Fall
TV Post-Feminist Shows Flip Gender Roles
If the fall TV season is any guide, the sexual
revolution that was supposed to liberate men and women
from traditional sex roles seems to have resulted
instead in a straight-up role reversal. The male
characters are messes — insecure, jobless, barely
able to dress themselves without a wife or girlfriend
and/or living in mom’s proverbial basement. Their
female counterparts, meanwhile, are flaunting the same
selfish, boorish ways that once got men called
“chauvinist pigs.” The only difference today is
that when these female characters act like jerks, we
are expected to cheer them on as “empowered.”