Argumentative Essay: Sex And The City

If you ask a girl over the age of eighteen what their all-time favorite television show is, most likely they will say Sex and the City. This is not a mere coincidence. If you are one of those skeptics, who thinks that Sex and the City is simply about four frustrated woman in their thirties, you are not entirely wrong, but you are also not entirely right. I used to believe that feminism allowed us women to stop having to truly rely men and become free to simply want them instead. While you might believe that this show is centered around women who are entirely dependent on the lives of their male counterparts, why not look at it as a humorous criticism of the outrageous expectations of females. From this perspective, Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte

Television ten to fifteen years ago was not as sexy and provocative as it is now. Despite the fact that the four characters loosely represent four different archetypes of womanhood, their stories and encounters are hardly stereotypical. The plots of each episode range from struggles with infertility, breast cancer and tantric sex. Although these topics may seem outdated and common-knowledge, at the time Sex and the City was quite a controversial show. There was nothing to compare it to. Women’s health and sexual issues were never really included in any type of open dialogue. While it’s easy to condemn Sex and the City because of it’s unrealistic depiction of the reality of New York life it did do major work in changing the way women and sex are portrayed on

Sex and the City tackles issues of reproductive rights, single motherhood and sexism in a matter-of-fact way. The protagonist of the show, Carrie Bradshaw, could be acknowledged as the first ‘anti-hero female’ on television, one that was real but abstract in her emotional neurosis. The success of many TV dramedies comes from the level of identification the audience can find in the protagonist. What makes Sex and the City different and perhaps more complex is that it pushes back on this wish for identification. On the surface, the show is about four women encountering ‘the big city’ but their faults are revealed through their many unhealthy relationships. Could this obsession the women have with finding a man be a betrayal of women and feminists worldwide? I would argue that this focus of the show is just an admission of the problems many contemporary women experience of trying to reconcile their forming identities while still making attempts to find love and happiness in a