Sitcoms Gender Roles

For a large part of the history of TV sitcoms women have been portrayed as mothers or as having to fulfill the woman's role in the private sphere. Family based sitcoms were one of the forms of sitcom that keep women in these roles, but what is interesting is that even in other forms of sitcoms women do not truly escape these roles. Sitcoms, like Sex and the City and Murphy Brown showcase women whom have seemingly escaped these roles, by showing liberated women, but that does not mean that both do not fall into the gender role showcased in family sitcoms. It draws the similarities between ensemble sitcoms and family sitcoms when it comes down to the role of women. The starring women in both Sex and the City and Murphy Brown, and even the Mary

The four title characters are Carrie Bradshaw, who writes a sex column, Samantha Jones, who is a PR rep and is know for her many sexual partners, Miranda Hobbes, an attorney, and Charlotte York, an art curator. Sex and the City is an ensemble show with Carrie as the main character but story lines being divided evenly among all the four women with focuses on the issues they face. The women are liberated because they are free to have sex and are not forced to remain in the private sphere while their male counter parts get to work. However, simply because these women all have jobs it does not mean that their roles in the public sphere is the central aspect of the show. The show is actually centered around the relationships the four women have with men and with each other. The four women on this show are not able to escape the gender roles and expectations that are put on women. On the show not much of the story is devoted to the work lives of these women, besides Carrie's column that is actually about her life, even though they all have very nice clothes and apartments and that is obviously paid for some how. These women are all focused primarily on their personal relationships with men and the hope of some like Charlotte to find the

Murphy's entire life revolved around her work, but in the shows fourth season to the surprise of her and of her co-workers she becomes pregnant. In the fourth season opener to Murphy Brown, Murphy even goes into a speech about how at her age she did not expect to have children, addressing the issue of the biological clock and presenting her with the dilemma many working mothers face, and that is how she is going to handle her career and her son. While Murphy does remain at work, she can no longer simple be a reporter. The opening sequence of that episode also shows Murphy faced with multiple doors with her ex-husband, babies, and Supreme Court justices behind them symbolizing the choices that Murphy must make, placing her in the position of balancing the opportunities in the private and public