In the Myers/Sutton episode of Wife Swap, two very different families with very different gender role ideas are spliced together when their maternal figures are switched. Samantha Myers represents the more modern feminist stereotype of a career woman uninterested in her children and demanding of her husband. She openly shares her dislike of children in front of her son, daughter, and infant, and allows her husband to stay home and take care of the house and pick out her clothes. The children as a result are cold and alienating towards everyone new they meet, valuing intelligence (something that they have found to be the only thing that can win approval from their mother on) to be their main source of culture capital and act condescendingly to those lacking their level of brain capacity. The second wife, Karen Sutton, represents the traditional and antiquated obedient wife who must wait on her husband and children hand and foot. She is degraded by her husband and daughters and told "you're the woman!" should she ask for her husband to participate in the chores. Karen's life teeters on slavery as no one in her family offers to assume independence and orders are barked at her day and night without a single sincere "thank you" muttered.
"In its recurrent focus on the 'problem' of women's work both in and out of the home, Wife Swap's exploration of gender roles in the family addresses core questions related to the erosion of these separate and gendered spheres. The series features a range of women whose different employment and domestic circumstances reflect the current diversity of family and labor relations. This includes, for example, women who work in the home as caregivers and self-employed women with home based businesses, full-time career driven business women, couples who work together and live off the land and so on. Moreover, highlighting a recent social trend, various stay at home dads are presented as well, offering an obvious contrast to the male breadwinner model. The variety of work situations and the different configurations of women's (and men's) relationships to the public and private realms of Wife Swap speak to the changing realities of American working families and appear to reflect these larger shifts in gender and employment." --"The Cultural Politics of Wife Swap: Taste, Lifestyle Media, and the American Family"
At least in this episode (although I expect in others as well) Wife Swap does some good in introducing the wrongs of gender roles within a family existing at all. While it might be assumed that by the end of the episode poor house-wife Karen would gain some of the freedoms that Samantha has, Samantha gains some valuable knowledge from the generally considered "ignorant" traditional family as well. The lesson that seems to be learned is that no gender within the home should be made to feel inferior to another, each person should be able to enjoy respect from their spouse and family members as an equal individual who has career goals as well as time to spend bonding with their family members. Samantha's husband realized that in becoming the "whipped" stay-at-home dad he had a lot of commonalities with Karen in that neither one of them seemed to have a "life" outside of the home, or a place in which they could excel outside of the family and how trivial that lack of personal advancement had made them feel. Samantha, and Karen's husband, both on some level realized that by trumpeting their own power and sense of self worth they had been stomping all over the emotions of their loved ones and alienating their family members.
By the end of the episode the audience sees results in both families showing more empathy toward one another and working together more as an efficient team rather than a dysfunctional hierarchy. Here I see substantial value in the messages of Wife Swap in that it provides an answer to the question of how to deal with feminism in the family without causing the same gender roles burdened by women for so many years merely to transition to the male. On some levels Wife Swap helps the feminist movement move toward abolishing gendered stereotypes by presenting it in a more reasonable manner, that even a family like The Suttons are able to navigate around, and shows that an elimination of gender roles within the family certainly does not have to mean emasculation of the male. I found this concept within the reading as exhibited in the episode to be most intriguing because I found its principle creeping into other forms of media as well, particularly in the new Disney film The Princess & the Frog.
Thus, I feel this quote's analysis of how Wife Swap deals with gender roles is spot-on with what other mainstream forms of media are picking up on concerning the woman's place within society. The idea is that neither women, no men for that matter, need to be segregated off into a role but can balance the joys of both career, family, friends, and hobbies and respect their spouses to do so as well. Marriage is now perceived as a partnership, not a place for "ownership" in the modern societal circle.
Kat, this is an excellent discussion of the quote and the media texts you've mentioned. It's interesting in particular to think about if and how Disney is changing their themes in response to social trends. It's also important to recognize that media texts can contain both progressive and regressive social messages simultaneously, and that it's possible for viewers to read positive messages in Wife Swap. What I would push you to think about is some of the other messages in Wife Swap that might not be read as favorably. Do you think some audiences might have a different reading of The Princess and the Frog? If so, why? What other messages might be there, or what other ways might people without an understanding of feminism read the text? Just some things to think about for your next post.
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