate Housewives with Bush 43 / Still desperate : popular television and the female Zeitgeist / Having it all : Desperate Housewives' flimsy feminism / Still desperate after all these years : the post-feminist mystique and maternal dilemmas / Sexual politics -- Desperately straight : the subversive sexual politics of Desperate Housewives / What is it with that hair? : Bree Van de Kamp and policing contemporary femininity / As Kamp as Bree : post-feminist camp in Desperate Housewives / Queer dilemmas : the 'right' ideology and homosexual representation in Desperate Housewives / Hunters, heroes and the hegemonically masculine fantasies of Desperate Housewives / Genre, gender and cultural myths -- Disciplining the housewife in Desperate Housewives and domestic reality television / Murder and mayhem on Wisteria Lane : a study of genre and cultural context in Desperate Housewives / White picket fences, domestic containment and female subjectivity : the quest for romantic love / Desperation and domesticity : reconfiguring the 'happy housewife' in Desperate Housewives / Narrative, confession and intimacy -- Dying to tell you something : posthumous narration and female omniscience in Desperate Housewives / Desperation loves company : female friendship and the facade of female intimacy in Desperate Housewives / 'Mother, home and heaven' : nostalgia, confession and motherhood in Desperate Housewives / Desperately debating housewives