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• Wednesday, September 12, 2007 02:35 PM

  These shows aren't very reflective of what really goes on in the workplace...but then,when is REAL reality ever interesting enough to sell a show?

  I have had far more men work for me than women in my career. None of them had an iota of difficulty with it. I knew their wives and kids, and there was no emasculation or weirdness....and I wasn't the only powerful woman in these guys' lives.

  Quite a few had wives who earned equal to or more than they. And everyone was fine about it - the guys were nice, their wives were nice, we all worked well together in the sandbox. I

  It was great living, but it would make bad TV. TV is about conflict. It's not about representing a utopian world, it's - about throwing people into situations they are not equipped to deal with and then sit back and watch them on their worst behavior, warts and all.

  It's reasonable to expect men that have been IN CHARGE to have difficulty giving up the idea of themselves as the one in charge. Few people willingly give up power graciously - but that's not a sign of wimpiness or emasuclation, it's just human. Or maybe I should say, primal - even dogs have a tough time sharing their domain with a non-mate newbie not of their choosing.

  I don't own a TV and I'm glad - this run down of TV shows is depressing. It seems that writers can only portray men in one of 3 ways: a literal or figurative superhero, a Maxim-reading womanizer, or an emasculated schmendrick, with the latter category dominating. I don't recognize that typology in my own life - my friends are all mid-level management or executives, and their hubbies are DE-lighted at their wives' earning power and what it buys them.

  Presenting successful women as the 'new men' is disingenuous - it seems to elevate women (by comparing them to those formerly successful in the arenas they are newly dominated) but in fact it does a great disservice to men AND women. Isn't it time we stopped genderizing success and the qualities it takes to achieve it? The guy as bread winner/decision maker / woman as caretaker/shopper trope is tired, and so are all the crazy hijinks that ensue when a TV writer pretends to challenge the tropes by elevating them through pathetically drawn two-dimensional characters.

  —Sandra M Read Sandra M's other letters
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