While employed mothers are scarce on TV, employed women are not. More employed women on TV worked full time than in real life, but TV women s professional progress was sometimes behind U.S. women s and sometimes ahead. There were proportionally fewer women executives, managers, teachers, and technicians on TV than in the U.S., but more women doctors and police officers. We see little of the intersection of TV characters work and family lives in part because of the nature of the TV world. The majority of prime-time characters are male, and few of them appear to have family obligations.
Parents are scarce, and working mothers are still quite unusual.
Most shows center on either the workplace or the home, without much, if any, overlap that would tell us about characters other roles. Family responsibilities rarely come up at work, and when they do, they are easily met. TV women, unlike TV men, are still mostly defined by their family relationships. Of course, TV is supposed to be a fantasy world. However, the fantasy it presents is that most of us do not have children, parents, or other loved ones who need our attention and care, and that our work and family obligations have no effect on each other.