of the fairly recent problem that nobody knows what "the rules" are, and nobody can agree on what "the rules" are, and so one deals with a mishmash of behavior codes that doesn't seem to please anyone. While it's true that I don't plan to watch any of the shows listed, and doubt I'd like them, there is something about the litany of complaints that makes me want to say "OK, so bashing men is bad, and powerful women making money is bad, and schlubby cave men are bad, and powerless men are bad, but powerful men are also bad, and the old way was bad--Jesus, will ANYTHING make you happy?"

So I'll state the distasteful (to some) obvious. Most women are some degree of uncomfortable about being with a man who is "weaker" than she, whether he be physically weaker or smaller, or makes less money. There are exceptions, and of course a lot of people manage to get past their discomfort, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and we'd be unable to get at what bothers us if we pretended otherwise. The most comfortable place for many women--even those who consider themselves "feminists"-- would be within a half step or quarter step of their "man". Not two steps, not even one step behind, but not two steps ahead either. People can moan about how this is wrong, but it's as close to a "universal truth" for our times as any... Turning that system on its head one way or another causes conflict--and TV shows. If there's something mysoginistic about those shows, it's the spite--as if to say "you women wanted to be more powerful than men--now that you are, you see what you've made them into? You've made them into men you wouldn't want, and then you whine that there are no good men." It sounds ridiculous, but I would be surprised if there were NO analogs to that situation in real life.

Perfect equality isn't possible or even necessarily desirable, but I like the idea of dividing up responsibilities fairly evenly by ability AND mixing "traditional" and "non-traditional" gender roles. Works in our house, anyway...

I am unperturbed by this whole kick-ass woman power trip that television and movies promote, except to say that these mechanisms are as boring as all get-out. I am secure in my masculinity and refuse to knuckle under to the sad pretentions that the lobotomy box assumes in shaping cultural policy. Anyone who draws such a wonderful sense of empowerment from this and can actually exult in women finally kicking men's asses merely illustrate how low a character they possess. It's all pretend, people...stop getting your panties in a bunch in either direction. If you let your masculinity be defined by a bunch of third-rate writers, you have some serious problems other than being depicted as weak. The only power anyone has to denigrate you is the power you give them. Turn off the TV, and do what men have always done...pick up a book, learn, teach, and stop letting the opinions of ignorants define you.

Does that mean they'll have to endlessly correct and scold themselves?

We have a feckless fratboy masquerading as president. We have an insane man running the country as vice president. The White House Chief of Staff keeps a book entitled "Walter the Farting Dog" on his desk (you can't make this stuff up -- google "Josh Bolton farting dog"). Top White House aides and high-ranking administrators charged with running our country's most important departments call reporters and divulge the name of a covert CIA agent for publication. When an investigation is undertaken, all these men suddenly lose their memories and become blithering idiots -- just like the ditzy blonde TV bimbos of the past! As a final coda, the "real" source of the spy revelation, Richard Armitage, purports to be nothing more than a big old harmless gossip - it just happens that this gossip maven is a former Deputy Secretary of State as well as a former high-ranking CIA operative during the Vietnam War. Silly boy!

Who was the spy who was outed? Valerie Plame, a blonde but not a ditz. A very capable-seeming woman who had an important job relating to weapons of mass destruction.

Who does our fratboy president send out to the media when he wants to deflect attention from himself? His wife, who does not attempt lame jokes or give juvenile nicknames to world leaders.

Who does our fratboy send around the world as our top ranking diplomat? A woman in black Ferrigami boots.

Television is merely reflecting the zeitgeist of our time.

Who is the Speaker of the House? A woman.

Who is the top Democratic candidate for president at this time? A woman.

The women seem a lot more capable and less idiotic than the men. You didn't see these women histrionically weeping over poor Terri Schiavo in Florida. You won't find them tapping their feet in a airport bathrooms looking for quick anonymous sex or hiring a prostitute (though their husbands may, for all we know).

Is it any wonder the fiction so resembles the fact? The men running this country are idiots. The women seem a bit more grounded. Not much, but more than the men.

What does it mean that all the fall shows are supposedly about women, celebrating women, focusing on empowered women--an assertion Traister casually proposes based on the most superficial summaries of the shows--and bypasses examining of what is tied up in how these shows are frame & portray women--and continues straight on to meditating how the shows frame men & masculinity.

Please!

Maybe before we start wringing our hands over the poor, underminded male characters in the show, their loss of status and alarmist anxiety of not existing in their long held positions of power and domination, it would be nice to spend a little time considering the general themes inherent to what has for centuries been, and remains, a patriarchally constructed culture. I would love to see a television show in which a "powerful" woman was scripted according to traditional definitions of masculinity, or feminity, but rather moved past those restrictive binaries altogether. Perhaps in such a scenario there would be a place, also, for men whose identity wasn't dependent on forms of masculinity whose "strenghth" and "power" can only exist at the oppression of another, other gender/race/religion, or must be sacrificed and fretted over, in the face of such "differences."