It’s Way Past Time to Figure This Out.
One of my recently discovered vices is binge watching. Like many other millennials, I find the lure of an entire day spent comfortably curled up in bed with Netflix and take-out irresistible pretty much every weekend. Like many binge watchers before me, I was starting to run out of shows to binge from my own generation. (Yes, I can say it: I’m really young. So sue me.) In a moment of desperation, I clicked on a show called Cheers, a show that people who were alive and adult-like in the 80’s have frequently held up as one of the greatest sitcoms of all time. Having already been burnt by this claim with Friends, a show that I couldn’t stomach for more than two episodes, I settled into my pillow warily to watch the pilot.
It was funny. As was the next episode. This show was smart, charming, and had one of the funniest female characters I had ever met, Carla Tortelli, who is insanely complex for a sitcom character. She’s the mother of four, tiny, has an insanse temper and sex drive, and is absolutely devoted to the sports of Boston. Watching Carla’s general reaction to the world is probably the greatest part of Cheers, outside of the entire bar’s welcoming cry of “NORM!” when Norm arrives for the evening.
Then, in season 2 episode 8, after Carla has her fifth child, she asks Sam if she can breast feed at work, because it’s really inconvenient to keep running back and forth between home and work all the time. Sam, the caring boss that he is, says Carla can do whatever she needs to. The first time Carla has her newborn in the bar, she sits down to breastfeed at one of the tables and a roomful of men tell her that she really shouldn’t do that in public. It’s icky. She rolls her eyes and moves to Sam’s office. Immediately afterwards, one of the patrons holds up what is clearly a nude magazine, and the men all gather around to appreciate female breasts in their hyper-sexualized form.
Thing 1: Bonus points to Sam, who proves that this is really a non-issue. (This is a rare shining moment with women for Sam.)
Thing 2: This episode was shot in 1983. 32 years ago people. And yet we’re still having discussions about how difficult it is for women to even consider asking about breast feeding at work.
From Thing 2: WHAT THE HECK PEOPLE. It’s been over 30 years and we still haven’t figured out how to integrate women into the workforce. More than 30 years. This is no longer acceptable. No one should need to point out sexism in the workplace, because it’s been happening for forever, and we’ve been aware of it for a really long time, since, say, 1983, when it appeared in a sitcom, which are often considered to be less thoughtful forms of entertainment. (That is a rant for another day.)
This is quite frustrating to me. We’ve had the same problems forever. Will they ever change? This example says no, but Title IX and universal sufferage give me hope.
Therefore, on this blog, I’m going to write about solutions, not problems. Other people with more experience can talk about the problems properly. I’m going to take all of that experience and years of thought, and I’m going to throw out an idea to fix it. It may not be the best idea. Heck, it may not even be a good idea. So, tell me that. Tell me how you would fix the problem. We can just keep tossing ideas around until one of them makes sense. Then we have to find someone to implement it, but perhaps I’ll leave that to the experts.
And maybe then will the Carla Tortelli’s of the world be able to take care of their children without having to pander to a roomful of men.
