But We Accessorize! Myths of Women's Empowerment on TV (working title..........)

A beautiful well-dressed smart and successful woman can’t find a date in the big city.

An even wealthier woman’s husband isn’t interested in having sex…with her.

And still another boasts 200 pairs of shoes and a date with a billionaire…who asks her out through his secretary.

Oh, the life of the mythical modern woman.

She is and has (almost) everything: the brains, body, bank account, and sometimes, the boyfriend and baby. She lives the dream. Now is the generation pressured to meet women’s potential for equal pay, equal treatment, equal power. Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) says in the pilot episode of Sex and the City, “…this is the first time in the history of Manhattan that women have had as much money and power as men.” While this statement is no doubt a fantasy itself, it successfully propelled millions of viewers into the imaginary world of a generation of urban Cinderellas righteously empowered by their cash and sexual prowess.

Yet, its still there, the same old gospel: women are built up and then let down by men. Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) sets up the hugely successful Sex and the City episodes by saying the following about financially stable, successful, attractive woman in New York City “…they travel, they pay taxes, they’ll spend 400 dollars on a pair of Manolo Blahnik strappy sandals…. and they’re alone.” Sex and the City’s huge fan base found the show groundbreaking because it bluntly talked about orgasm, sexually transmitted diseases, experimental sex, abortion, and infidelity. The ecstasy! Suddenly men are the objects!

But is power characterized by an ability to purchase sex appeal and “have sex like men” truly revolutionary? And is it really so progressive that women are interested in sex and control?

The journey through woman’s personal life is nothing new to television. Comedic television shows since the late 1960’s have attempted to capture the experiences of single women as lead or title characters, from That Girl and The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Laverne and Shirley, Three’s Company, Living Single, and Murphy Brown, and more recently Friends, Less Than Perfect, and Will and Grace. These shows were developed over a time when the television comedy form was evolving from the standard sitcom to a format where relationships became the main plot device.

The problem now is how these relationships in the new “post-feminist” television series are dependent on rigid ideas of masculinity and femininity; a focus on the irresolvable differences between men and women. How can women crack the nature of the beast?

Television show producers still think American women want to know why the modern woman fails at completely punching through the glass ceiling with their stilettos. The image is that where men are, women want to be. Women no longer need a Prince Charming, but if they want him they have to sacrifice something. Oh, and they really want him.

Sex and the City ended in 2002 and four years later, Lipstick Jungle (by producers Oliver Goldstick from Ugly Betty, Timothy Busfield from ‘The West Wing’ and Candace Bushnell from ‘Sex in the City’) portrays women who again (almost) have it all. Higher-income, higher-powered, and similarly high-styled Manhattan women talk the difficulty of balancing business, love, and cosmetics in their high-paced city lives. Sound familiar?

In the first five minutes of the pilot, #8 on NYC’s most powerful woman list says to her friends, “I find it offensive that women feel as if they have to apologize for our success. There are no flukes, there is no luck, there is just talent and the ability to bounce back when you’re knocked down.” Better, right? Almost. The same episode opens with a series of close ups: four-inch pumps, leopard boots, silver ballet flats that are supposed to represent the true fabulousness of their power walk. Gag. What is truly offensive is the unrelenting meshing of women’s power and materialism. What is truly offensive is that for every story on Hilary Clinton’s policy or Michelle Obama’s success there are two about their shoes and matching accessories.

The message is that since marriage and motherhood can no longer define femininity, what remains to distinguish women from men besides a passion for Prada? Women’s purchasing power is being twisted as a need to purchase their empowerment.

What is ultimately discovered is that these shows defy some conventions but reinforce society’s master narratives on gender and power. While empowerment never receives a direct mention, the characters clearly believe that spending $400 on strappy sandals is an important decision; one about a woman’s power to choose in what to strut. Economic independence is real and powerful thing. But the idea that women partially achieve empowerment through an acceptance of a “natural” female preoccupation with appearance is a mind-numbingly archaic inference that a woman’s currency is sex, her rate of exchange her beauty.

Women having money of their own used to be about something else—being financially independent represented liberation from patriarchy on multiple levels. The heart-breaking reality is that the greater pressure and potential for women to seek that independence (and more and more women doing so) is being twisted back around. These shows are focused on women’s battle with an emotional dependence on men. Relevant as that may seem too many women, throw in rampant consumerism and the same beauty ideals of the 1950’s and it’s the same patriarchal mass media blitz, just with a savvier disguise. While it appears that modern TV is boldly and progressively telling women the real glamour in life is achievement, the wealthy sexual women who saturate primetime are literally buying the same patriarchal product line.

A series of TV shows for and about modern women that argue fashion as feminist is troubling. While the message of female financial independence can be considered modern and progressive these shows greatest flaw is the degree to which it validates class and wealth snobbery. An ideology of “empowerment” for women that doesn’t challenge the divide between the haves and the have-nots is deeply misguided and useless.