June Cleaver : Femme Friend or Femme Foe

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by guihong

I was thinking of two other TV women from around the same time who may seem almost the opposite-Lily Munster and Morticia Addams. Ignoring the fact that their houses were supposed to look like that, each prided themselves on the appearance of their homes (well, Morticia had servants). Both were devoted mothers, and Lily was often a font of wisdom for her niece, Marilyn (who was far closer to the "ideal" 60's woman).

It's interesting, maybe only to me, that Lily was one of the few TV wives who was portrayed as being more decisive and perhaps smarter than her husband. She swung into effective action to try to get the family out of a jam of Herman's making. Both of them, but especially Morticia, brought sex appeal back. She wasn't afraid to show "heat" with Gomez.

Maybe the only way TV mothers and wives could be that sexy and independent was to be almost freakish and foreign, especially to the "normal" people around them.

Yet none of the women portraying a more powerful role in the relationship is upheld as a model or example of what Femme should be, as a matter of fact it's dismissed, nose wrinkled at and pushed aside for a more softer version of Femme.

Women who are empowered are spoken to different, treated different, objectified differently, and put into a less than hole than the softer version.


It's engrained sexism, that we as Femmes are engrained with. I could be wrong though, I don't think so though.