Gender and Television

Catalog description

Second-wave feminist Betty Friedan famously claimed that American television presented the American woman as a “stupid, unattractive, insecure little household drudge who spends her martyred, mindless, boring days dreaming of love –and plotting nasty revenge against her husband.” “Television and Gender” will test this claim and explore how gender was constructed and performed in primetime television from the 1950’s to the 1980’s. It will examine the presentation for marital roles, child-raising, the subaltern, sexuality, and the construction and (pace Friedan) subversion of household normativity. We will explore the construction and performance of femininity, masculinity, race, class, and sexuality in primetime television.