I was watching the pilot episode of Lipstick Jungle last night and was reminded of our class....once again. If anyone hasn't seen the show, I am still new to it but I will do my best to explain. It focuses on three very sucessful women who live in New York City and shows their work life, home life, and friendship. To me it is a Sex and the City except there are only three women and two of them are married. Anyways, one of the women, Nico works for a magazine and is a top executive in her company. She is the only woman in her company that has been that successful and is said to live be her instincts. Nico realized that she was missing out on key meetings with her male boss and male colleague, although they claimed it was just lunch. Nico then accused her boss of preparing her male colleague for a director position in the company that she felt would be rightfully hers. Her boss responds by saying its a tough situation and he thinks the man would be better for the job. When she asked why her boss responded with "Well you are going to want to start a family soon and you will not be as on top of your game as you are now" . She then responded with, "No I don't. I never said I wanted to start a family". Her boss responded with: " Yes you told my wife you wanted a child when you two were at that function a few weeks ago". Nico then said, "That was a baby shower. What was I supposed to say?".
This episode reminded me exactly of our current discussions in class! Not only is Nico facing a glass cieling because she is woman she is clearly experiencing the detrimental effects of patriarchy. The lunches she was being excluded from are just like the golf outings we talked about in class. Not only were the men eating lunch together, but they were also talking business strategies. I was slightly disappointed to see she just claimed she didn't want to have kids and backed down. Later in the show we learned that she really did want to have kids.
I feel as though she was put in an unfair predicament. Now if she ever does decide to have children her boss can throw her comment back in her face and fire her for not living up to his expectations. I really don't think this is fair. I know there really are no exact answers to my questions but why is it that men are not discriminated against for having children. Maybe the world I live in is more flexible but I know many men that have taken large amounts of time off of work for paternity leave or just for their children in general. What do you guys think about this???
2 comments:
Golf outings, power lunches, and the good old boys sytem, this is what women in business have had to tolerate for years and what they have had to fight to get ahead in the business world. Wait, we haven't mentioned the "off chance" meeting in the men's room, yes conversations do happen there and it's a place that no matter how hard we try we can't get into. The traditional role of the woman as a mother and threrefore the caretaker of children is hard set in our society. It is what probably is most responsible for the glass ceiling that women do face. Until our society changes it's attitudes about child bearing and child rearing; that is all women want children(not necessarily and that's ok) and that after you have children you are not as capable of doing your job because god forbid, a women can't handle two tasks well at the same time(raising a child and being a successful manager, ceo, etc.)
While I beielve tythat it is a step in the right direction that the topic was raised on a prime time show, it has also been broached on other shows, I am also disappointed by Nico's reaction and actualy the shows direction on the subject, by her backing down and in essence being put in her place, you know that place, barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen, ugh.
I think that is a lame depiction of how women should handle this situation. I think if the media portrayed women in higher positions… you know, putting them in control of corporations and of households it may make the transition from fiction to reality more likely. I think as more people are exposed to these situations in which women do not back down and essentially "have it all" the more comfortable they will become with the idea. Women are vey capable of having it all and some realize this. Unfortunately, it's a slow progressing movement to educate the masses who don't.
Post a Comment