Women and Work

So suddenly women are in the working world and Hollywood has to make sense of that.

This brings Sex and the City, which, through its very different characters, explores various ways of addressing what is a rather new problem--how to live as an unmarried working woman. I tell my father all the time thanks very much for looking out for me still, because, for much of the history of man, I would've run from my father's house to the arms of a husband. I think that Sex and the City is important for not holding back from asking these questions, but ultimately (obviously) falls short in suggesting that women (aided by birth control) can/should act just like men, rather than emphasizing the strengths that women bring to men--their ability to help men know and understand themselves, their ability to help connect men to the concrete, etc.

This season we have two new shows: Cashmere Mafia (from Darren Star, the producer of Sex and the City) and Lipstick Mafia (from Candace Bushnell, author of Sex and the City).

Cashmere Mafia uses four women once again; this time we have: a woman with one daughter and a lying husband, a woman with two (woah--large family!) children and a sort of stay-at-home-dad, a woman who was recently dis-engaged by her fiance for beating him in business, and a woman who is exploring her sexual orientation ("It is not about whether I like women or men; it's about whether I like this particular woman or man or not"--but even proponents of this view have some understanding of nature as you never hear her say: "It isn't about whether I like people or animals; it's about this particular dog.").

Lipstick Jungle offers only three women (scandal!): unmarried, married with children, and married to an old, boring professor (ah! professors are not boring!).

What is somewhat disappointing, but to be expected, from all of these shows is not that women work and have romantic relationships, but rather that their work is never described as something that they do because it is fulfilling for them, but rather it is something they do so that they can live a life of style, high fashion, fancy drinks and nice parties. This is, for them, the end of life. And their families are suffering. Which isn't to say that they're wrong to try to make a go of marriage and work, but rather that the goal of the work is not portrayed to be creation (although, sure, these women are all really good at what they do), but success--success measured in terms of money.

Sex and the City is better on this score--Carrie doesn't sell herself out to money, sex, or accomplishment in the way that some of her friends do. But, on the other hand, Charlotte is the lesson from the show that we can't re-enchant the world, but that we must educate our romanticism (and feminity?) to the demands of the modern world.