Always thought that feminism was a "funny" concept as a doctrine which advocates total equality between women and men in all areas of life, it has a funny way of achieving this (positive discrimination) which causes more in-equality. I'm all for equality between women and men but lets please keep in mind that women aren't men and men aren't women so although the should have the same rights (and obligations) there are differences so total equality seems a bit stupid.

Sex and the city clearly played on some of the freedoms that woman have in modern society (which has been acceptable for males for way longer) and showed this pretty explicitly. I don't know if this can be seen as female empowerment as personally I think that the modern woman already has been empowered to the level as is shown in sex and the city (and possibly even beyond) so it doesn't actually empowered them more but it did make it explicit once more and possibly shook a few people awake once more. Although I think that the people that really need to be made aware (once more) of some of these aspects of the modern womanhood wouldn't be the people watching it.

Thanks that's great!! Anyone else got any opinions? Pleeeeeease! xx

Sorry dude, would love to help but I never watched it...

Good luck with it though.

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by Eve
Well as you can tell from the title I'm in the midst of a dissertation induced nervous breakdown, but basically what i think i'm trying to write about is what role does feminism play in sex and the city? is it a show about female empowerment or is it something which has been more hinderance than help to feminists? ....i think that's what i'm doing anyway Seeing as you guys have been great with giving me help on stuff before i thought i'd try you with this one!

Has anyone got any thoughts on this that i could use as i.view/ questionnaire quotes? Male and female perspectives would be fantastic.

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I don't claim to know much about Sex & the City, didn't watch much of it, and I don't know an awful lot about feminism, but I would say that the show didn't empower women. It showed high flying women emulating high flying men - ie working hard and playing hard. Many women have followed this line, been career women and forgone children and been unhappy at the end of it all. Still more women have tried to "have their cake and eat it" and do both, only to find themselves exhausted and unhappy. While it's easy to say that men should take a more equal role in sharing family duties, I think it's equally worth pointing out that the same sort of high flyers in the male world probably aren't parents, or are probably poor parents who don't see enough of their kids. They may rely on a good mother who looks after the kids while they earn a ton of money and have mistresses. To suggest that women should aspire to such a hollow lifestyle is daft. Maybe career women are empowered in the sense that their confidence is greatly lifted by a successful working life, but as with everything there needs to be balance.

My other issue with the series and how it doesn't relate to real women is the issue of class. Like most american TV shows S & TC is aspirational - the values it aspires to are status, materialism, consumerism and power. The show's 'empowered' women represent a really tiny percentage of women, they don't represent real women, or a position in which "real women can get to if they work hard". Notice how with the exception of a handful most people with power, money, influence etc don't tend to come from council estates? So the target or aspiration set for women is utterly unrealistic. If this is what women should be, doesn't that make all the women in real life feel like failures? It's very similar to the glamourous, stick thin models in womens magazines. These magazines are forever espousing being on the side of women, yet they send women the message that they are a failure, because they don't have the clothes, jewelry or figures of the people in them.

The mission statement of the series was set out in the first epp when the women decided to "**** like men" (in the having multiple partners and not being branded total sluts sense, not the "rampent rabbit" sense) and that's what happened. One question would be if ****ing like men is feminist, or if saying equalility depends on imitating men in fact degrades women.