To support that without questioning is essentially to uphold the bastion of male social power. They also were interrupted more than women. In working situations, men still tend to be dominant. Women are more dominant in a social setting. The viewers, by observing those television characters, can construct their perception of reality.
Men are assertive.
For the vast majority of women in history this need was met through marriage. Praeger probably doesn't think highly of Samantha, the unabashedly sexual character on HBO's Sex and the City . This election year, life should imitate art, with all candidates taking cues from the brilliant strategists of The West Wing . Bartlet's fictitious administration engages people because it is unabashedly idealistic. It bulldozes over smokescreen issues to tackle what matters.