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[lissie_pissie]

Thank you so much to everyone who offered thoughts on my last post - I've been checking in on it and reading it even if I haven't responded to you yet. You guys are SO fucking helpful and smart, seriously. I decided to do number 4, discussing the treatment of women in sitcoms from three different decades. So if you have any more thoughts on that

Comments

[snapplesons]

I think even with women's liberation, women are still objectified to WANT the same things as Samantha Stevens and Lucy Ricardo wanted. With the exception of Samantha Jones on SatC, most women have the same primary goals: to get married and/or have kids. Even Miranda Hobbs wanted kids! Liz Lemon on 30 Rock expressed a desire to have children and a fear of being "too old" to do so. Also, remember the episode of Friends where Rachel turns 30 and she talks about the goals that she had? Some of her goals included getting married and having children. (And then she had to break up with Tad, because he was hindering her growth.)

It seems that nowadays women have even harder roles to fill. They have to have successful jobs and they have to want to be good, dedicated mothers. They must crave a semi-traditional family setting. To make make a bossy career women likable and accepted, she has to WANT, even to a smaller degree, to conform to social norms. (I know you can't use her on paper, but just to give you an example in case I'm not making sense, Cuddy would be a good example for this. She runs a whole hospital, and yet she desperately wants children OR a boyfriend.) Again, with the exception of Samantha Jones, women would be seen as cold and heartless if they did not desire a home and a family.

[sangria_lila]

On that note, check out Desperate Housewives, the first season when it was good. Lynette especially.

Also - Samantha rocks my fricking socks.

But you can't deny that many women DO want kids. It would make all evolutionary sense to want kids around your twenties/thirties. You (that being Lissie) might want to talk about how the kid-want isn't accurately portrayed (like Cuddy's is badly protrayed).

I'd also have to respectfully disagree that women's liberation has happened. Well, it has, but it's not enough. 94% of the superclass is still white males, and the rising members of are still male, albeit Asian.