Abstract
American television programs often reflect dominant cultural values as well as influence and challenge the values of their viewers. Feminist researchers have analyzed television programs to examine how they have reflected traditional gender-role rules and relationships and have helped perpetuate the subordination of women. Kristi Humphreys provides an alternate feminist view of the roles of women as mothers in television programs. While she acknowledges that television shows did reflect the values and views of a male patriarchy, she argues that these analyses “diminish the fact that women did and do, in reality, find joy, fulfillment, power, and strength in certain aspects of these domestic activities…” (p. 12).
Humphreys uses qualitative methodologies to identify the housework themes conveyed in four decades (1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s) of American television comedy shows. More specifically, she aimed to “examine televised housework through a postfeminist lens…” (p. 17) and to give “a comprehensive understanding of the relationships between housework, gender, love, preservation, and familial roles in our visual culture” (p. 3). For each of these four decades, she examines the most popular U.S. comedy shows according to how they depicted housework in relation to who does it, what its function is, and how it influences the family role of the person(s) who do it.
Her analysis of televised comedies from across these four decades suggests that women had active and central roles vis-à-vis their performance of housework. She concludes that in these television shows, caretaking associated with women doing housework was “not limiting, but rather fulfilling” (p. 51) for the female characters and that the self-sacrifice involved in this caretaking represents a strength of the women doing them. Her analysis shows how love and strength are depicted in the housework activities performed by the female characters. Thus, the performance of housework is in the service of caring for others and of preserving life (i.e., “preservative love”). The principal theme derived from her analysis is that preservative love is love enacted to help preserve and support the lives of one’s family members and, by extension, future generations. Her analysis also shows how societal changes are reflected across these four decades. For example, male characters participate more in the housework in the 50s than in the 1970s and, interestingly, in the latter of these decades, more emphasis is placed on housework as being women’s domain and, thus, as a natural attribute for women. Despite the patriarchal elements evident in these depictions, Humphreys asserts that the preservative quality of housework is evident and reflects the strengths of the female characters.
For me, the intended audience for this book seems unclear. First, I do not believe that her academic writing style will appeal to lay audiences. Humphreys appears to be targeting gender researchers by reviewing some of the relevant literature and by using qualitative research-type theme identification for her analyses. While she is careful to show how her own lived experiences and perspectives may have influenced her analyses, Humphreys does not describe the qualitative methodology approach she used to derive her themes. Nor does she give a rationale for choosing televised comedies as her focus, rather than other types of shows (e.g., dramas). Thus, researchers will find important parts needed to evaluate and use her research missing.
Given that I was the first generation to grow up with television, and since my television watching spanned the four decades that Humphreys reviewed, as a feminist I was excited to begin reading Humphreys’ analyses. While I enjoyed revisiting the television of my youth and young adulthood, I struggled with the lack of societal context in her analyses. While she explains that she wanted to go beyond other writers’ examination of the influence of patriarchal structures on televised programming, I still wanted her to better integrate her women’s strengths perspectives within these patriarchal societal dynamics. For example, while I agree that (unpaid) housework functions can be used as a way of showing preservative love, assigning it to women traps both women and men in gender boxes, depriving men of access to its positive outcomes and making women financially vulnerable. Thus, readers will have to decide whether they agree with Humphreys that doing housework enacts preservative love “whether her status is chosen or imposed by a male patriarchal society” (p. 21). For me, I was reminded how important a complete contextual analysis is to feminist perspectives.