Bonnie J Dow's Designing Women

Likewise, since its conception, Designing Women set out to portray women in a feminist light. Jeremy Butler (1993) says, “Designing Women activates television’s ambivalence toward women. It was a program that was created by a woman and for the most part produced, scripted, cast with, and promoted to – though seldom directed by – women.” He continues that the show’s title is an obvious play on words derived as a response to practical culture. He says, “The first, literal meaning is that the characters are women who designs things; in this case, they are interior decorators. The second, connotative meaning, drawn from conventional gender discourse, is that a ‘designing woman’ is one with designs – designs that are presumably evil and presumably

She says the show is a “contrast to the type of television programming usually singled out for feminist implications. The program does not focus on a single leading female character; instead, it is about a group of women. Moreover, rather than focusing on a woman making it in a ‘man’s (public/professional) world,’ Designing Women is set in an environment controlled by women, depicting four female business partners” (Dow, 1992). She continues that there is a general agreement among scholars that women talk is habitually devalued. Deborah Cameron (1992) declares that it is most valuable to see that the status of women’s talk as tied to the same distinction carried with women’s lower status in societal terms. Basically, women’s talk is devalued because women are the ones doing it and it differentiates it from the opposition of a “man’s world” from a “woman’s place” (Kramarae, Jenkins, 1987). Dow also adds that the show “blurs the distinctions between public and private by highlighting the private functions of women’s talk within the public discourse offered by television, thus extending awareness of the positive functions of such talk to a public

However, this workplace is different from most. Sugarbaker’s is headquartered in the home of its senior partner, Julia Sugarbaker. The majority of the action takes place in the main room of the house, a room dominated by a long couch with a coffeetable in front of it and chairs at the end. The partners in the fir have desks in the room at which they often sit, yet they spend significant amounts of time sitting on the couch and chairs” (Dow, 1992) She continues that the setting of Sugarbaker’s, though it’s a workplace, is reminiscent of a home setting where women can converse freely and openly in a comfortable environment. She says, “In essence, although Sugarbaker’s is a business, its ambience is more like that of a home, making it ‘appropriate’ setting for women’s interaction” (Dow, 1992).

IV. Research