Women on TV: One step forward, two back

Finally, women are taking center stage on network TV, said Frazier Moore in the Associated Press. The major broadcast networks’ slate of fall shows is “supercharged with estrogen,” with a record number starring women in the lead roles. Three new sitcoms—NBC’s Whitney, Fox’s New Girl, and CBS’s 2 Broke Girls—are anchored by funny females, while ABC’s Pan Am and NBC’s The Playboy Club will show viewers how the world treated women in the pre-feminist 1960s. This “TV sisterhood” is also joined by the tough female detectives of NBC’s Prime Suspect and ABC’s updated Charlie’s Angels. Altogether, it’s an “overwhelming display of gender domination.”

More like a wasted opportunity, said Jessica Grose in Slate.com. The three female-centric sitcoms, for example, gave TV a chance to “really say something bold” about young working women grappling with life in the 21st century. Instead, they focus on the women’s relationships with men, and mostly “rehash old stereotypes” about dating, gender differences, and the “elaborateness of female grooming.” How disappointing. “We’re not exactly breaking new ground here.” In fact we’re taking a giant step back, said Tim Kenneally in Reuters.com. Most of the female leads in these shows appear in “little clothing and subservient positions.” They’re Playboy bunnies and sexy Pan Am stewardesses, not high-powered executives or successful entrepreneurs. It’s the return of “Jiggle TV,” the 1970s era when the only women on the idiot box were clad in bikinis, or shown in the arms of powerful men.

Why is anyone surprised? said Maureen Ryan in AOL.com. Behind the scenes, TV resolutely remains a man’s world; advertisers still covet the 18-to-49 male demographic, and only 15 percent of the writers of prime-time TV shows on the broadcast networks last year were women. But based on these scripts, white dudes aren’t feeling all that secure these days, said Hanna Rosin in The Atlantic. A host of “interchangeable” shows, such as Man Up, Last Man Standing (both ABC), and How to Be a Gentleman (CBS), feature underemployed, emasculated men who are pushed around by alpha women and their more competent working wives. Soon, says one of these bewildered men, women will have all the power and all the money, and will keep just a few men around “as sex slaves.” Men may still run the world, “but you can feel the seething beneath the surface.”

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