Heteronormative Morning TV
In my house, every morning, we watch the Today show. The Today show appears to provide a mixture of news and cultural information to a wide audience (women, men, people who work and people who stay at home). Every morning, the Today show has a segment called “five things every woman should know.” Sometimes, this segment features fashion or health information, but, fairly often, this segment doles out parenting information (or information about children’s clothing).
I have a problem with the immediate construction of women as mothers/most important parental figure, for two reasons.
First of all, there is the automatic assumption that all women are mothers/want to be mothers. Not all women are capable of having children, and not every woman wants to have children. Motherhood is also not the only identity available to women (the Today show seems to think that all women are interested in fashion, health and children (and nothing else)), women can be business-oriented or money-oriented, too.
Secondly, there is the assumption that men don’t care about their children/want to be fathers. The fact that every woman should know about children’s back to school clothing has an automatic assertion that men don’t need to know about their children’s clothing. What are the “5 things every man should know?” How would they be different from the things women should know?
The way the Today show presents women revolves around the ideas that all women are interested in fashion, health, and childrearing (and only those three things).
The Today Show Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Today_Show
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032633/
