Feminists For Choice

Women now constitute 52% of the paid labor force. More women are serving as CEO’s now than ever before. Women are participating in career fields that have traditionally be dominated by men. But sometimes the more things change, the more things stay the same. Despite these advances, the most common jobs for women are administrative assistant and teaching positions. Here’s a clip of Maria Shriver discussing her report “A Women’s Nation Changes Everything” on MSNBC with Playboy CEO Christie Hefner.

It’s interesting that women are increasingly being portrayed as doctors, lawyers, and cops on TV, even though women are still the minority in those fields. Part of that could be that television and the movies reflect a fantasy of life, not the real world. How else would a shoe-addicted writer be able to live in a brownstone in Manhattan, or a struggling actor be able to life in a loft in the Village? We don’t want to see our daily lives reflected when we tune in for our favorite TV dramas – we want to escape into a fantasy world. However, I think there’s something positive to be said about the fact that women are fantasizing about themselves in the hero role.

Getting back to the MSNBC clip, it baffles my mind that we are 40 years post the second wave of the feminist movement, and women are still asking themselves how they will balance their work and family lives. Why aren’t men asking these same questions? Why do we still need books like Happy at Work, which tell women how to find a decent balance between their work and family responsibilities? Where are the corresponding books for men?

My partner and I had to laugh while we watched this news report. “What, did somebody just discover feminism?” The report doesn’t say anything that most ardent feminists don’t already know. Just like the clip I discussed yesterday, this story is pretty biased towards heteronormativity. But it’s MSNBC. How deep can you get?

I’d love to get your take on the subject. Do you think that the media accurately portrays the lives of American women? Is it a bad thing if women are overrepresented on television as doctors and lawyers? Or could it be a good thing for women and girls to see images of themselves in those roles?