It makes perfect sense that most network shows are aimed toward women because women make most of the day to day purchasing decisions in America. It isn't just market research per se. It's who makes the decisions. I and most men I know consider shopping a necessary evil like root canals; my wife enjoys it and actually pays attention to commercials. It doesn't pay any TV advertiser to consider your average man's opinion (except for maybe beer and cars which explains a lot).

This trend has been building for at least the last 2 decades. Men have contently been shown in the worst possible light on TV, and I notice it on the crime shows, Law and Order, CSI, Without a Trace etc... Talk about victimization, men are rapists and killers etc... The image is re-enforced ad-nauseum. I how about how fatherhood is displayed on tv, everyone father is a dead beat dad, no character ever had a decent father, etc... its pitiful. little boys grow up with this stuff effecting them. remember how Cosmo gave teen girls a body complex, well guess what, whats good for the goose is good for the gander, and boys who grew up with this stuff saturating the culture were effected by it. Boys were taught they were, by definition, inherently criminal, animalistic and vile, and they eventually believed it. The bi-product of second wave feminism. And as to the stereotype that men are not comfortable around powerful women, well yeah, maybe in 1981, but in 2007, its quite the opposite. Women are not comfortable around non-powerful men, well at least romantically. But try seeing that plot play out on sex in the city. That is the ugly unspoken truth. Women have a hard time being attracted to a man who is not perceived as powerful. We get it women are smarter, more sophisticated, more mature, more responcable, less violent, and stronger then men. Couples now prefer girls to boys, girls enter and graduate from college more often, women have more power romantically, domestically, and equal to more power financially. Men cant be trusted with their own kids, and are always the lesser choice when it comes to matter of the home and family. Congrats women, You won, most guys I know are fine with that, just dont play the underdog any longer and own your victory. maybe in 50 years my grandson will have a chance at a better life.

So maybe women are the new dogs. Just sayin.

and men are dogs, how come women STILL think so little of men?

Boys were taught they were, by definition, inherently criminal, animalistic and vile, and they eventually believed it.

I know I grew up having internalized that message. I finally grew out of it only a few years ago, and was consequently very bitter for having been kneecapped by FEMINISM.

It is a 1960s retrospective about flannel-suited ad men, and will give you all the old boys' club, martini-lunching, wink-wink, secretary chasing, "honey-make-yourself-useful-and-go-make-me-a-sandwich" throwback sexism you could possibly ever want in a television series.

Why are women, and it is women, so fixate on this cliche that this is how men WANT to act?

Is it to prop up the old canards that justified feminism in the first place?

I grew up in a different time where men and women were supposedly equal. Little did I know, this 'equality' thing was only an excuse to women to become SUPERIOR to men.

Actually, it was! It was Miranda the busy sucessful lawyer and Steve, the nice bartender. It took Miranda a long time to accept that the most Steve ever wanted was to run his own bar and to accept that it was okay for her to love Steve even when he's not a rich successful something career man.

As for the network TV thing, I was thinking about it and I rarely ever watch FOX, NBC, never CBS and once in a while ABC.

Pretty much everything else is on a cable network, like USA, TNT, AMC, Discovery, HBO, National Geographic, Comedy Central.

But hey, it's not possible that all of these shows will last a year.

I think it is a wonderful show and at first, being a woman I noticed the blatant sexism. No one wants to be a sexual object all day at work and they don't want to be automatically thought of as blathering morons either. The fact that a therapist would think it's fine to tell a husband what's going on his wifes sessions when she would not be granted the same agreement, well that pissed me off royal. Then as the show aired more episodes it became much more nuanced with the roles of Don and Peter. Each of them is equally trapped in different ways, as much as the women working in the office and the wives at home are. These rigid gender roles don't do anyone favors. Don has the beautiful young wife who still looks awesome after two kids and makes dinner everynight. Sure he's got the freedom to screw around, but why is he screwing around? Because he married the woman people told him he should marry, his pretty little secratary who's only thoughts are what to wear and what to do with the kids and proper manners in society. Not a bad person, but obviously not a match for Don who would be better matched to the department store manager lady. But even if he'd met her first, marry a Jew, oh hell no.

When his boss hits on his wife, yes he angrily blames his wife. But why, because he knows he can't confront his boss because then he'd lose his job/status and how would they live when his wife expects a certain standard of living? So instead he gets angry at his wife and lets her know to never be in that posistion again and lucky for Don, his creepy boss apologizes for his drunken leering. He misdirects his anger because he can't direct it where it should go.

Then we have Peter, married because marriage is what young successful businessmen do. All the while, his wife controls everything about their home life, he gets a little free and buys a shotgun, she berates him and makes him return it with her screaming about that returned gift was for us, when really most of it was home crap she picked out because she liked it, and pretends it's for them when Peter could care less about a chip & dip.

It just seems like a show where each person is trapped in their roles, it's okay to hit on the secretary becuase you know she's just there to land a husband in the first place, so why not you?

Women act flighty and dumb because that's what the books to land a husband tell them to do.

Don and Peter are married to women they don't really seem to love, just women who fit the bill of what a white career man should marry. The wives don't seem all that happy having to worry about all their manners and you can see that each of them is terrified of losing their husband and ending up like the divorced mom with her sad little clerk job.

They also have the characters that are there to enforce the status quo, the redheaded office sex bomb doesn't like the new girl trying to do more than just typing and taking messages so she belittles her.

It seems like everyone is living in some sort of mortal terror, losing a job, losing a spouse, losing status, just losing something.

So the only thing I admit is better for the men, at that time period is that because they aren't chained to the hearth and home, they are freer to have affairs, to stay out drinking with their pals and not really have anyone to answer to, other than a wife they grow to loathe because her and the kids are chains so he gets a mistress to be free, even for a short while. While housewives drink and smoke and give locks of hair to the little boy in the throes of his first crush.