WOMEN AS TELEVISION TALK HOSTS: GENDER MAKERS OR GENDER BREAKERS? by

Paula M. Kramer //

A Thesis

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree - Master of Communication College of Fine Arts and Communication

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

Stevens Point, Wisconsin

May 1995 FORMD

Report on Oral Defense of Thesis

TITLE: Wanen as Television Talk Shaw Hosts: C',euder Makers or Gender Breakers? AUTHOR: Paula M. Kramer

Having heard an oral defense of the above thesis, the Advisory Committee:

-X-A) Finds the defense of the thesis to be satisfactory and accepts the thesis as submitted, subject to the following recommendation(s), if any:

__B) Find:S the defense of the thesis to be unsatisfactory and recommends that the defense of the thesis be rescheduled contingent upon:

Date: April 26. 1995 C~!l}mittee: i

\ , /",. ,,. c v/,1 ..:..';,:, ;rJ Pt75>f::: ~~Ill, /99·,:z,F , r..Y /(7.? ABSTRACT

Despite the gains women have made in the last several hundred years, patriarchy continues-in this country. It continues because gender ideology - beliefs about men and women - changes enough to adapt to changing times while maintaining male privilege. The gender ideology that supports patriarchy continues because both men and women participate in keeping it going. Television has ·become an ess~ntial element of our culture. Therefore, it is an essential element for transmitting gender ideology and maintaining patriarchy. The women wko are on television as talk show hosts hold positions of social power. When they use their power to support gender ideology, they are helping to maintain patriarchy at the expense of the women they are supposedly helping. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to Rich llkka for encouraging me to write about Oprah Winfrey from the very beginning of grad school.

Thank you to Mark Tolstedt for helping me write the thesis I wanted to write, and for being patient with me. Thank you to Bill Deering and Leslie Midkiff Debauche for all of their encouragement along the way.

And thanks to my daughter, Chrislyn, for respecting my need to write. CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 1

Ideology and Hegemony 2 Gender as an Element of Patriarchal Ideology 4 Women's Participation in Gender Ideology 5 The Function of Television 6 Television as an Element in Ideology and Hegemony 10

CHAPTER ONE -THEORijTICAL CONTEXT 12

The Use of Gossip in Defining Women as Deviant 13 Historical Perspective 15 Colonial Period - 1607 to 1770 16 The New Republic -1770 to 1815 18 Growth, Reform, and War - 1815 to 1877 18 Progress, Modernity, and War-1877 to 1920 23 Fortune, Depression, and War - 1920 to 1945 26 Cold War and Civil Rights -1945 to 1975 28 Patterns in Gender Ideology 30 Pattern 1 - Women as Mothers 31 Pattern 2 - Women and their Appearance 31 Pattern 3 - Women as Deviants 32 Pattern 4 - Teenage Girls 32 Current Gender Ideology 33

CHAPTER TWO - GOSSIP, STRUCTURE, AND EXPERTS ON TELEVISION TALK SHOWS 40

Gossip and Talk Shows 40 The Positive and Negative Effects of Gossip 41 ··"•:"·.! The Functions of Gossip 43 The Structure of Television Talk Shows 45 The Meaning of Talk Show Structure for Women 47 Experts on Talk Shows 51

CHAPTER THREE - WOMEN AS TELEVISION TALK SHOW HOSTS 54

Methodology 57

CHAPTER FOUR - WOMEN AS MOTHERS 59

Pattern 1 - Women as Mothers 59 Oprah Winfrey 59 Sally Jessy Raphael 67 Jenny Jones 68 CHAPTER FIVE - WOMEN AND THEIR APPEARANCE 70

Pattern 2 - Women and Their Appearance 70 Oprah Winfrey 71 Sally Jessy Raphael 77 Jenny Jones 78

CHAPTER SIX- WOMEN AS DEVIANTS 80

Pattern 3 - Women as Deviants 80 Oprah Winfrey 80 Sally Jessy Raphael 91 Jenny Jones 92

CHAPTER SEVEN - TEENAGE GIRLS 93

Pattern 4 - Teenage Girls 93 Oprah Winfrey 93 Sally Jessy Raphael 99 Jenny Jones 101

CONCLUSIONS 103

APPENDIX A - PROGRAM LISTS FOR OPRAH WINFREY 107

APPENDIX B - PROGRAM LISTS FOR SALLY JESSY RAPHAEL 110

APPENDIX C - PROGRAM LISTS FOR JENNY JONES 115

BIBLIOGRAPHY 119 INTRODUCTION

An "ideology" is like a god coming down to earth, where it will inhabit a place pervaded by its presence. An "ideology" is like a spirit taking up its abode in a body: it makes that body hop in certain ways; and that same body would have hopped around in different ways had a different ideology happened to inhabit it. Kenneth Burke Language as Symbolic Action 1

Hegemony refers to the process by which dominant groups win consent to their domination... What this means for women is that not only do they generally share a subordinate economic and social position, but the hegemonic process works to ensure that male domination is seen as legitimate. Eileen Green, Sandra Hebron, and Diana Woodward Women's Leisure, What Leisure?2

In patriarchal societies, the dominant ideology is based on beliefs about gender.

Gender becomes the mark of supe1iority (masculinity) or inferiority (femininity). What men in power think about women is what women are taught to think about themselves.

Men, for example, believe women are too emotional to be able to make rational decisions, so women are taught that men can make better decisions because men are

"rational. ,,3 Institutions and people who participate in passing on the ideology of patriarchy are "gender makers." Institutions and people who question the ideology of

/ patriarchy and who suggest other possibilities are "gender breakers." For centuries / leaders in philosophy, religion, science, education, medicine, law, politics, the military, as well as family members have told women that they are inferior to and need to be

1 Kenneth Burke. Language As Symbolic Action (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1989) 59. 2 Eileen Green, Sandra Hebron and Diana Woodward. Women's Leisure, What Leisure? (London: MacMillan Education Ltd., 1990) 29. 3 Sheila Ruth, Issues in Feminism; A First Course jn Women's Studies (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980) 34-55. protected by men. 4 Gender making oppression has been presented as protection to keep women oppressed and justify their oppression.

This study looks at women's participation in the continuation of gender ideology, of their participation in hegemony.

IDEOLOGY AND HEGEMONY

To exist and survive, an ideology requires continuous support throughout a culture. Louis Althusser's theory of cultural overdetermination postulates that the \ institutions of culture - family, education, law, religions, language, mass media, politics, \ etc. - participate in an informal and unspoken network to establish and reinforce social n01ms. 5 The social norms they enforce are the norms that benefit the people in power.

Institutions work together to enforce particular social norms while insisting that they are socially neutral. These institutions tell the people they are shaping that they have no interest in elevating one group of people over another, and that they treat all individuals fairly and equally.

The subordin~tion of large groups of people is most effective when people participate in their own subordination. 6 This is accomplished by making people believe their subordination is natural rather than cultural, based on fact rather than on manipulation. Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony suggests the importance of ~ I I participation in domination:

cultural domination or, more accurately, cultural leadership is not achieved by force or coercion, but is secured through the consent of those it will ultimately subordinate.?

4 Gerda Lerner, The Majority Finds Its Past; Placing Women in History (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1979); Linda K. Kerber and Jane De Hart-Mathews, Women's Amiclca· Refocusing the Past. 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford UP, 1987); Sara M. Evans. Born for Liberty (New York: The Free Press, 1989). 5 Louis Althusser, "On Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971 ), cited in Graeme Turner, British Cultural Studjes; An Introduction (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990) 25-27. 6 Marilyn Frye. The PoHtjcs of ReaHty (Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1983) 33. 7 Turner 66-67.

2 Thus cultural leaders succeed because masses of people accept the leaders' definitions of culture. When people see themselves according to a definition that is limiting, they then fit themselves into those limitations.

While Gramsci suggests participation in domination, Todd Gitlin talces the notion of participation one step further, seeing domination in daily life. Gitlin suggests that hegemony wins the consent of the oppressed "through the elaboration and penetration of ideology into their common sense and everyday practice".8 Ideology is repeatedly expressed through the use of common symbols which direct people to believe and accept certain resolutions to their problems that continue their oppression.

The common symbols of everyday life connect and support particular meanings in ways that can become oppressive. Marilyn Frye describes oppression as

a system of interrelated barriers and forces which reduce, \ immobilize and mold people who belong to a certain group, and effect their subordination to another group (individually to individuals of the other group, and as a group, to that group.)9

Thus, the oppression of any particular group works through a network of beliefs about that group. For example, many scholars suggest that the dominant ideology in the United

States provides gender barriers and forces that effect the subordination of women to men.10 The barriers for women exist in the form of gender roles, the roles that allow men to maintain the patriarchy. These roles include: mother, nurse, maid, prostitute, wife.11 Mothers use the~dme and energy for raising children rather than running businesses and negotiating in politics. Nurses care for men's physical needs, maids care for men's environments, prostitutes satisfy a men's· sexual needs. The traditional role of

8 Todd Gitlin, "Television's Screens: Hegemony in Transition," American Medja and Mass Culture; Left Perspectjves. ed. Donald Lazere (Berkeley: U of California P, 1987) 240. 9 Frye 33. 10 Frye 1-16; Vivian .Gornick and Barbara K. Moran, eds. Woman jn Sexist Society; studjes in Power and Powerlessness (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1971); Nancy Henley, Body Politics; Power, Sex and Nonverbal Communjcatjon. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1977); Marilyn French. The War Agajnst Women (New York: Summit Books, 1992) 11 Ruth 17.

3 "wife" - the helpmeet to the husband - can require women to perform all of those duties on a daily basis.

Thus, societal institutions support the dominant ideology by focusing on particular areas of everyday life. Gender is one of the prime focal areas for patriarchal ideology.

GENDER AS AN ELEMENT OF PATRIARCHAL IDEOLOGY

Gender is one of the symbols of everyday life that can be oppressive. Gender can be defined in many ways. Lana Rakow defines gender as

both something we do and something we think with, both a set of social practices and a system of cultural meanings. The social practices - the "doing" of gender - and the cultural meanings - "thinking the world" using the categories and experiences of gender - constitute us as ) women and men, organized into a particular configuration of social relations.12

Patriarchy is based on gender beliefs about women, and requires women to fulfill particular gender roles. Patriarchy can succeed only if women "do" and "think" gender, living the restrictions of their gender roles so male dominance is maintained. Men "do" and "think" gender as well, but patriarchy rewards masculinity more than it does femininity.13 In the United States, gender is the map that guides women to "choose" oppression for themselves and for other women in a way that gives power to men.

Just as Gramsci and Gitlin suggest that hegemony is maintained through continual effort, Rakow suggests that maintaining gender requires continual effort. As societies change over time, so have thoughts about femininity and masculinity. Gender, then, is not something written in stone; gender is something that changes. As gender relations shift to reflect societal shifts, the ideology - the doing and thinking - changes to fit.14

Despite ideological changes, the power structure remains the same based on patterns in

12 Lana F. Rakow, "Rethinking Gender Research in Communication," Journal of Communjcatjon Autumn (1986): 17. 13 Susan Brownmiller, Femjnjnjty (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1984) 14-16. 14 Rakow 23.

4 gender ideology - men's thoughts, time, lives and work are worth more than women's thoughts, time, lives and work.15 Choices for women remain restricted. The patterns remain. The patriarchy remains.16

Gender ideology, however, could not be an effective element in the perpetuation . of patriarchy if women did not participate in maintaining it.

WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN GENDER IDEOLOGY

The enduring success of patriarchy depends not just on women choosing gender \ roles for themselves, but for other women as well - the same gender roles that men expect ) I of women. The relationship between mothers and daughters is the most effective place for women to oppress each other. Ann Whitehead believes that mothers may not encourage their daughters to "establish more freedom" from men and home because they want their daughters to avoid "trouble." ) Older women may be acutely aware of the potential consequences of confronting long-established patriarchal values such as physical violence, especially if the confrontation is launched from a position of economic dependence.17

Thus, women participate in the patterns of patriarchy by pressuring other women, their daughters especially, into the roles acceptable to patriarchy - mother, nurse, maid, prostitute, wife. Men benefit from this coercion of women by other women because it I / looks as if women are to blame for their own circumstances, instead of the dominant men.

Overt control of women by men is unnecessary if women are doing the controlling. The patriarchal structure and cause of the oppression become hidden behind the women who do the coercion. · When the coercion is hidden by continuing patterns of behavior, then

15 French, passim; Lucile Duberman, Gender and Sex in Society (New York: Praeger, 1975) 83-133; Elizabeth Dodson Gray, Patriarchy as a Conceptual Trap (Wellesley, MA: Roundtable Press, 1982) 19-22; Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against Amerjcan Women (New York: Crown, 1991 ). 16 Frye 17-40, Ruth 34-35, French passim, and Edwin M. Schur, Labeling Women Deviant; Gender, Stigma, and Socjal Control (Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1984) passim. 17 Ann Whitehead, "Sexual Antagoni!,m in Herefordshire," Dependence and Exploitation In Work and Marriage. eds. Diana Leonard Barker and Sheila Allen, (London: Longman, 1976), cited in Green et al 136.

5 those patterns of behavior become normal. Moreover, the women who participate in the patriarchy by coercing other women are seen as giving their consent to the patriarchy, paiticularly since much of the coercion is based on norms of respectability .18

Whitehead's research supports the theories of Gramsci, Gitlin, Rakow and Frye.

Gramsci suggested that people participate in their own subordination, and Whitehead found that mothers limit their daughters the way patriarchy wants females limited. Gitlin suggests that ideology penetrates the common sense of everyday life, where the most sensible thing for a woman to do is get married and be a good wife. The continual work of maintaining gender that Rakow describes is accomplished by mothers repeating gender ideology to their daughters. This repetition creates the network of oppression described by Frye. /

Women's repetition of gender ideology means, as some researchers suggest, that

"male social control of women is . unexceptional; it is part of normal, everyday life. 11 19 In the United States, everyday life often revolves around the television set.

THE FUNCTION OF TELEVISION

Television viewing is "the single most time-consuming home activity" and "the . ·' . dominant leisure activity. 11 20 But television does more than provide entertainment and relaxation. John Fiske and John Hartley have described television as the bard of western culture. They see a bardic function in television because it occupies the center of our culture, putting the concerns of our day into a special language meant to transmit messages that fit the needs of the culture. Fiske and Hartley define seven functions of

18 Eileen Green, Sandra Hebron and Diana Woodward, 0 Women, Leisure, and Social Control,• Women. Violence and Social Control, eds. J. Hanmer and M. Maynard, (London: Macmillan, 1987c); Green et al (1990J 138. 1 Green et al (1990) 138. 20 Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Jeleyjsjon and the OuaHty of Ufe: How Yiewjng Shapes Everyday Experjence (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1990) 71.

6 television as bard.

1) To articulate the main lines of the established cultural consensus about the nature of reality (and therefore the reality of nature.) · 2) To implicate the individual members of the culture into its dominant value systems, by exchanging a status­ enhancing message for the endorsement of that message's underlying ideology (as articulated in its mythology). 3) To celebrate , explain, interpret and justify the doings of the culture's individual representatives in the world out­ there; using the mythology of individuality to claw back such individuals from any mere eccentricity to a position of socio-centrality. 4) To assure the culture at large of its practical adequacy in the world by affirming and conforming its ideologies/mythologies in active engagement with the practical and potentially unpredictable world. 5) To expose, conversely, any practical inadequacies in the culture's sense of itself which might result from changed conditions in the world out-there, or from pressure within the culture for a reorientation in favor of a new ideological stance. 6) To convince the audience that their status and identity as individuals is guaranteed by the culture as a whole. 7) To transmit by these means a sense of cultural membership (security and involvement).21

In a patriarchal society such as ours, the bardic functions of television described by Fiske

and Haitley transmit the beliefs and values of the patriarchy. Television articulates

gender beliefs and implicates all women in sharing those gender beliefs. Television

celebrates the women who live according to gender beliefs, assures women that the

beliefs are practical, ~nd exposes changes in how the gender beliefs should be applied as

the world changes. Television convinces women that patriarchy gives them an identity

and transmits a sense of membership to the women who participate in gender ideology,

offering security and involvement.

Thus, television fits Althusser's definition of an institution that works with other institutions to continue the dominant ideology through social norms. Andrea Press ~

21 John Fiske and John Hartley, "Bardic Television," Reading Teleyjsjon (Methuen & Co., 1978) 602·03.

7 believes that this ideological function of television is possible because

Television's unobtrusive nature, amplified by its hidden location in the private sphere, may make it effective in the same way ideologies are effective: unconsciously, both structure our conceptions of self and the social world. 22 Television becomes part of the background of everyday life, one of the sources of J common beliefs and everyday practices, the common sense that makes hegemony

possible, as Gitlin has shown.

Press goes further than Gitlin, however, by considering the importance of the

private sphere for women. Although Americans "pay lip service to the public, for most of

us the private is the realm of the real." The private realm is more real for women than the

public, because since the Victorian era, women and men have lived in separate spheres. 23

Although men have always been directed toward public life, they still participated in ./ domestic affairs to varying degrees. Industrialization drew men almost completely out of

the home into the public world of business and directed women to stay in private life.

Because the p1ivate realm is important to women, the way that television affects women

in the private realm is important.

"Television helps us to bridge the gap between the public and private realms of our lives and to maintain ... a feeling of connection - however precarious - with the social world, even if this connection is emotive rather than substantive. 11 24

Thus, television for women is a connection to the rest of the world, though the connection is based more on emotion than on action.

But television serves more than a bardic function in the private realm of Western culture. Fiske believes that television has two economies - a financial economy based on

22 Andrea L. Press, Women Watching Television: Gender. Class and Generation in the American Television Experience (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1991) 16. 23 Evans 68-69; Duberman 86; Eva Gamarnikow, David Morgan, Juen Purvis, and Daphne Taylorson, eds .. The Public and the Private (London; Heinemann, 1983) 86. 24 Press 17. ·

8 advertising that induces viewers to buy certain products, and a cultural economy _based on

circulation of meanings. 25 ; All popular culture is a process of struggle, of struggle over the meanings of social experience, of one's personhood and its relations to the social order and of the texts and commodities of that order.26

This struggle takes place between the diverse elements of society, but diversity in the

United States is controlled by capitalist elements to serve productive needs. These

capitalistic elements maintain power because they have the backing of the legal, political,

educational and cultural subsystems that reproduce the social systems required by

capitalism without being coerced. 27 These are the same institutions Althusser described

as participating in a network of ideology that benefits the people in power. The

hegemony of the capitalistic elements needs to be reinforced by repetition of its values

because too many subordinates have experienced the inadequacies of dominant values for capitalism to continue on just the acceptance of the people.

One of the functions of bardic television then, is to expose the inadequacies of the culture. Leaving it exposed can be dangerous if the exposure questions the continuation of the dominant ideology. To prevent that from happening, people must be reconvinced of the value of the dominant ideology. Frederic Jameson suggests that popular television programs ·use symbols with multiple ideological functions to allow people to acknowledge their social and historical anxieties, but to direct those anxieties into a

"natural" resolution that suits the dominant ideology. Jameson believes that hegemony cannot maintain its control without allowing this expression of anxieties and rage in a kind of narrative in which symbols direct the resolution toward a predetermined end. 28

25 John Fiske. Understanding Popular Culture (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989) 27. 26 Fiske 28. 27 E. P. Thomp~on, The Making of the English Working Class (London: Penguin, 1978), first published in 1963, and H~rbert Gutman, "Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America," American Historical Review 78.3 (June 1973): 531-88, cited in Stuart Ewen, Captains of Consciousness; Advertjsjnq and the Socjal Roots of the Consumer Culture (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976) 7. 28 Fredric Jameson, "Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture," Social Text 1 (1979) 130-48.

9 Television functions as a tool of the dominant ideology, sometimes recognizing changes in the world, but continually reinforcing patterns in gender ideology that support patriarchy.

Television, then, is an essential tool for maintaining the dominant ideology and encouraging people to participate in hegemony.

TELEVISION AS AN ELEMENT IN IDEOLOGY AND HEGEMONY

Television is one of the institutions that participate in maintaining the dominant ideology, as described by Althusser. News shows choose the most important topics to talk about, based on the dominant ideology. Sitcoms and dramas tell stories based on the dominant ideology. Television talk shows discuss social norms, based on the dominant ideology. The difference between talk shows and other types of shows, however, is that the audience can participate directly.

The hosts and guests on television talk shows and their audiences tell stories about people, about culture and about the dominant ideology. They talk about the details of everyday life, the area where Gitlin sees a penetration by the dominant ideology.

Many stories are concerned with problems, frustration, and rage. At times guests may talk about the inadequacies of the system. More often, however, experts are brought on the shows to tell the troubled guests how to make their lives work again. If no expert is present, individuals from the audience and the host frequently offer advice. The process Jameson described takes place - guests and hosts expose the inadequacie~ of the

/ system, but experts use symbolism to reinforce the dominant ideology. / In penetrating everyday life and reinforcing the dominant ideology, talk shows participate in television's bardic function, as described by Fiske and Hartley. Talk shows articulate and transmit cultural beliefs, celebrate guests, and implicate the audience, assuring and convincing everyone of the rightness of the dominant ideology. Talk shows are prime teITitory for continuing the patterns of gender ideology.

10 Placed at the center of the culture as participants in the function of bardic television, women talk show hosts are some of the most influential people in the United

States. They are highly visible. They are like friends. The audience comes to trust the i I hosts and value their opinions because the hosts visit the audience their own homes. I

They bring interesting people, entertainment, even food. The hosts give useful information, help solve problems, and listen attentively to people who sometimes look just like the people in the audience. The hosts decide who speaks when and for how long.

Because of their influence, they shape the presentation of ideas and behaviors to the viewing audience. The audience likes the hosts and appreciates the company when they would otherwise be alone, they believe what the hosts tell them. The audience often respects the experts the hosts present. The audience seldom if ever questions whether the hosts' messages are oppressive and coercive. The audience should question the messages, however, because as long as the patterns of gender ideology continue, the structure of society will remain patriarchal. Women as television talk show hosts who "make gender" by participating in the patterns of gender ideology that support patriarchy are helping to maintain and continue the oppression of women.

Utilizing the notions of Jameson, Gramsci, Althusser, Fiske, Hartley and others this study looks at women television talk show hosts to examine their role in gender ideology, particularly through the use of gossip.

11 CHAPTER ONE

THEORETICAL CONTEXT

From the tip of Maine to Georgia, colonial America accepted without question the idea that an innate sexual essence made woman's physique, mind and character weaker and less governable than man's. Woman was more dangerous and therefore in greater need of supervision and restraint. H. Carleton Marlow Harrison M. Davis The American Search for Woman29

In daily in~eraction, women are often perceived and responded to primarily in terms of their category membership - as females, first and foremost ... we might even say that women have served as "all-purpose deviants" within our society. Edwin M. Schur Labeling Women Deviani30

Ideologies determine which behaviors are acceptable and which are unacceptable.

Gender ideologies determine which behaviors are acceptable for particular genders. By \ naming some behaviors acceptable, other behaviors automatically become unacceptable, and thus deviant. No particular behavior is inherently deviant. Particular behaviors are labeled deviant because of what they mean in a particular society, and may be deviant only when performed by particular groups in that society.31 In a power structure based on gender, women are labeled deviant when they fail to choose the doing and thinking of gender that protects and supports the men who have the power to define the world and its parts. Women are labeled deviant because men are in power.

29 H. Carleton Marlow and Harrison M. Davis. The American Search for Woman (Santa Barbara, CA: Clio Books, 1976) 17. 30 Schur 6-7 31 John I. Kitsuse, "Societal Reactions to Deviant Behavior," Social Problems 9 Winter 1962: 247- 256, and Kai T. Erickson, "Note-son the Sociology of Deviance," Social Problems 9 Spring 1962: 307-14, cited in Schur 5.

12 To live comfortably within patriarchy, women learn to make the "right" choices about their behavior. Making the "right" choices means being rewarded; making the

"wrong" choices means being labeled deviant. The deviant label is a punishment meant to embarrass and shame. Those who repent and return to the fold are forgiven and treated well again. Those who refuse to repent and make the "right" choices are marked forever and banished from the social group. Rewards for women who make the right choices include compliments, attention, respect, material gifts, chivalric gestures such as door opening, success in an acceptably female fields (nursing, teaching, secretarial), and praise for being the type of women nature "meant" them to be. 32 Punishment takes the form of reputations for being wild, promiscuous, bitchy, a dyke; severe restrictions on social life; sexual harassment and rape; blame for being the victims of sexual harassment or rape; accusations of selfishness, self-centeredness, coldness, rudeness, disobedience, ingratitude, ignorance, immaturity, being spoiled, needing discipline, needing to learn respect; having one's work and words discounted and ignored; being told one has failed to fulfill one's "nature" as a woman. Sometimes punishment for deviance is death.33 (Note that the punishments far outweigh the rewards both in number and degree.)

According to Schur, women are most vulnerable to deviance labeling because they are the least powerful members of society.34 To reach their goals, to be respected, to have influence, women must make the choices the men in power want them to make.

Probably the most common way to label someone deviant is through the use of gossip.

THE USE OF GOSSIP IN DEFINING WOMEN AS DEVIANT

Gossip, though often considered "idle talk," "occurs at the intersection of the social and the individual...serving social purposes, defining social opinion, (and)

32 Susan Brownmiller, Femjnjnjty (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1984) 15, and Schur 36. 33 Schur 65 and 133; Marilyn French, The War Against Women (New York: Summit Books, 1992) 186-99. 34 Schur 8.

13 embodying social power (the power of opinion) ... "35 The worst aspects of gossip are "its

circulation of slander, its betrayal of secrets, its penetration of privacy."36 People who

gossip together reassure each other about the identity and beliefs they share, and in a

sense they use their shared beliefs and identities to control other people - to build up or

tear down a reputation, to create feelings of superiority, to give evidence for (

disagreements. Gossip used in this way focuses on individuals and excludes those the 1 gossipers label as deviant.

Historically, the word gossip means "god-related."37 In its noun form it originally

meant a godparent of either sex. Over time it came to include any close friend who came

from the group of people close enough to be chosen as a godparent. But the word degenerated in meaning over time, and religious and social writers began to condemn the

activity and the identity of gossip - "loose talk" had demonstrated its ability to disrupt the social fabric.38

The Catholic Church determined that gossip was linked with three of the seven sins - " .. .it could originate in pride, anger, or envy ... 39 Gossip was depicted as slander, poison, filth and murder. Saying something bad was believed to be as effective as doing something bad. Anyone, including the men at the top, was vulnerable to gossip, and once started, gossip was difficult to stop. The social fabric that was in danger of being disrupted was the patriarchy in which men had power over women.

Traditionally, women were more vulnerable to the ruin of gossip because they had to survive by their reputations - they needed men to take care of them, and respectable men usually wanted respectable women. A woman who was the target of gossip - / who was labeled deviant - had little chance of making herself respectable again. I

35 Patricia Meyer Spacks, ~ (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985) 8. 36 Spacks 33. · 37 Spacks 25. 38 Spacks 25-30. 39 Spacks 28.

14 Men's reputations could be based on their careers, their skills, their wealth and property.

Men could survive gossip because they could still do productive work that brought them \ some kind of wage. Women, on the other hand, were told they could not or should not be productive, and their reputations were based only on their sexual behavior.40 Thus, women had to make the "right" choices, the choices that would prevent them from being the targets of gossip.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

The ability to recognize how women are pressured into making the "right" choices and which behaviors make women deviant can be developed by stepping out of the present and looking at the past. Historians have long been concerned with the ways gossip has been used to keep women in their place. By looking at historical examples of the uses of gossip and instances in which individual women or groups of women were labeled deviant, patterns of deviance become apparent. Those patterns can then be applied to the present.

Historians often divide the history of the United States into detailed time periods based on political and social events. This study will use broad definitions of time periods based on major events that affected everyone. The colonial period begins with the earliest settlements in the 1600s and ends just before the Revolutionary War in 1770.

The period of the new republic covers the Revolutionary War period up to 1815.

Economic growth, reform movements, and the Civil War covered a period from 1815 to

1877. Progress, modernity, and war extended from 1877 to 1920. Economic fortune, economic depression and the Second World War happened between 1920 and 1945.

From 1945 to 1975 the United States went through the Cold War and civil rights movements. Events since 1975 will be included in the section on current ideology.

40 Spacks 31-32.

15 Colonial Period - 1607 to 1770 A woman who went out in public without a male escort ran the risk of accusations of sexual impropriety. The concepts of "public men" and "public women" meant different things. A public man performed public actions for the good of the community. A public woman was from the worst part of society. Women who stayed out of public view were respectable - women who became public lost their respectability.41 Colonial law presumed that when a couple married they became one person - the husband. Therefore, married women had no legal right to make contracts or wills, to sue or be sued, or to· manage any property they owned before marriage. In effect, married women had no identity as individuals.42 Because men expected girls to grow up and marry and disappear as individuals, they provided little education for their daughters. 43 Between 1620 and 1725, New England colonists accused more than 200 women of witchcraft. Colonists made the accusations of witchcraft for several reasons - when women had high success rates in healing illnesses and helping with childbirth; when women acted aggressive, ·spiteful, quarrelsome, abrasive, ill-tempered; when livestock died; when the weather was bad; when fires broke out; and when crops suffered damage. 44 Most accused witches were middle-aged or older - past their childbearing years. 45 Also, most accused witches were in a position to inherit property. Since colonists believed women were inherently inferior, men controlled all property and wealth unless a woman found herself with no living male relative to take control. 46 Many accusations of witchcraft occurred shortly after the death of the last controlling

41 Glenna Matthews, The Rise of Public Woman; Woman's Power and Woman's Place in the United States, 1630-1970 (New York: Oxford UP, 1992) 4-5. 42 Norma Basch, In the Eyes of the Law; Women, Marriage, and Property io Nineteenth-Century New York (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1982) 17. 43 Linda K. Kerber and Jane De Hart-Mathews, Women's America; Refocusing the Past. 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford UP, 1987) 26. . 44 Carol F. Karlsen. The Pevn in the Shape of a Woman; Witchcraft in Colonial New England (New York: Norton, 1987) 6-9 and 117-19. 45 Karlsen 64-67. 46 Karlsen 77-116.

16 male in a woman's ·life. Women participated in making accusations of witchcraft against

other women - more than a third of the accusers were female.47

Besides the expectation that men would control property, men also expected

women to be religiously passive. In the 1630s, Anne Hutchinson of Massachusetts spoke

to groups of only women at first, then to groups of both women and men about her

religious beliefs. Hutchinson believed in salvation through inner grace instead of

salvation through good works, making the clergy (all males, of course) unnecessary.

Her ideas proved to be too controversial for her time, and she was tried for heresy in a

religious trial and for inappropriate behavior in a civil trial. The civil trial focused on the

issue of Hutchinson speaking publicly. When Hutchinson became a public person,

rumors about her sexual conduct began to circulate. The governor of Massachusetts,

John Winthrop, declared that Hutchinson had given birth to thirty deformed monsters.

For two. hundred years after her trials, Anne Hutchinson became the epitome of the

dangers of women acting as public individuals. Hutchinson's critics saw her insistence on

speaking in public as threatening to the social order and tainted with sexual crimes.48

As Europeans gained the power to control the lives of Native Americans, they forced European gender beliefs onto them, taking away the traditional power of Native

American women within their own culture. European women participated in restricting the lives of Native American women.49

47 Karlsen 184-85. 48 Matthews 27-29. 49 Helen M. Bannan, "'True Womanhood' and Indian Assimilation," Essays on Minority Cultures: Selected Proceedings of the Third Annual Conference on Minority Studjes. vol. II (La Crosse, WI: Institute for Minority Studies, 1976) 187 -194; Bannan, 'True Womanhood' on the Reservation: Field Matrons in the Unjted States lndjan Servjce (Tucson, AZ: Southwest Institute for Research on Women, University of AZ, 1984); Theda Perdue, "Southern Indians and the Cult of True Womanhood," The Web of Southern Socjal Relations: Essays on Family Ufe, Educatjon and Women. eds. Walter J. Fraser, Jr., R. Frank Saunders, Jr., and Jon L. Wakelyn, Jr. (Athens: U of Georgia P, 1985) 35-51; and Lillian A. Ackerman, "The Effect of Missionary Ideals on Family Structure and Women's Roles in Plateau Indian Culture," Idaho Yesterdays 31.1,2 (Summer, Spring 1987): 64-73

17 In the 1730s and 17 40s, evangelists preached that female sexuality was a source of c~rruption. 50

The New Republic - 1770 to 1815 After the Revolutionary War which gained independence for men, political thinkers emphasized virtue for women while limiting their power in the republic.

According to Thomas Jefferson, some groups of people should be excluded from political discussions "1) infants ... 2) women, who to prevent depravation of morals, and ambiguity of issue, could not mix promiscuously in the public meetings with men; [and] 3) slaves ... "51

In the 1780s, being a mother in the new republic carried with it the responsibility for raising good citizens, so domestic education became acceptable for women. 52

Growth, Reform. and War - 1815 to 1877 In the 1820s·,'fashion decreed that women's waists measure no more than eighteen " \ inches round, made possible through the tightlacing of corsets. 53 ,,,_,,/)

The first magazine for women, Ladies Magazine, began in 1828, edited by Sarah

Josepha Hale. The magazine had no ads, and all of the copy was written to benefit the husbands of the readers, promising to print nothing to "encroach upon prerogatives of men."54

50 Barbara Leslie Epstein, The pPUtjcs of Domestjcjty: Women, EyangeUsm. and Temperance in Nineteenth-Century Amerjca (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 1981) 42-43, cited in Sara M. Evans. Born for Liberty: A History of Women in Amerjca (New York: The Free Press, 1989) 47. 51 Quoted in Harriet Martineau, Socjety jn Amerjca, ed. Seymour Upset (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1968) 126, cited in Matthews 71. · 52 Evans 58. • 53 Lois W. Banner. Amerjcan Beauty (Chicago: u of Chicago P, 1983) 48. 54 Quoted in Gloria Steinem, "Sex, Lies and Advertising,•~ (Premier Issue 1990): 18-28.

16 The first women to write books adopted male pseudonyms for their books to prevent charges of immodesty or impropriety. In 1830 Nathaniel Hawthorne denounced the women writers of his day for exposing their "naked minds" to the public.55

By the 1830s, being a normal sized woman had become repulsive, and young girls took to dieting when their bodies began developing. 56 Older girls criticized younger girls who still wanted to eat to satisfy their hunger rather than to keep their bodies thin.57

Doctors believed th.at the digestive system of women was so delicate that women could not eat "heavy" foods such as beef and potatoes, and could be healthy only by eating small amounts of "light nourishment: toast, tea, a bit of chicken or bouillon."58

Physiognomists believed that women with small features were inherently virtuous and delicate, and women with large features were inherently sensual and slothful. Gentility required women to cover themselves in public so their features were almost invisible, and to walk quietly, in a "slightly stooped position ... 59 Women's sleeves became so large that women had to walk through doorways sideways.60

Frances Wright spoke publicly on controversial subjects such as the end of slavery (which she discussed in the 1820s), rights for workers, free love, and the negatives of patriotism and militarism. Once she started talking about free love, however, she lost credit in the eyes of the public, and anything else she did was discredited by reference to her support of free love.61 Other women who spoke publicly had to be careful to avoid being accused of "Fanny Wrightism," which meant sexual impropriety.62

55 Amy Schrager Lang, Prophetic Woman· Anne Hutchinson and the Problem of Dissent in the Literature of New England (Berkeley: U of California P, 1987) 2, cited in Matthews 7-8. 56 Christopher Crowfield (Harriet Beecher Stowe). The Chjmney Corner (Boston: Tickson and Fields, 1868) 131, cited in Banner 46. 57 Abba Gould Woolson. Woman jn American Society (Boston: Roberts Bros, 1873) cited in Banner 47. 58 John s. Haller Jr. and Robin M. Haller, The Physjcjan and Sexuality io Victorian Amerjca (Urbana, IL: U of Illinois P, 1974) cited in Banner 50. 59 Abram C. Dayton. Last Days of Knickerbocker Life (New York: George W. Harlan, 1882) 96-97, cited in Banner 73. 60 Banner 55. 61 Matthews 108-10. 62 John and Estelle Freedman D'Emilio, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988) 114, cited in Matthews 110-11.

19 In the 1830s, Angelina and Sarah Grimke, southerners raised in a slave-holding family, began to speak publicly against slavery. Reverend Dr. Nehemiah Adams of

Boston wrote a letter denouncing the behavior of the Grimkes, 63 and the press echoed his words with ridicule and sexual innuendo. The sexual innuendo suggested that the sisters wanted black men free only if that freedom did not require the sisters to marry black men. 64 Angelina once gave a lecture in Philadelphia while a mob rioted outside. The mob later burned the building Angelina had spoken 1n. 65

When Abby Kelley began to make speeches against slavery in the 1830s, people called her "Jezebel" and "infidel," threw stones and rotten eggs at her, and told her slavery was none of her business. 66 When Kelley left her baby daughter in the care of relatives to return to her speaking tour, many other women criticized her for leaving her

"sacred work. "67

The white women of the Ladies' New York Society who were fighting slavery prevented black women from being on the board of directors and discouraged black women from joining the society.68

In the 1840s, Elizabeth Blackwell applied to several medical colleges for admissions, and was refused by all but one, which put the issue to the student body. As a joke, the male students unanimously decided (one vote against Blackwell would have meant denial) to allow Blackwell admission. Blackwell graduated at the head of her class in 1849, but found no American hospital would hire her. Traveling to Paris, Blackwell found admission to a maternity hospital on the grounds that she enter on the same status as young girls training to be midwives. Back in New York, Blackwell was not allowed to put a plate outside her door identifying her as a doctor. Her first patients were poor, and

63 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage, eds., Hjsto,:y of Woman Suffrage, vol 1, (Salem, NH: Ayer Company, 1985 473, cited in Matthews 112. 64 The Boston Mornjng Post. 25 August 1837, cited in Matthews 113. 65 Matthews 113. 66 Dorothy Sterling, Ahead of Her Time; Abby Kelley and The Politics of Antislaye,:y (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991) 1. 67 Sterling 246. 68 Sterling 46.

20 Blackwell was harassed and jeered in public. Middle and upper class women were

appalled to think of a woman as a doctor. Despite Blackwell's experience with childbirth

in poverty situations, she later wrote a romantic description of childbirth that denied

reality.69

In the 1850s, hoop skirts became so large that women had to walk through

doorways sideways: Being properly sensitive and delicate meant being frail, often to the

point of invalidism.70 When some women began wearing ankle length "bloomers" under

shorter dresses, the reaction was strong and vehement. Mrs. L. Abell said that "The Bible

is against bloomers." Catharine Beecher wanted women to conform "to the rules of

health and decency ... 71 The press caricatured bloomers and "men jeered and young boys

threw stones at those who wore it. .. 72 Bloomers became a mark of radicalism.73 In

1857, Harper's Magazine proclaimed concern that women who wore bloomers would

lose their influence over men. The women who wore bloomers stopped wearing them

mostly because they considered them unattractive.74

Girls in the 1850s were allowed to be "tomboys" until age thirteen, when they

turned into proper young women, putting up their hair, wearing longer skirts, and

learning how to be confined in corsets.75 Girls from wealthy families went to boarding

schools, where peer pressure made sure everyone fit themselves into the proper clothes

and physical appearance.76 Girls also learned from every institution in their society that

marriage was their only "legitimate goal," even when men were reluctant to marry.

Women could enhance their chances of marriage only by enhancing their sexual

69 Margaret Forster, Significant Sisters: The Grassroots of Active Feminism (New York: Oxford UP, 1986) 55-90. 70 Banner 55. 71 Catherine E. ·Beecher. Letters to the People on Health and Happiness (New York: Harper & Bros, 1855) 176-82, cited in Banner 94-95. 72 Quote from Banner 87, Lois W. Banner. Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A Radical for Woman's Rights (Boston: Little, Brown, 1890) 35, 55-57; Theodore Stanton and Harriot Stanton Blatch, eds., Elizabeth Cady Stanton in her Letters, Diary and Remjnjscences. 2 vols. (New York: Harper & Bros, 1922) 2:257. 73 Banner 95. 7 4 Banner 96. 75 Banner 101. 76 Banner 102.

21 appeai.77 A custom developed of naming or electing (often by newspapers) the "belle"

that all other young women should take as a model of beauty, fashion and behavior in

their search for husbands. Thus began the practice of discussing all women for their

fashion and looks, and ignoring individual characteristics.78 Once a woman got married,

gender ideology defined her as no longer young, no matter what her age, and women in their thirties were old. Young women developed negative attitudes towards older women.79

In 1854, Phineas T. Barnum staged an event that was probably the first modem beauty contest in the United States.SO In 1859, some women began wearing padding in order to fit the feminine ideat.81 ) In the 1850s, Clara Barton worked at the U.S. Patent Office in Washington, D.C.

After a year, the man who got Barton and three other women their jobs was replaced by another man who let the women go because of the "obvious impropriety in the mixing of the two sexes within the walls of a public office." Barton managed to get her job back, but was forced to endure harassment and was followed by charges of sexual laxity for the rest of her life. 82 In 1863, Ellen Butterick invented the clothing pattern, and magazines began taking their first ads - for Butterick's clothing patterns, and for patent medicines.83

After the Civil War, upper class woman Katharine Wormeley, who helped to raise money for the Sanitary Commission, wrote about her experiences in The Other Side of

77 Banner 103. 78 Susan C. Dunning Power, The Ugly-Girl Papers, or, Hints for the Toilet (New York: Harper & Bros., 1875) 10, cited in Banner 104-05. 79 Banner 219-21. so M. R. Wallace, Barnum (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1923); Irving Wallace, The Fabulous Showman: The Life and Times of P, T. Barnum (New York: Knopf, 1959); and Neil Harris, Humbug: The Art of P. T. Barnum (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973) cited in Banner 255. 81 Thomas Colley Gratton. Civilized America (London: Bradbury and Evans, 1859) 2:56, cited in Banner 107. 82 Elizabeth Brown Pryor, Clara Barton: Professional Angel (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1987) 55-58, cited in Matthews 119. 83 Steinem 25.

22 War. Wormeley believed women needed to be "guided by the wisdom of men" and that

only women of the "right" class should be in supervisory positions. 84

With the invention of the typewriter in 1867, the once all male space of the

business office changed as women were hired in greater numbers. Sexual gossip about

the women who moved into male spaces was common, and many women were dismissed

merely because of rumors about them.85 Women were expected to assure the men

through the quality of "Womanliness" that they were truly beyond reproach.86

In 1867, fashion offered women the "Grecian bend," which was "the combination

of a corset laced as tightly as possible with shoes having the highest possible heels in

order to thrust the body both backward and forward so that bosoms and buttocks would

protrude as far as possible." Some of the women who followed this fashion could ride in

carriages only by leaning forward with their hands resting on cushions or on the floor. 87

Pro~ess. Modemity. and War- 1877 to 1920

Respectable-women could wear cosmetics in the 1860s, but any woman who wore

cosmetics in the 1870s was considered a prostitute. 88 When cosmetics became taboo,

hair came into a glory of its own, and women wore masses of hair pieces intricately

styled. 89 On top of their hair, women wore wide-brimmed hats and carried flowers and I feathers on their heads. 90_ Manicuring became popular, and delicate hands fit into the / definition of feminine beauty.91

84 Katherine Prescott Wormeley, The Other Sjde of War (Boston: Ticknor, 1889) 246, cited in Matthews 144. 85 Cindy Sondik Aron. Ladies and Gentlemen of the Civil Service: Middle Class Workers in Victorian Amerjca (New York: Oxford UP, 1987) 170, cited in Matthews 149. 86 Matthews 150. 87 Herbert Asbury, AU Around the Town (New York: Knopf, 1934), cited in Banner 119. 88 Banner 133. 89 Banner 208. 90 Banner 209. 91 William,· Woodbury, Beauty Culture (New York: Dillingham, 191 O) 21, cited in Banner 212.

23 In the 1870s, medical professionals decided that plumpness was important for both women and men. 92

In the 1870s and 1880s, women could play sports like croquet, archery and tennis, but sweat was "indelicate." For women to do anything strenuous enough to strengthen their bodies would be vulgar. 93

In the 1870s, Ellen Swallow Richards went to MIT for a degree in chemistry, but focused her time and energy and attention on "scientific housekeeping." She wanted women to succeed at housekeeping, but not in the world of men~ she "disapproved when in 1878 MIT decided to start admitting women on the same basis as men." Richards herself had gotten into MIT by a special grant from the faculty, and after she left college she was baiTed from working in the world of chemistry that men had created for themselves. Richards' believed that women should not work together to change the world, but instead should work as individuals to make themselves acceptable to the men in power, who wo'iild let the women participate when the women "proved themselves ready" Richards believe4 that women should suspend all manner of personal judgment in favor of expert advice. 94

In the 1880s, face peeling became popular, as well as injections of paraffin under the skin, both to recapture youthful appearances. 95

Doctors in the late nineteenth century decided that upper class women's normal physical state was illness. Menstruation was a serious threat to health, lack of menstruation was a serious threat to health, and women could survive pregnancy only if they avoided intellectual stimulation, anger, and lust. Childbirth itself was so pathological that up.per class women needed to spend great lengths of time recuperating.

92 S. Weir. Mitchell, Fat and Blood (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1887) 9-16; and Mitchell, "t:1.§fil. and Tear, Or Hints for the Overworked (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1871) 29-41, cited in Banner 113. 93 Suzanne Hilton, The Way It Was - 1876 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975) 104; Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance (New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1934) 46; "The Athletic Age," Godey's Lady's Book 104 (August 1889): 204, cited in Banner 141 and 142. 94 Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, For Her Own Good· 150 Years of the Experts' Adyjce to Women (New York: Anchor Books, 1989) 151-57, quotes from 154. 95 Banner 214.

24 Lower class women received little medical care, no time off for pregnancy or recovery from childbirth, and did the housework themselves. 96 When upper class women who did not behave as men expected them to, doctors would "treat" women's behavior. One treatment was based on "isolation and uninterrupted rest." Doctors told their patients to do nothing - no w1iting, no reading, no visitors - and to eat bland foods. 97

When women who went to college in the late 1800s began choosing careers over motherhood, experts considered them "unnatural." Scientific research showed that too much education could be haimful to the female reproductive system. 98

In the 1890s, crowds followed, laughed at, whistled at, and threw vegetables at women who wore a dress with a hem three inches off the ground - women were supposed to wear skirts that were long enough to drag on the ground, no matter what the weather. 99 The S-curve was the favored corseted shape for women - a tightlaced waist that created a huge bosom from chin to waist.100

By 1900, dieting was again so popular that it was a kind of "craze."101 The

Februai-y 24th 1900 issue of Harper's Bazar told women to walk in curves rather than straight lines, to move slowly, to pour tea gracefully, crooking her little finger "in imitation of the line of the tea spout." 102 In 1904 Grace Peckham, a beauty expert with

Harper's Bazar identified the business of beauty as a scientific pursuit." This science of beauty included Darwinism - survival of the beautiful was based on the theory of the survival of the fittest. Beautiful men and women would mate together, and produce only beautiful babies, and ugly people would be left childless and destined to become

96 Ehrenreich and English 110-15. 97 Ehrenreich and English 131-33. 98 Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, "The New Woman as Androgyne: Social Disorder and Gender Crisis, 1870-1936," Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America (New York: Oxford UP, 1985) 245- 96, cited in Evans 147-48. 99 Henry Collins Brown, Brownstone Fronts and Saratoga Trunks (New York: Dutton, 1935) 150; Brown. lo the Golden Njnetjes, 23; Woman's Journal 27:13 (3 October, 1896), cited in Banner 149. 100 Margaret Hubbard Ayer and Isabella Taves. The Three Uyes of Harriet Hubbard Ayer (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1957) 256-57, cited in Banner 150. 101 Banner 129. 102 Harper's Bazar 32:176 (24 February 1900), cited in Banner 49.

25 extinct.103 For women to be beautiful,.they had to "remain calm and serene and avoid

mental and emotional exertion. 11 104

By 1910, the modern beauty parlor had developed and could be found around the country.105 Advertisements for beauty products stressed the natural look women could

get by using their products. I 06 Film stars became ideals of feminine beauty .107

In 1912~ Christine Frederick, who wrote for Ladies' Home Journal, wrote a series of articles taking Ellen Swallow Richards' ideas further by telling women how to bring the art of industrial management into their homes. Frederick promised that following the efficiency standards of industrial production would give women more free time.108

Fortune. Depression and War- 1920 to 1945

In the early twentieth century, experts began taking over motherhood.109 The experts believed children were only what their mothers made them, and told mothers to mold their children with schedules.110

In the 1920s, experts told mothers to be permissive and to raise children who would be good workers and consumers.111

Also in the 1920s, when advertising began to make appeals to all levels of society, mothers were expected to teach their daughters to buy the proper products, particularly the proper beauty products.112 Advertising focused on beauty by telling women that men married women for their looks, then stayed with women who managed

103 Banner 205. 104 Banner 207. 105 Banner 215. 106 Banner 21 i: 107 Banner 283. 108 Samuel Haber, Efficiency and Uplift: Scientific Management in the Progressive Era. 1890-1920 (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1964) 2, cited in Ehrenreich and English 162. 109 Ehrenreich and English 196-216. 110 Ehrenreich and English 216-19. 111 Ehrenreich and English 211-13. 112 Stuart Ewen. Captains of Consciousness: Adyertjsjng and the Social Roots of the Consumer .Q.u.11.um (New York: McGraw-Hill) 174-76.

26 to keep looking young. Nothing inside of a woman made her sexy, only makeup,

perfume, girdles and jewelry could do that 113 The 1920s also saw the first major beauty

pageant - Miss America - which "made a national ritual of the by then powerful notion

that the pursuit of beauty ought to be a woman's primary goal." 114

. Women stopped wearing corsets in the 1920s, and began wearing heavy makeup

and patronized beauty parlors more frequently.115 Beauty for women has meant using ./

"artificial means, whether cosmetics, hair curling, hair coloring, or even plastic surgery"

ever since.116

Again during the 1920s, some educational experts began to link "female

emancipation to the collapse of the family, and consequently, to increased juvenile

delinquency and po.or school performance by children.117 The popular press and

religious leaders also considered female emancipation the root of family problems,

particularly female sexuality. A survey done by the 1922 The Literary Digest revealed

that many citizens feared the new economic independence of women and the

independence provided by the new automobiles - the assumption was that women who

took advantage of the freedom afforded by automobiles would corrupt children.118

Of particular concern during the 1920s was the control of female sex drives,

which experts assumed to be stronger than male sex drives. Controlling female sex

drives - particularly the sex drives of teenage girls - became necessary for improving

society. Sex education was taught as a part of character education in schools. Character

education for teenage girls included the importance of maintaining traditional gender

113 Ewen46-47. 114 Banner 16. 115 Helen Landreth, "The Beautiful and the Bobbed,• CoHje(s 76 (26 December 1925):11; Jeanette Eaton, "The Cosmetic Urge," Harper's 162 (February 1931 ):323-30; Paul W. White, "Our Booming Beauty Business," Outlook 154 (22 January 1930):133-35; Morris Fishbein, "The Cult of Beauty," American Mercury 7 (February 1926):161-68; Ida Connolly. Beauty Operator on Broadway (Fresno: Academy Library Guild, 1954) passim., cited in Banner 271-72. 11 6 Banner 27 4. 117 Joel Spring, Images of American Life: A History of Ideological Management in Schools, Moyjes Radjo and Te(eyjsjon (New York: State U of New York P, 1992) 67. 11 8 "The Case Against the Younger Generation," Literary Digest (17 June 1922): 40, cited in Spring 70-71.

27 roles. Girls were taught that dependence on men did not threaten their own independence, that their attractiveness gave them power over men, and that their power had to be used "for social rather than selfish ends." Teenage girls were also taught that

"purity was a social obligation." 119 The assumption was that girls who experimented ... sexually in their teens would become mothers who ruined families with divorce and sent their kids into juvenile delinquency. This type of education was continued in the face of statistics that showed a decline in juvenile delinquency as women gained more freedoms.120

Between world wars, the War Department became suspicious of women working for peace, and mailed a chart to patriotic groups showing how "the activities of all women's societies and many church groups may be regarded with suspicion. 11 121

In the early 1940s, experts told mothers to think of child raising as an extended pregnancy in which the woman would completely nourish her child. According to the experts, completely nourishing their children would fulfill all of the mothers' own needs at the same time, and was possible only if the mother regressed to a childlike state herself. 122

Cold War and Civil Ri&hts - 1945 to 1975 In the late 1940s and early 1950s, experts told mothers that if being isolated in an infantile relationship with-their children did not produce perfect citizens, then the mothers had failed. Disliking any aspect of mothering meant rejecting children, and thus failing as mothers. But the experts warned that taking advantage of the maternal isolation with children in order to influence them meant the mothers were overprotective. Also in the postwar period, mothers were told they ruled the economy because they made the buying

119 Thomas w. Galloway, Sex and Social Health: A Manual for the Study of Social Hygiene (New York: Social Hygiene Association, 1924) 286-87, cited in Spring 78. 120 Walter May, "Character Training as a High School Problem," Proceedings of the National Education Association 1927. vol 69, 609-15, cited in Spring 72-76. 121 Evans 190. 122 Ehrenreich and English 219-25.

28 decisions for their families, and thus were dominating their husbands. Experts told the fathers to keep their wives sexually satisfied in order to prevent the wives from taking too much control of the home, from overprotecting their children, from rejecting their female role, and from degrading the men. Experts told mothers they had to be continually sexy and feminine in order to protect their children and keep their husbands. During the Cold

War, experts told mothers that they had raised weak sons who were either too soft to fight in wars and too susceptible to brainwashing, or who were prone to gang violence.123

During World War II, the government told women - including mothers - that it was their patriotic duty to work in war factories. After the war, the government told women to go home and be submissive wives to their husbands because women's rightful place was in the home.124 The government told mothers that any problems their children had were the mothers' responsibility for neglecting their children while working in war time factories.125

During the Cold War, the House Un-American Activities Committee identified school teachers (who were mostly female) as "frustrated females" who were "some of the most loyal disciples of Russia" who felt "hatred" because of their "bitter struggles to

·attain their positions." 126

In 1950, Agnes E. Meyer wrote in Atlantic Monthly that women's only true vocation was motherhood, and that even women who had no children were obligated to mother the world.127

1950s fashion put women back into girdles during the day, and back into corsets for the evening. Bras with wire and bone construction made breasts "rigid and straight,

123 Ehrenreich and English 225-65. 124 Evans 219-34. 125 Spring 155-56. 126 Ronald Lora, "Education: Schools as Crucibles in Cold War America" Reshaping America: Society and lnstjtutjons, 1945-1960. eds. Robert H. Bremner and Gary W. Reichard (Columbus: Ohio State UP, 19831228, cited in Evans 244. 27 Agnes E. Meyer, "Women Aren't Men," AttaQtjc Monthly 186 (1950):32, cited in Evans 245.

29 coming to points that accentuated the nipples." Shoes forced toes into points as well, and

three inch high heels hindered women's ability to walk with ease.128

Men discounted the women who participated in the student movement that began

in the 1960s, telling the women that the men had more important things to do than listen to "little girl(s)."129

Magazines born in the 1960s, like Seventeen, spread fashion dictates to teenage

girls. Older magazines, like Vogue, revitalized themselves for the new fashion industry.

Models became ideals of beauty, firmly establishing thinness as a fashion must and

"Dieting for women is comparable to sports expertise or professional success for men."130

In 1972, Phyllis Schlafly called feminists "a bunch of bitter women seeking a constitutional cure for their personal problems" and feminism a "series of sharptongued, high-pitched, whining complaints by unmarried women ... a total assault on the role of the

American woman as wife and mother, and on the family as the basic unit of society." 131

These examples show how an ideology that began hundreds of years ago can continue despite vast changes in society. The ideology becomes acceptable by becoming familiar. It becomes familiar because it follows patterns.

Patterns in Gender Ideology

The definitions of the proper roles for women have undergone some changes over time. At first, gender ideology dictated that women stay home and leave all worldly affairs to men. Then the gender ideology expanded enough to allow women to leave the home and participate in public activities such as paid employment and civil issues, but

128 Banner 285. 129 Evans 282. 130 Banner 287-288. 131 First quote in Edith Mayo and Jerry K. Frye, "The ERA: Postmortem of a Failure in Political Communication," Rights of Passage: The Past and Future of the ERA, ed. Joan Hoff-Wilson (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1986) 85, cited in Evans 304. Second quote from Phyllis Schafly Report 5 (February 1972), quoted in Jane J. Mansbridge, Why We Lost the ERA (Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1986) 104, cited in Evans 305.

30 only as long as their activities were extensions of their domestic duties. Women who tried to move too far away from roles approved by gender ideology encountered gossip and deviance labels.. Thus, gender ideology continues through a variety of patterns. This study will consider four of those patterns.

PATTERN 1 - WOMEN AS MOTHERS

Over time gender ideology defined, enforced and expanded women's role as - mothers and wives in the domestic sphere. The definition of motherhood changed as the requirements for maintaining gender ideology changed and as industrial capitalism became the basis of society. Despite the changes, gender ideology continually made mothers responsible for any problems children had, absolving both experts and fathers of any responsibility. Gender ideology also extended womens's role to mothering the world, thus making women responsible for any and all problems, from the death of livestock to the imminent death of civilization. Women who did not become mothers damaged themselves physically, mentally and emotionally.

PATTERN 2 - WOMEN AND THEIR APPEARANCE

Gender ideology defined women's appearance as more important than the use of their minds. Although the proper shape for women's bodies changed from thin to fat to thin again, gender ideology dictated that women who did not fit the ideal of the moment were supposed to change their bodies using artificial means in order to be sexually attractive to men. As the ideal for various body parts changed, women were supposed to change their bodies to match the ideals. As clothing and hair fashions changed, women were expected to change their hair and clothes in order to be acceptably attractive.

Gender ideology dictated that women should choose to do only what fashion experts told them to do.

31 Sexual attractiveness included feminine behavior as well as appearance.

Education and employment lessened women's sexual attractiveness to men. The requirements of femininity meant that women had to restrict their physical movements through restrictive clothing and their appetites through dieting. For women, functional was unacceptable.

In particular, gender ideology expected women to defy nature by looking young all of their lives. An older woman was deviant merely because she was older. To fulfill the changing expectations of appearance, gender ideology expected women to focus their attention, time and energy on their appearance and ignore other aspects of their lives.

PATTERN 3 - WOMEN AS DEVIANTS

Gender ideology made deviants of women who stepped out of the approved roles of mother and sex object, particularly women who moved into the masculine realm and women who expressed anger. As women moved further and further into the masculine realm, gender ideology defined some areas as more important than others, and saved those areas for men. The deviance label for women frequently rested on accusations of improper and immoral sexual behavior.

PATTERN 4 - TEENAGE GIRLS

Gender ideology put much pressure on teenage girls to mold themselves to fit the proper roles. The pressure for girls to conform to standards of physical beauty began in .. the teen years. Their appearance was often their only means of being accepted. The ideology also defined teenage female sexuality as a corruptive power capable of destroying all of society. The corruption of teenage female sexuality could be avoided only by strictly controlling it.

32 These four patterns have smvived through several eras of history, eras when

outwardly women moved from being in the home all the time to participating with men in

all areas of public life. The patterns survived because they adapted to the changes in

society, just as Lana Rakow suggests that gender ideals adapt as society changes.

Women were once told they were unfit to do anything more than raise children. Later they were told they could work outside the home, but still they must consider themselves mothers first.

The same adaptation happened within the other patterns. As women became more free to participate in public life, women's clothing changed. Always, however, the approved clothing for women restricted their movements. The definition of deviance changed as the needs of society changed. When the government needed women to work in factories so men could go to war, women did. But when the government wanted the jobs back for the returning soldiers and sailors, women were told they belonged at home with their children and should feel guilty for ever leaving them. And while teenage girls are now permitted to leave their homes unescorted, they are still seen as dangerous to our society. Teen girls are still expected to mold their bodies to acceptable physical ideals and to curb their sexuality.

All of these histmical patterns reveal the importance of controlling women for the benefit of men. And these patterns continue to work today for the benefit of men.

CURRENT GENDER IDEOLOGY

From colonial days to the 1970s, the definitions of deviance came from the institutions of society - law, politics, education, medicine, and religion - permeating to people through the mass media. Laws and politics kept women out of public places.

Education and medicine kept women in the home as wives and mothers. Religion justified male privilege. Mass media portrayed women as the patriarchy wanted them to be. All institutions made men experts over all aspects of women's lives. These

33 institutions survived with the help of influential men and women who participated in making gender and continuing the patterns of gender ideology. A look at current ideological institutions will reveal similar patterns, both in labeling some women as deviant and in the paiticipation of women.

In education, mothers, fathers and teachers make gender by dividing girls and boys into different intellectual groups.132 Teachers find boys more interesting than girls; boys receive more attention than girls from pre-school through graduate school, girls get more attention for their appearance than for their schoolwork, and teachers expect girls to be passive.133

In the mass media, magazine stories for teenage girls make gender by depicting girls waiting for someone else to solve their problems, which mostly stem from relationships with boys. The authors of the stories assign most of the occupations by gender stereotype.134 Magazine articles about premenstrual syndrome make gender by depicting negative aspects of PMS and use negative terminology to refer to PMS and women during their periods.135 Music video producers make gender by showing women half as often as men, as less aggressive·and dominant than men, and performing mostly sexual behaviors.136 Television producers make gender by hiring mostly very thin women to play female characters on television. Women's magazines make gender by focusing on women's physical size - in one study of 48 women's magazines, 63 ads for diet foods appeared, and 96 articles abo1:1t body shape or size were published.137 The

132 Jupian J. Leung, "Aspiring Parents' and Teachers' Academic Beliefs About Young Children" Sex Boles 23 (July 1990):83-90. 133 David and Myra Sadker, "Sexism in the Classroom from Grade School to Graduate School" Phy Delta Kappan 67.7 (March 1986):512-515; and Ben Tsvi-Mayer, and Shoshanna and Rachel Hertz­ Lazarowitz, "Teacher's Selections of Boys and Girls as Prominent Pupils," Sex Roles 21 (August 1989):231- 46. 134 Kate Peirce, "Socialization of Teenage Girls Through Teen Magazine Fiction: The Making of a New Woman or an Old Lady," Sex Roles 29 (July 1993):59-68. · 135 Joan C. Chrisler, and Karen B. Levy," The Media Construct a Menstrual Monster: A Content Analysis of PMS Articles in the Popular Press," Women & Health 16.2 (1990):89-104. 136 Rita Sommers-Flanagan, John Sommers-Flanagan, and Britta Davis, "What's Happening on Music Television? A Gender Role Content Analysis," Sex Ro!es 28 (June 1993):745-754. 137 Carol Tavris, The Mjsmeasure of WomaQ' Why women are not the better sex the jnferjor sex or the opposite sex (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992) 32.

34 advertising industry makes gender by demanding that magazines write articles to go with

clothing, makeup and food ads, discouraging articles on serious subjects. Advertisers

also make gender by demanding that women depicted in the magazines look like models, rather than real women.138 The movie Pretty Woman made gender when the heroine got

her man by being passive and waiting for the man to rescue her.

Lawyers make gender by forcing female victims of rape to defend their dress,

behavior, previous sexual activities, and relationship to the rapist.139 Judges make

gender by giving female criminals harsher sentences than male criminals.140 Laws as a

whole make gender by protecting men as human beings but not women.141

Fake abortion clinics make gender by pressuring pregnant women into carrying

their babies to full term and refusing to give out contraceptive information to clients who

are not pregnant.142 Writers of medical textbooks make gender by writing about

menstruation as if it were a damaging, weakening, deficient physical function that

represents "deprivation," "loss," and "catastrophic disintegration."143

Psychologists, even feminist psychologists, make gender by looking for differences rather than similarities between men and women, and by focusing on finding ways in which women clients are deviant rather than looking at women's social and cultural contexts.144 Three psychologists wrote in an early draft of a paper that women who fit society's gender role stereotypes may find themselves diagnosed with personality disorders. That observation was edited out by The American Journal of Psychiatry.145

138 Steinem 18-28. 139 Robin West, "Jurisprudence and Gender," The Unjversjty of Chicago Law Reyjew 55 (1988): 1-72, cited in Tavris 112. 140 Sam Roberts, "No Easy Task: Balancing Scales of Justice for Battered Women in Prison," The New York Times 4 March 1991; and Miles Corwin, "Waiting in Isolation," Los Angeles Tjmes 15 January 1991, cited in Tavris 114. 141 West 58-59, cited in Tavris 106-107. 142 Julie A. Mertus, JD, "Fake Abortion Clinics: The Threat to Reproductive Self-Determination." Women & Health 16.1 (1990): 94-114. 143 Emily Martin, The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproductjon (Boston: Beacon, 1987) 45 and 48. 144 Arnold S. Kahn and Janice D. Yoder, "Tb~ Psychology of Women and Conservatism: Rediscovering Social Change." Psychology of Women Quarterly 13 (December, 1989):417-32. 145 T avris 186-87.

35 i

Family therapists make gender in the way they evaluate men and women - fathers are described by what type of job they have, mothers are described by the emotions they display.146

The mental health professionals who diagnose women as codependent also make gender. The symptoms of codependency - putting men first, taking care of everyone else in their lives, marrying and becoming an assistant to the spouse - are the expectations of the proper gender role for women. Women who adopt the proper gender role can find themselves accused of causing their husbands' problems, removing the responsibility from the men.147 Other·mental health and family experts make gender by blaming mothers for any problems their children develop. Even when the children are suffering because of their fathers, the mothers are blamed.148 These gender making experts have made mothers responsible for fathers who incest their daughters.149

Within families, mothers make gender by creating play environments for their children that emphasize the gender stereotypes, 150 and by restricting their daughters more than sons.151 Females as well as males make gender when they see mothers employed outside the home as less feminine, more masculine, and less desirable than stay at home mothers.152 Husbands make gender when they refuse to do their share of the housework, forcing employed mothers to work at two full time jobs.153

The full weight of gender ideology comes to bear during the teenage years.

According to recent studies, adolescence is when girls in this culture decide to reject or

146 Tavris 276. 147 Tavris 198. 148 Paula J. Caplan. Dool Brame Mother; Mending the Mother-Daughter Relationship CNew York: Harper & Row, 1989.) 149 Louise Armstrong. Kiss paddy Goodnight; Ten Years Later (New York: Pocket Books, 1978, 1987.) 150 Andree Pomerleau, Daniel Bolduc, Gerard Malcuit and Louise Cossette, "Pink or Blue: Environmental Gender Stereotypes in the First Two Years of Life," Sex Roies 22 (March, 1990): 359-69. 151 Jeanne H. Block, Sex Role ldenttty and Ego Deyeiopment (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1984) 152 Joan E. Riedle, "Exploring the Subcategories of Stereotypes: Not All Mothers Are the Same," Sex Roles 24 (June 1991 ): 711-23. 153 Arlie Hochschild with Anne Machung, The Second Shfft• Working Parents and the Reyojytion at Home (New York: Viking, 1983) 271-73.

36 listen to their own voices. Rejecting their own voices means accepting the restrictions of

feminine role definitions. Listening to their own voices means challenging those

restrictions. In one study, researchers found that at 10 and 11, girls know what is going

on in the world and know that they have a right to speak. They engage in conflict, they

act bossy, they care about relationships, they are not worried about being "nice." As girls

get older, however, many of them start to lose their sense of themselves and their clear

view of the world in order to fit into to society's definition of female - unknowing and

unimportant. No longer bossy, these girls say "I don't know." No longer sure of

themselves, they look to others for images by which to measure themselves. Afraid of conflict, they become "nice" and "good" and self-sacrificing. Relationships are still important, but they become based on the inauthentic self presented for public approval rather than the real self who was buried with each girl's voice.154

Dorothy Ullian found something even more telling. Her study revealed that between ages six and ten, girls feel resentment toward boys. Between ages ten and fourteen, girls begin to feel supportive towards boys. By age fourteen, "girls have accepted the need of underpinning males and have entered the stage" called

"Accommodation."155 Thus, the teenage years are the crucial time for females to conform to gender ideology.

The girls who choose to keep their clear view of the world and to continue to listen to their own voices are the girls who can end up on television talk shows as examples of bratty or uncouth or rude or sloppy or too sexy teenagers. Most of these girls are 12 to 14 years old, the years just after they were supposed to change from noisy ugly ducklings into quiet, uncomplaining swans concerned only with their appearance

154 Carol Gilligan, Nona P. Lyons, and Trudy J. Hanmer, eds. Ma~jnq Connectjons: The Relational Worlds Of Adolescent Girls At Emma Willard School (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1989) 10. 155 Dorothy Z. Lillian, "Masculinity & Femininity: A Childhood Perspective," National Council on Family Relations, 22 October 1976, cited in Carolyn G. Heilbrun, Reinventing Womanhood (New York: W.W. Norton, 1979) 188.

37 and the proper ways to support males. •Society punishes these girls for breaking gender

by labeling them deviant.

If teenage girls do succumb to the dominant ideology and bury their own voices, they "emerge from adolescence with a poor self-image, relatively low expectations from life and much less confidence in themselves and their abilities than boys." White teenage girls are more vulnerable to this loss of self-esteem than black girls. Hispanic girls are also more vulnerable than black girls, but tend to lose their self-esteem later than white girls. (Other ethnic groups were not mentioned in the article.) Researchers concluded that white and Hispanic girls lose their self-esteem because they draw their self­ confidence from school, while black girls draw their self-esteem from their families and communities.156

Teenage girls who learn how to fit themselves into the patterns of gender ideology then go on to make gender themselves. In a study of sixteen year old girls, Sue Lees found that all of them, "regardless of differences in class, income, intelligence or ethnic group, were concerned and anxious about their sexual reputation."157 The girls constantly talk about sexual reputations, and often speak negatively about other girls.

Because girls are willing to say negative things about each other, they are afraid that their friends will gossip. This gossip is capable of destroying a girl's entire social standing.158

Thus, the girls used _gossip to keep other girls in line - to make gender. Another way teenage girls keep their friends in line is through teasing. Feminine acting girls teased and showed disapproval to girls who adopted male behaviors.159

The evidence shows that patterns of gender ideology that began in the early days of this country continue today. Women are still expected to be mothers and to

156 Suzanne Daley, "Girls lose self-esteem on way to adolescence, study reports," Stevens Point ~ 1O January 1991: 10. 157 Sue Lees, Sugar and Spice: Sexuality and Adolescent Girls (London: Penguin Books, 1993) 28. 158 Lees 75-80. 159 Bronwyn Davies. Frogs and Snails and Feminist Tales (Allen and Unwin, 1989) 29, cited in Lees 88.

36 concentrate on domestic issues. Women are still expected to focus their attention on their bodies. Women who fail to follow gender ideology are still defined as deviant. Teenage girls are still pressured in to accepting the roles of gender ideology. Moreover, women still participate in making gender and continuing the patterns of gender ideology, usually through gossip.

This study looks at patterns in gender ideology that support patriarchy, and at how women use gossip to participate in maintaining those patterns.

39 CHAPTER TWO

GOSSIP. STRUCTURE AND EXPERTS ON TELEVISION TALK SHOWS

GOSSIP AND TALK SHOWS

Gossip is the opiate of the oppressed. EricaJong Fear of Flying160

''Problems" and "help" are the very stuff of life on the women's (talk) shows. Walter Karp 'What Do Women Want?11161

As is apparent from historical patterns, gender ideology dictates that women should be quiet. When women do talk, what they say is usually considered unimportant.

Thus, talk shows for women are also considered unimportant. 162 While a number of popular books about women hosts are available, and while women's magazines frequently write about women hosts, these tend to be about the most popular hosts as individuals - about their private lives as much as or more than their roles as talk show hosts.163

16°Cited in A Woman's Place; Ouotatjons About Women, ed. Anne Stibbs, (New York, Avon Books, 1992) 260. 161 Walter Karp, "What Do Women Want?" Channels of Communication 4 (Sept/Oct 1984): 18. 162 This unimportance is reflected by how little attention social researchers have paid to talk shows hosted by women. In academic journals that write about television, some research has been done on talk shows. Most of this research is about talk shows hosted by men. If a woman host is mentioned at all, it is likely to be only Oprah Winfrey, and she is seldom mentioned. See Walburga von Rattler-Engel, "The Coordination of Verbal and Nonverbal Interaction towards Three Parties: The Analysis of a Talk Show,• World Congress of Sociology, Mexico City, Mexico, 16-21 August 1982; Linda P. Carter, "The Narratives of Guests on Late Night Te,l~vision Talk Shows: An AnalY,sis of the Relationship between Personal Narratives and Context," Western Speech Communication Association, Salt Lake City, UT, 14-17 February 1987; Rodney A. Buxton, 0 The Late Night Talk Show: Humor in Fringe Television," Southern Speech Communjcatjon Journal 52.4 (Summer 1987): 377-89; Bernard Timberg, "Television Talk and Ritual Space: Carson and Letterman," Southern Speech Communjcation Journal 52.4 (Summer 1987): 390-402; James R. Walker, "More Than Meets the Ear: A Factor Analysis of Student Impressions of Television Talk Show Hosts," Speech Communication Association, New Orleans, LA, 3-6 November 1988. 163 For examples, see Carol Saline, "Tested by Fate,• Redbook (May 1992): 116-121 (about Sally Jessy Raphael); "Body of Evidence, 0 ~ (2 March 1992): 56-62 (about Jenny Jones); Charles Whitaker, "Oprah Winfrey: The Most Talked-About TV Talk Show Host," fb.oox (March 1987): 38-44; Bruce Cassiday, Djnahl· A Biography (New York~- Berkley Books, 1979); Sally Jessy Raphael with Pam Proctor, .5.ally;.

40 This lack of attention represents dismissal - what women do in a patriarchy is

considered less important than what men do, so what women do is dismissed from serious

consideration. The extent of this dismissal is apparent in an academic book published in

1993 -All Talk: The Ta/kshow in Media Culture by Wayne Munson. This work places

the television talk show in a hi~torical context, discusses various forms of talk shows, and

discusses the styles. of vari<;ms hosts. The unimportance of women as hosts is apparent in

the number of index references for Geraldo Rivera and his show - nineteen - compared to

the number of index references for Oprah Winfrey and her show - thirteen. Geraldo

Rivera is never even mentioned in discussions of the highest rated talk shows.164

Moreover, the book states that Morton Downey tried to restore masculine talk to

his show by a loudness designed to

overcome the clutter of "wimpy, sensitive" women's talkshows like Donahue, Oprah, Sally Jesse Raphael, and Geraldo . .165

When women's talk shows are considered "wimpy," then the discussion on them

is considered unimportant. This attitude highlights that the effect of gossip is only

negative. Gossip, however, can also have positive effects.

The Positive and Ne~ative Effects of Gossip

The ideology of dismissal tells us that talk shows hosted by women are meant for

women, and what women have to say to each other is unimportant compared to what men

have to say to each other. In the ideology of gender, men discuss important issues, but

women "gossip" about trivia.

Unconventional Success (New York: William Morrow, 1990); Virginia Graham, If I Made It. So Can You (New York: Bantam, 1978). 164 Gretchen Reynolds, "A Year To Remember: Oprah Grows Up," TV Gujde (January 7-13): 14-20. 165 Wayne Munson, All Talk: The Talkshow io Medja Culture (Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1993) 85- 87. Incidentally, Raphael's second name actually ends in a "y" - Jessy - but her name is misspelled all five times it is mentioned in this book, an indication that Munson paid little attention to Raphael's show, and another indication of a women host being dismissed.

41 Although gossip is popularly seen as only a negative discussion about trivial

things, Patricia Meyer Spacks believes gossip can have important positive effects.

The best value of gossip is "its capacity to create and intensify human connection and to

enlarge self-knowl~dge predicated more on emotion than on thought. 11 166 Gossip also

provides groups with means of self-control and emotional stability. It circulates both information and evaluation, supplies a mode of socialization and social control, facilitates self-knowledge by offering bases for comparison, creates catharsis for guilt, constitutes a form of wish­ fulfillment, helps to control competition, facilitates the selection of leaders, and generates power. It provides opportunity for self-disclosure and for examination of

moral decisions.167 \ Thus, people gossip for different effects. Gossip can be negative and make gender by focusing on individuals who fit the definition of deviance according to gender ideology - gossip that excludes some indiyiduals and groups while rewarding others. Or gossip can be positive and break gender by focusing on commonalties of experience that undermine gender ideology - gossip that includes all and makes connections between individuals and groups.

The inclusiveness of gender breaking gossip ~an be threatening to the established authority. People who gossip inclusively choose to discuss topics that will reinforce their own beliefs about people and the world. In this way, gossip becomes a way of making sense of the world, of interpreting the past, and of relating the past to the present. But the bonding and power generation of inclusive gossip can lead to something that worries the

166 Spacks 19. 167 Robert Paine, "What Is Gossip About? An Alternative Hypothesis," Man; Journal of the Royal Anthropological lnstjtute 2 (1967): 283; Samuel C. Heilman, Synagogue Ufe 161; Susan Harding, "Women and words in a Spanish Village," Toward an Anthropology of Women. ed. Rayna R. Reiter (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975) 301; Jack Levin and Allan J. Kimmel, "Gossip Columns: Media Small Talk," Journal of Communjcatjon 27 (1977): 169; Jerry M. Suls, "Gossip as Social Comparison," Journal of Communication 27 (1977): 165; Rebecca Birch Stirling, "Some Psychological Mechanisms Operative in Gossip," Social Forces 34 (1956): 265-66; Max Gluckman, "Gossip and Scandal," Current Anthropology 4 (1963): 308; Stanley L. Olinick, "The Gossiping Psychoanalyst," lnternatjonal Reyjew of Psycho-Analysis 7 (1980):440; John Sabini and Maury Silfer, Moralities of Everyday Ltte (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1982) 98, 102, cited in Spacks 34.

42 people in power - a group questioning of the established authority and the dominant definition of reality.

Whether women's gossip creates a negative or a positive effect depends on the function of their gossip.

The Functions of Gossip

Patricia Meyer Spacks believes that the stress on the triteness of gossip is a cover for fears that "gossiping women" could "see and tell important truth."168 The important truth of gossip for women lies in the details of their everyday lives. Deborah Jones defines gossip as

a way of talking between women in their roles as women, intimate in style, personal and domestic topic and setting, a female cultural event which springs from and perpetuates the restrictions of the female role, but also gives the comfort of validation.169

Jones sees in women's gossip four functions - house-talk, scandal, bitching and chatting.

House-talk and chatting are positive, inclusive forms of gossip. Scandal gossip is negative because it is exclusive. Bitch,ing is both negative and positive - it excludes the person being bitched about, and includes those doing the bitching.

House-talk is about housework, husbands, and children - problems getting everything done, worries about a husband's job, pride in children's schoolwork - the details of "the female role as an occupation." Scandal talk involves making judgments about morality in women's domestic world, and appeals to women's interest in other people's lives - discussing rumors of an affair, how a mother treats her children, how a neighbor woman spends her money. Scandal gossip that minimizes judgment is mostly entertainment, but scandal gossip can also be very judgmental. Women who "misbehave" are the most frequent targets of scandal gossip because respectable women see the

168 Spacks 152. 169 Deborah Jones, "Gossip: Notes on Women's Oral Culture," Women's Stydjes loternatjonal Quarterly 3 (1980): 193-98, quote from 194.

43 misbehavior "as an attack on the job security of all women ... " Women use scandal gossip \

to judge other women according to "sexist moral codes" - or in other words, according to

gender ideology .170 Women can also complain about sexism as they reinforce it -

bitching is women's way of expressing their anger over their restricted roles and inferior

social status - bitching about housework, limited freedom, being unfulfilled. Done in

private, bitching gossip is about specific, personal complaints. Done for political reasons,

bitching is a form of consciousness raising. Chatting happens when women trust each other enough to share stories about themselves - things they keep from their husbands, dreams for the future, memories that haunt them. "Chatting sessions" are a "continuous chorus and commentary" that offer "emotional sustenance."171 Women who chat together help each other evaluate their lives and come to an awareness of their feelings.

Women who participate in chatting nurture each other by sharing their experiences and comforting each other. Chatting entails recognition of the details of women's lives without judgment.

Thus, gossip centers on domestic affairs, relationships, and morality - the elements of the sphere approved for women by gender ideology since the Victorian age.

In colonial days, families worked together to produce all or most of what they needed for survival. When men left their homes to earn wages, they left domestic concerns behind.

The "rational" concerns of politics and business became more important than the

"emotional" concerns of the home and family, and women were left to their houses and their gossip.172 Because patriarchal men dismissed what women said to each other in their homes, it is only natural for them to discount what women say to each other in public on talk shows.

All four functions of gossip identified by Deborah Jones are common on talk shows hosted by woinen. Perhaps the popularity of a host is due in part to her ability to

170 Jones 196. 171 Jones 196-97. 172 Evans 68-69.

44 incorporate all the functions of gossip during her shows. Hosts use house-talk gossip

when they talk with women about their families and their roles as wives and mothers.

Hosts use scandal gossip when they discuss recalcitrant teenage girls and women whose

sexual behavior does not fit gender role ideals. Hosts use bitching gossip when women

complain about their lives and the way other people treat them. Hosts use chatting gossip

when they discuss the similarities between themselves and their guests. Some members

of the studio audience can participate by taking part in the discussion. Other members of

the studio audience and all members of the viewing audience can participate by relating

the discussion to their own lives.

But gossip between women inside a home is much different from gossip in front

of a participating studio audience and a viewing audience of millions. A small group of

women gossiping has very little structure and is loosely time-bound. Television talk

shows are highly structured and strictly time bound. How gossip functions on television

depends on the structure of the talk show.

THE STRUCTURE OF TELEVISION TALK SHOWS

Television is a molder of the soul's geography. Michael Novak Television: The Critical View173

To understand the structure of talk shows, we must understand the structure of television itself. Television "was developed ... within a capitalistic society ... by the capitalistic manufacturers of the technological apparatus." 17 4 These manufacturers

"determined the shape of broadcasting institutions."175 Since the 1950s, the expansion of the communication system in the United States is the result of research and development by military and political organizations. Although some effort has been

173 Michael Novak, "Television Shapes the Soul," Teleyjsjon: The Critical View, ed. Horace Newcomb, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford UP, 1979) 304. 174 Raymond Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form (New York: Schocken Books, 1975) 34. 175 Williams 35.

45 made to include public interests in broadcasting, the television industry has remained primarily commercial. Programming on television - including talk shows - has been designed to fit into the commercial structure of capitalistic interests.176

At first, the capitalist structure of television consisted of individual and different performances and events put together into programs which were considered separate, timed units. Over time, broadcasters began to specialize their schedules, putting similar performances and events together with an eye to mix, balance and proportion. The breaks between units of programming consisted of some indication - music of some sort, or a nature shot - to show that the broadcast had not ended for the day, that another program would be aired. Then. commercial advertising came to television, and the individual programs became part of a flow of commercialsh This flow occurs both between programs and within.programs, and the purpose of the flow is to keep the audience interested in the program in order to get them to listen to the commercials so they will go .. out and by the advertised products. Thus, whole evenings are planned'to "flow" in a particluar way, just as individual shows are planned to "flow" in a particular way. \ Between programs, the commercials include advertisements for upcoming shows - advertisements ~hat keep the audience's interest in the program so they will sit through the advertising. Within progtamsfe opening sequence has to be interesting or exciting / enough to keep the audience interested enough to sit through the first set of commercial~77 ·· ~ Talk siows generally open with the host announcing the topic, an announcement intended to keep the audience interested. The second phase of the show can include an interview with one individual, an interview with a group of individuals, a taped sequence to illustrate an issue~ or a demonstration of individual talent. Following this, the show can either stay focused on an individual or small group, or introduce new guests who add . new perspectives to· the discussion. Before each commercial break, the host often makes

176 Williams 68-70. 177 Williams 86-96.

46 another announcement meant to pique the interest of the audience enough to keep them

viewing during the immediately following commercials. The show generally ends with

the host wrapping up the discussion, which is then followed by another set of

commercials. Gossip on talk shows must be fit into this flow of program segments

between the flow of commercial breaks. ~ ·

The Meanin~ of Talk Show Structure For Women

Gossip done between women in their everyday lives is mostly private and limited

to the people involved at the moment. Private gossip is talk about another person or

persons who are not present. Gossip on television talk shows is entirely different - a

public discussion that involves millions, usually including the person or persons who art

the topic of discussion. Thus, televised gossip "claim(s) for the public realm material

traditionally belonging to the private." 178 In the 1960s and 70s, women began a kind of private talk that was based on the inclusive function of gossip - consciousness raising, which was done in small groups. Perhaps because talk show discussions often involve a \ small group of people, Elayne Rapping considers talk shows a distorted form of consciousness raising groups. Rapping believes that television has claimed the private talk of consciousness raising for public material, asserting that today's television talk shows

can be seen as part of the culture and political legacy of the 60s. Consciousness raising, the belief in the personal as political, and the insistence on airing our "private" matters as a way of exposing and freeing ourselves from male­ defined, middle-class values and lifestyles had a profound influence on public thinking and behavior.179

Rapping believes that talk shows have taken "feminism's insights and values" while they

"distort and demean them, and use them for vicious ends." She argues that the feminist

178 Spacks 259. 179 Elayne Rapping, "Talk Shows Pervert Feminism," New pjrectjons For Women 18 (May/June 1989): 8.

47 symbol of the consciousness raising group has been turned into television talk shows for

commercial television.180

To determine if talk shows are based on feminist conscious raising groups, several

things must be considered - when talk shows and consciousness raising groups came into

being, how much attention the people in power paid to feminist activities, and the

characteristics of each. ·

First, radio talk shows began in the 1920s, and daytime radio talk for women

focused on topics like "child care, educational issues, canning, food prices, cooking,

11 I recipe swapping and the like. 181 Television talk shows began in the early fifties, and

through the 1960s and 1970s were "light afternoon women's fare skewed toward older

and less commercially desirable viewers."182 Consciousness raising groups began in the

late sixties, and were small discussion groups formed to explore "the political meaning of

their personal experiences." 183 By the time the first small group of women had met to

discuss the connections between their lives, a pattern for women's talk shows had already

been set, and Virginia Graham had been hosting a national talk show for several years.

Second, since feminists are considered deviant from the norm of what women

should be, what they do is likely to be ignored by both patriarchal men and women. /

When people in power appropriate the activities of subordinates for their own use, they

will likely do so only if the activities serve their purposes. Groups of people who talk to

each other about the problems created by the power structure are not likely to be useful to

the power structure in question. One television talk show hosted by a woman - Woman to

Woman, hosted by Pat Mitchell in 1983 - tried to recreate the consciousness raising group on television. Each show dealt with one topic, discussed by a diverse group of ten or twelve women. Each guest related her personal experience with the day's topic. As host,

180 Rapping 8. 181 George H. Douglas, The Early Days of Radjo Broadcasting (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1987) 190. 182 Munson 8. 183 Evans 282.

48 Pat Mitchell had a wonderful way of setting the stage for each woman to speak of her experience or perspective, and then she wrapped up each topic with a "woman's summary," which embraced and affirmed all of our experiences as women, even if they conflicted and stood unresolved.184

As the only show to duplicate the stmcture of women's consciousness raising groups -

the only show to purposely use inclusive gossip to bond and empower women -

Woman to Woman lasted only one year.

Third, the characteristics of consciousness-raising groups and talk shows are

different. A consciousness raising group is small, leaderless and stmctureless, and

members are expected to participate equally. The underlying belief of the group is that

the problems women face as women are stmctural rather than individual. The purpose of

consciousness raising groups is to change society.185

Talk shows, by contrast, have a structure, a "leader," and audiences that number in

the millions. Audietice patticipation is unequal, with most audience members not

participating at all. Sharon Wyse claims that the purpose of the talk show is "to make

money for the men who own the networks and the advertisers who use our (women's)

bodies to sell their products. 11 186

In other words, talk shows are entertainment. Wyse goes on to claim that

On talks shows, issues on the most painful edge of women's rights are hyped as appalling anomalies, their tmth sensationalized beyond the average person's ability to identify. The networks pander to our need to deny that these horrors exist in our very families.187

Thus, while consciousness raising groups have little structure themselves, they relate life

problems to societal stmcture and recognize commonality of experience. Television talk

184 Elizabeth Dodson Gray, "The Daytime Talk Show as a Women's Network," Communications At The Crossroads: The Gender Gap Connection, eds. Ramona R. Rush and Donna Allen (New Jersey: Ablex, 1989) 85. 185 Evans 282-83. 186 Sharon Wyse, "TV Talk Shows Take Low Road on Hot Topics," New pjrections For Women 18 (March/April 1989): 7. 187 Wyse 7.

49 shows, on the other hand, are highly structured, relate problems to individuals, and deny commonality of experience. Talk shows lay the responsibility for fixing the problem and often the cause of the problem on the women themselves. Solutions to the problems are presented as material and/or individual. The material solutions fit well into the flow of commercial advertising - the political significance of women's shared experiences does not. Therefore, the feminist symbol of the consciousness raising group cannot be superimposed onto commercial television talk shows. Rather than giving women a place to discuss their lives, television is one of the cultural forms that represents what women should be.

The "appalling anomalies" of today's talk shows were already being publicly discussed before the first television talk show existed. Starting in 1946, radio show

Queen For Today awarded merchandise prizes to the contestant who could evoke the most sympathy from the studio audience." Four or five women spilled their guts every day about their personal troubles. A few of the guests did not have sob stories to tell, making them the least likely to win anything -

"A tear-jerking narrative was most likely to reap lots of applause." The show moved to television in 1956 (as Queen For A Day) and shot to number one in the ratings. The television version ran continuously until 1962, then appeared again briefly in 1964, and finally went off the air in 1970.188

The Queen shows acknowledged women's problems and gave sympathy in the form of applause, but no one made any connections between the women or their problems

- not the hosts, not the audiences, not the guests. These shows set the norm for the discussion of women's problems on television talk shows. Generally, talk shows present women and their problems as separate from each other. Talk shows lay the responsibility for fixing the problem and often the cat1se of the problem on the women themselves.

Solutions to the problems are presented as material and/or individual. The material 1

188 Alex McNeil. Total Television: A Comprehensive Guide to Programming from 1948 to the Present (New York: Penguin, 1991) 621.

50 \ solutions fit well into the flow of commercial advertising - the political significance of women's shared experiences does not.

While the Queen shows set the standard for how women's problems are addressed on television, talk shows did add a new element - the educated individual who could explain to women what they were doing wrong.

EXPERTS ON TELEVISION TALK SHOWS

The story of the rise of the psychomedical experts - the doctors, the psychologists, and sundry related professionals - might be told as an allegory of science versus superstition: on the one side, the clear­ headed, masculine spirit of science; on the other side, a dark morass of female superstition, old wives' tales, rumors preserved as fact. Barbara Ehrenreich Deirdre English For Her Own Good l89

Experts of every variety frequent talk shows in order to give their advice to guests and audience members. Often, "experts" are asked to appear because they have written a book or article on the topic of discussion; for example, Marianne Williamson, author of A

Return to Love .. The hosts generally give some information about the experts' backgrounds, but seldom do the hosts discuss the methods of research and theoretical bases, if any, for the experts' findings. 190

Beatrice E. Robinson did a study of experts on talk shows in 1982. She found that as the number of talk shows increased, so did the number of experts on talk shows and the numbers of people watching talk shows. Robinson defined experts as "outsider­ experts" and "insider-experts." Outsider-experts had "academic and/or career credentials." Insider-experts were lay people who "gained credibility as ... expert(s)

189 Ehrenreich and English 33. 190 As members and representatives of institutions, experts in general are educated to be agents of hegemony. Little research has been done on how experts help to continue the dominant ideology, but for some understanding of the issues see: James Shanteau and T homas R. Stewart. "Why Study Expert Decision Making? Some Historical Perspectives and Comments.'' Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Making Processes 53.2 (November 1992): 95-106; Kirsten Uldall, ·The Integrity of Parents," Sko!epsyko!ogy 27.2 (1990): 83-91; and Lee Coleman, "False Accusations of Sexual Abuse: Psychiatry's Latest Reign of Terror," Journal of Mjnd and Behayjor 11.3-4 (Summer/Fall 1990): 545-556.

51 because of personal experience with the particular family issue or topic being discussed." 191

Robinson found that professional experts presented values as facts, theories as

truisms, and all data as reliable and valid.

By far the most frequent type of value expressed by experts concerned the advocacy of a moral absolute which allowed only one right or correct way of behaving, thinking, or feeling ... These moral absolutes fell on both sides of the liberal-conservative continuum.192

Expe1ts also "frequently made value statements advocating moral relativism and

individual choice," but such statements were more likely to be expressed by experts who

were

advocating or presenting unpopular or controversial ideas about topics such as extramarital sex, divorce, women's sexuality, and sexually explicit educational films.193

Often, only one expert is presented at a time, so that any one expert's findings are likely to go unchallenged. Expe1ts are probably least likely to be challenged when they express the dominant ideology about gender roles, because television functions as bard to repeat the messages of the dominant ideology. And the experts who come on talk shows to discuss their books fit well into the commercial flow of television.

Both experts and talk show hosts make a habit of using what could be considered

"floating facts." These are statements of tmth that both hosts and experts present as the result of research. The facts are floating because most of the time neither the hosts nor the experts inform the audience about the origin of the facts. The audience generally does find out when, where, how, or why the study was done or who did the study. If the guest expert did the study, she or he fails to go into detail about the basis of the study. "Facts"

191 Beatrice E. Robinson, "Family Experts on Television Talk Shows: Facts, Values, and Half­ Truths," Family Relations (July, 1982): 371-72. 192 Robinson 374-75. 193 Robinson 375.

52 are presented as valid, because the studies are presented without question of bias or critique.

Thus, women's talk - gossip - becomes public on television talk shows, but is shaped to fit the programming flow of television's commercial interests. Individual women's problems are presented as separate from other women's problems. Experts offer individual solutions to those problems, which often require the women to purchase a material object, such as the book the expert has written on the subject. Far from being a common ground for women to talk to each other, women's talk shows are structured to keep women separate and to further capitalist interests under patriarchy.

This study looks at how the structure of television talk shows and the use of gossip and experts continues the patterns of gender ideology.

53 CHAPTER THREE

WOMEN AS TELEVISION TALK SHOW HOSTS

Television has been so pervasive a presence in American society that one cannot imagine what American life would be like without it.

People have acquired a new kind of relationship with large number of total strangers who come into their homes on a picture tube. Martin Mayer About Television 194

Though women can be powetful hosts of television talk shows today, the patterns of gender ideology limited women's presence in the early days of broadcast communications. In 1920, KDKA station in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania began broadcasting election results, and according to historians, "this was the beginning of radio broadcasting as we know it today. 11 195 During the 1920s, "a fair number of women" worked as announcers, many of them working on women's and children's programs, ) which took up most of the daytime hours.196

By the 1928-1929 season, radio had three national networks which were "offering expensively produced, and sometimes even sponsored, programs for a feminine audience." Topics for shows included homemaking, health, cooking, recipes, babies, and

"household talks with interludes of music.197 Not all of the announcers for women's shows were women, and the women who were announcers for these shows did not last long - women almost completely disappeared from the airwaves during the 1930s and 1940s.198

194 Martin Mayer. About Jelevision (New York: Harper & Row, 1972) 355. 195 George H. Douglas. The Early Days of Broadcasting (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1987) 1. 196 Douglas 65-66. 197 Douglas 190. 198 Douglas

54 Wireless television was invented in 1925, and like radio, television broadcasting "" \ was intermittent at first but by the fall of 1948 "there was a tremendous growth in the , number of broadcasting stations and the number of television sets." 199 The first regular daytime programming began in 1948. The first talk shows were at night, and television talk was different from radio talk. Raymond Williams believes that j'

some of the best of this kind of discussion was developed in radio but television at times has added a real dimension to it: physical presence, attention, gesture and response which ... can be, in their unity with the words, an experience that is significantly shared in some new ways.200 \ Men hosted the first talk shows. Women hosts got the daytime slots, because station managers assumed that their audiences would be all or mostly female. )

Several women have been television talk show hosts, but many lasted a year or less.201 A few women who no longer have talk shows were on the air for two or more years.202 Currently, twenty-five talk shows are on the air, and at least fifteen more are planned. 203 Three women have hosted national talk shows for two years or more and are still on the air - Oprah Winfrey, Jenny Jones, and Sally Jessy Raphael. This study will look at the gender making and gender breaking of these three women. They are the sole hosts of talk shows that include discussions with one or more guests about issues imp01tant to women. All of the shows have serious discussions most of the time, humorous discussions some of the time, and at times they all have celebrity guests.

All of them address women's issues at times, and all of them are daytime shows.

199 McNeil 3. 200 Williams 75. 201 The list of women hosts includes Betty White, 1954; Gypsy Rose Lee, 1958 and 1965; June Havoc, 1964; Pamela Mason, 1965 and 1968; Sheila, Heather and Meredith Macrae, 1971; Sherrye Henry, 1971; Bess Myerson, 1972; Joanne Carson, 1973; Pat Mitchell, 1983; Rona Barrett, 1989; Marsha Warfield, 1990; and in the early 1990s, Barbara de Angelis, Jane Pratt, Whoopi Goldberg and Faith Daniels. Ricki Lake and Dr. Bertice Berry began talk shows in the fall of 1993, and Leeza Gibbons and Rolonda Watts went on the air in January, 1994. Other hosts in the early 1990s include Mo Gaffney, Sonya Friedman, Vicki Lawrence, and Jane Whitney. For information on talk shows and hosts up to 1991, see Alex McNeil, Tu1a1 Television locludjng Cable· A Comprehensive Gujde to Programming from 1948 to the Present (New York, Penguin Books, 1991 ). 202_This list includes Dinah Shore, 1970-74 and 1974-80; Barbara Walters and Polly Bergen took turns on one show between 1971 and 1979; Sandra Elkin, 1974-77; Joan Lunden, 1989 into the early 90s; Joan Rivers, 1989-93. See McNeil. 203 Reynolds (January 7, 1995) 20.

55 Topic lists for each of the shows for the years 1992 to 1994 appear in the

Appendix A, B, and C. These lists include only the topics that fit into the categories of this study - women as mothers, women and their appearance, women as deviants, and teenage girls. The list for Jenny Jones was purchased from a transcript company.204

Since The Oprah Winfrey Show and Sally_Jessy Raphael do not sell program lists, the lists for these shows were compiled from TV Guide and from watching the programs.

No dates are given in Winfrey's and Raphael's lists for the shows because they are sometimes broadcast on different dates by different television stations. The titles of the

Winfrey and Raphael shows come either from the TV Guide or from how the host describes the show in her opening statements. All the shows cited in following chapters have the dates and titles listed with the transcript companies. Since women in this culture are p1imarily defined as mothers, it is interesting to note that under the topic of women as deviants, deviant mothers appear more often than any other type of deviant woman.

As is apparent from the lists, all three hosts did a good proportion of their total shows on these topics. Raphael did the most shows on the topics under consideration, between 29 and 40%. Jones emphasizes relationship problems, but 18 to 26% of Jones' shows fit the topics under consjderation. Winfrey does a wider variety of topics than the other two, so the proportion of shows she does that fit the topics of this study is lower, 15 to 20%. 205 Thus, all the hosts spend a good amount of their air time dealing with issues of gender ideology.

This study will focus mostly on Oprah Winfrey, with brief looks at Sally Jessy

Raphael and Jenny Jones. 206 Despite falling ratings in the last three years, Oprah

. 204 Due to a mixup between the transcript company and the company that produces Jenny Jones. titles for shows produced in the fall of 1994 are unavailable. Descriptions from TY Gujde were used instead of titles. These shows are marked by an asterisk in the footnotes and in the bibliography. 205 Jones does approximately 250 shows a year; Raphael approximately 200; and Winfrey approximately -216. 206 The author recognizes that as an African American woman, Oprah Winfrey comes from a culture that includes a tradition of matriarchy and different role expectations for women (see Evans, passim; and Micheline Ridley Malson, "Black Women's Sex Roles: The Social Context for a New Ideology," Journal of Social Issues· Fall 1983, No. 3 V 39: 101-113). However, this study looks at how Winfrey as a television talk show host participates in the dominant ideology of the United States.

56 Winfrey remains "by far the leader in the daytime talk derby." 207 But Winfrey is more

than just the leader in today's ratings race. As Janeen Bjork, vice president of a

television-station-representative firm says, "Oprah is still the most popular talk-show host in history."208 As the most popular talk show host in history, Oprah Winfrey has a great

deal of power. Her viewing audience needs to understand how she uses her power to

bring meaning into their lives.

As owner of her own production company, Winfrey has more say in the topics she

will discuss than do Raphael and Jones. However, the comments Raphael and Jones

make during their discussions indicate what they believe about the topics. Therefore, this

study will focus on what the hosts themselves say in direct statements and in responses to

other people participating in the show. This study will particularly focus on how the

hosts use scandal gossip, as described by Deborah Jones. Women use scandal gossip

when they are judging the behavior of other women according to the prevailing moral

codes, which are based on gender ideology. Paying attention to how the talk show hosts

judge the behavior of women according to gender ideology will reveal how much they

use scandal gossip.

METHODOLOGY

This study looks at how women as television talk show hosts use gossip to

continue the patterns of gender ideology. This will be done through a close reading, a

detailed consideration of what the hosts say and the meaning of their words in the context

of gender ideology. The greatest attention will be placed on anything that follows or

contradicts the four patterns of gender ideology discussed earlier. Four transcripts from

The Oprah Winfrey Show , each representing one of the four patterns will be used for this

207 Gretchen Reynolds, "The Oprah Myth," TY Gujde (July 23, 1995): 1o. 208 Reynolds (January 7, 1995) 20.

57 study. This close reading will do several things:

1. Illustrate examples of how Winfrey uses scandal gossip to make gender. 2. Cite examples from other Winfrey transcripts when they serve to show how Winfrey repeatedly makes gender according to the patterns under discussion. 3. Cite examples illustrating how Jenny Jones and Sally Jessy Raphael make gender. 4. Cite examples where the hosts break gender by not upholding gender ideology.

Throughout the analysis, the emphasis will be on words of the hosts themselves, either on the topic directly, or on their reaction to what guests, experts and audience members say about the topic. A short discussion will follow each topic comparing the gender making and gender breaking of each host. Concluding remarks will follow.

58 CHAPTER FOUR

WOMEN AS MOTHERS

PATTERN 1-WOMEN AS MOTHERS

As the historical patterns show, gender ideology defined, enforced and expanded

women's role as mothers and wives in the domestic sphere. The definition of motherhood

changed as the requirements for maintaining gender ideology changed and as industrial

capitalism became the basis of society. Despite the changes, gender ideology continually

made mothers responsible for any problems children had, absolving both experts and

fathers of any responsibility. Gender ideology also extended womens's role to mothering

the world, thus making women responsible for any and all problems, from the death of

livestock to the imminent death of civilization. Women who did not become mothers

damaged themselves physically, mentally and emotionally. The widespread acceptance

of gender ideology limited women's access to education and employment, forced women

to work for lower wages than men, prevented women from using their education, and justified men's sexual harassment of women who moved into public spaces.

OPRAH WINFREY

The title of the show for this topic was "How To Be A Parent Your Child Won't

Hate Later." Winfrey talked with two mothers about their parenting problems. The

second mother's sister and her business partner, a woman, also participated. The panel included an expert - a psychologist who specialized in childhood issues.

Winfrey opened the show by asking, "Is this your life?" Winfrey then described

59 the life of a woman who is always

running and running and running and running to get things done. Trying to please everybody and feeling completely frustrated-because you can't do one thing really well. And caught in this frantic, frustrated, nerve-wrecking life you're leading are your babies who probably really aren't babies anymore and that's where the guilt kicks in. It is one of the saddest statistics I've heard in a long time. Listen to this: Working moms spend only about 11 minutes each week day of quality time with their kids--11 minutes. Now as a result, children are more lonely. They are depressed and more violent than ever before. And their parents are tired, they don't even see it until there's a really big crisis like the kid joins a gang or starts using drugs. So if this is your life, if you feel guilty because you know in your heart that your kids' childhoods are slipping away without you, we're hoping that this show may offer some solution or at least getting you to think about solutions. 209

Winfrey then talked to Woman A who had sent her two year old daughter to

Europe for several months to be taken care of by her mother-in-law. Woman A had

started nursing school and her husband was working long hours.210 Neither parent was

able to spend much time with their daughter, so the daughter spent most of her time with

different babysitters. The parents decided to send the daughter to Europe several months

of the year for the next two years, until the mother finished nursing school. Because the

mother-in-law works on a farm, the child would be in Europe only during the growing

season. The grandmother and daughter should be able to return to the States from

November until February or March.

Winfrey believes "a child should have one-on-one attention 11 211, but recognizes

that many mothers in the viewing audience "have felt forced to give up time with your children because of your demanding lives. 11212

Woman A's sister came on the show to say she disagrees with Woman A's decision. When the sister struggled for a word to describe Woman A's actions, she did

209 Harpo Productions, "How To Be A Parent Your Child Won't Hate Later." The Oprah Winfrey ~ August 15, 1994: Transcript page 1. 202 The husband was on stage part of the time but said little during the entire show. 211 Harpo 3. 212 Harpo 5. ·

60 not want to use the word "irresponsible," but Winfrey insisted "You want to say

irresponsible."213

Winfrey talked about the "great dilemma" women face in raising children. Then

she introduced the expert, Dr. Penelope Leach214, saying,

Because although everybody's working very hard to give their children things and to have nice houses for them, deep inside their little souls, they're feeling lonely and neglected because their mommies aren't there ... (Penelope Leach is) here to show us realistic ways that we can put children first and not just give lip service to it. Because this is the way we're going to save the world. And that's what mommies are really for, to create new generations to evolve to change the world. Isn't that the whole deal, Penelope?

Dr. Penelope Leach: Daddies, too, Oprah.

Winfrey: And daddies.

Leach: Daddies too.

Winfrey: I always forget about the daddies.215

In response to Winfrey's question about how to change the way we think, Leach

said it's time we stop blaming Woman A for her decision.

Why are women, particularly women, in a position of ", \ having to make such terrible choices - terrible choices? It's a bit as if society said to all of us, "You want to eat or / drink? 11 216

The discussion turned to the need for loving people to take care of children, and

Winfrey talked about how she was raised for six years by her grandmother. Leach explained that in many African countries it's normal for children to be raised by

an extensive sort of foster care network where very often you ... give your small child to somebody else to raise because they're in a more advantaged position than you are .. .It's not as extraordinary as it sounds.217 /

213 Harpo 6. 214 Dr. Leach is a renowned child psychologist and author of the book Children first; What Our Society Must Do--& Is Not Doing-- For Our Children Today New York: Random House, 1994. 215 Harpo 6-7. 216 Harpo 7. 217 Harpo 8.

61 Leach then questioned why parents should be penalized for taldng maternity or

sick leave by losing their jobs. Leach went on to say that

You. can do nursing school and do small child with day care as well. It's not day care that's bad for kids, it's bad day care.218

A woman in the audience stood up and said that many companies treat women who stay

home with sick kids as bad employees who do not put the company first.219

Next, Winfrey tal_ked to Woman B, whose daughter wants more time with her.

Woman B works in real estate, and often gets home late. Her husband works nights and

is home during the day with the three kids (twenty, eighteen and eight years old.) Only

the youngest daughter has trouble with her mother's schedule. Woman B discussed the

need to keep working so she does not lose her career position.

Winfrey raised the issue of maldng choices. Leach admitted that choices do

exist, but also said, "A lot of people don't have any choices. 11 220

Winfrey thought that Woman B did not want to have to sacrifice for her daughter, '\

that she wanted to go as far as she could in her career. Woman B agreed. Winfrey then

went on to say that women "can have it all, you just can't have it all at the same time. 0 221

When a woman in the audience said that dads as well as moms are the first

teachers, Winfrey said, "Mothers are the true teachers in the world, I think. 11222 ) ...__

The discussion turns to how Woman B's daughter reacts to her mother.

Winfrey responded in this way:

... you watch the shows over the years and we do shows about teen-agers. The child starts really showing this when they become teen-agers and mothers say, "All of a sudden she was 13 and just started acting out." Well, it starts because they're eight and you're (mother) not at home.223

218 Harpo 8. 219 Harpo 8. 220 Harpo 10. 221 Harpo 12. 222 Harpo 14. 223 Harpo 15.

62 Winfrey remembered reading an article about the millions of children who go

home to an empty house and take care of themselves. Leach said the figure is four

million children under fourteen because their parents have no choices.

Leach also discussed a report which showed that day care is good only if the

relationship between child and caregiver is good. Leach recommends one-on-one care

for babies and young toddlers, but said that few children get that kind of care. But Leach

went on to say

And there's nothing magic about being an at-home mom if you don't have that relationship. I know some at-home moms who leave the kids with their old parents, spend all day at the golf club. That's not better than day care. 224

Winfrey ended the show by addressing the viewing audience and saying that

having children would

... alter your life. They don't just fit in to the kind of schedule you want to have. They don't necessarily fit in with your careers or your desires and aspirations for yourself. 225

Leach's last statement was "I want to say, we're never going to get this licked

11 while children are still a 'woman's problem'. 226 /

Throughout the show, Winfrey continually made gender by supporting the dominant ideology about women as mothers. Winfrey's opening statement set the tone for what she believes - that mothers are entirely responsible for children and any serious problems they might have growing up. If children are depressed and violent, it is the mother's fault. If children join gangs and do drugs, it is the mother's fault. Winfrey's opening statement protected all fathers from any responsibility for their children.

And Winfrey kept on protecting men throughout the show. Any time Dr. Leach or an audience member suggested that fathers had responsibilities, too, Winfrey disagreed or ignored the statement. Winfrey described Woman A as "irresponsible" for not

224 Harpo 19. 225 Harpo 20-21. 226 Harpo 21.

63 spending more time with her child, but did not call the father "irresponsible" for the same lack of time and attention. Winfrey also protected men when she stated that mothers were responsible for "saving the world" and for being the "teachers of the world." And she protected men again when she said that mothers should not expect to "have it all at the same time." She made no similar comment about fathers. Those statements fit right into the gender ideology that keeps men in power.

Further, Winfrey ignored any statement that did not agree with the dominant ideology. W hen Dr. Leach said that mothers should not be blamed for being forced into impossible choices, Winfrey ignored the implications that women do not have the power to be entirely responsible for the welfare of children. Winfrey also ignored three other statements Dr. Leach made that challenged gender ideology about women. Dr. Leach statements were:

That children in other countries get good and sometimes better

care from adults other than their mothers.

That day care itself is not bad for children, just inadequate day

care.

That stay at home moms do not necessarily take better care of

their children than day cares do.

By ignoring all of these statements, Winfrey missed three chances to do some gender breaking and to challenge the dominant ideology.

Winfrey missed a fourth chance to challenge the dominant ideology. When Dr.

Leach stated that four million children go home to empty houses, Winfrey did not recognize this real life illustration of the difficult choices women are forced into by an ideology that makes children less important than male power.227

227 According to a 1994 TV Guide article, Winfrey's own production company has forced employees who are parents into making difficult choices between work and children. Gretchen Reynolds, "A Year to Remember: Oprah Grows Up," January 7, 1995: 16-17.

64 Throughout the show, Winfrey kept to trying to make childrearing only a "woman's problem," which is exactly the opposite of what the expert kept stating.

Despite the evidence offered by the expert, and despite comments from members of the studio audience, Winfrey firmly upheld patriarchy by making parenting entirely a

"woman's problem."

Winfrey did other shows on parenting228 in which she focused on mothers as parents. Winfrey apparently refuses to see fathers as parents - as responsible adults who should be active participants in their children's lives.

However, Winfrey is occasionally capable of doing some gender breaking about women as mothers. In one show229, Winfrey said that a mother who was sorry she had kids was not deviant. Winfrey also said she considers motherhood the most important jo~ in the world, and not every woman inherently has the desire to have children. Winfrey / also believes that having children does not strengthen a marriage, and thinks we know very little about parenting. But Winfrey's insistence that mothers are completely responsible for children and that many of the problems children and adults have can be traced directly to their mothers proves that she has accepted and participates in the gender ideology about mothers. Winfrey, therefore, has accepted the patriarchal ideology that women are naturally nurturing and thus make better parents than men. But a study of how mothers in several different cultures around the world shows something different.

Beatrice Blyth Whiting and Carolyn Pope Edwards discovered that around the world differences in childrearing exist because of "the experience of living in different ecological and sociocultural niches. 11 230 The variables include "the community's ecology, basic economy, social organization, and value systems."231 Another variable is

228 Including "Parents Who Cling to Their Children," December 7, 1994; "Raising a Child You Like," January 13, 1994; "Should You Have Become a Parent?" April 11, 1994; and "Working Women Who Lost Their Children," October 17, 1994. 229 Harpo, "Should You Have Become a Parent?" April, 11, 1994. 230 Beatrice Blyth Whiting and Carolyn Pope Edwards, Chjfdren of pjfferent Worlds· The Formatjon of Socjal Behayjor Harvard UP, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1988) 85. 231 Whiting and Edwards 89. ·

65 the amount of help the mother receives, as indicated by Dr. Leach on The Oprah Winfrey

Show.232

Whiting and Edwards identified patterns of characteristic behaviors in mothers

from twelve communities and categorized the patterns as nurturance, training, fOntrol and

sociability. The mothers in study from the United States ranked highest in control,

followed by sociability, training and nurturance.233 Thus, the difference between what

the patdarchal ideology says about mothers and the reality of what mothers do is vast.

And other researchers have been finding that the participation of fathers is greatly important to the wellbeing of children. Children who have little attention from their fathers exhibit a vadety of problems, including:

Lower achievement in school High absenteeism from school A greater tendency to drop out of school completely Anxiety, hostility and being withdrawn Low populadty among peers Emotional and behavioral problems Criminal activity234

Researchers have also found that growing up without a father is more likely to predict future criminal activity than growing up in poverty. Growing up without a father also is a predictor of which girls are most likely to become pregnant as teens. Drug problems, suicides, mental illness, and sexual abuse can also be traced to absent fathers.235 Thus, many of the problems Winfrey blames directly on mothers has been traced by researchers to absent fathers. In fact, David Blankenhorn has said that "Fatherlessness is the most destructive trend of our generation. 11 236

In families where the father is present as an active parent, children are more nurtudng themselves, and feel more empathy towards others. Children with attentive

232 Whiting and Edwards 90; Harpe, "How to Be a Parent Your Child Won't Hate Later, 8. 233 Whiting and Edwards 91-93. 234 Richard Louv, "The crisis of the absent father," Parents (July 1993) : 55-6. 235 Joseph P. Shapiro, Joannie M. Schrof, Mike Tharp, and Dorian Friedman, "Honor Thy Children," U.S. News & World Report (February 27, 1995): 39. 236 Shapiro et al 39.

66 fathers are also "more socially competent, more persistent at solving problems, and more

self-directed. 11 237 Thus, the evidence shows that fathers are as important as mothers in

the wellbeing of children.

But Winfrey continues to ignore the real world in order to protect men by holding

mothers entirely responsible for children. Winfrey is repeating the same messages that

have been repeated for centuries. The theorists of the newly born United States expected

women to raise good citizens. Sarah Josepha Hale promised to protect male prerogatives.

Women criticized Abby Kelley for leaving her child to go on a speaking tour. Elizabeth

Blackwell ignored the evidence she saw with her own eyes in order to romanticize

childbirth. Childcare experts since the beginning of the twentieth century have held

mothers responsible for juvenile delinquency, poor school performance, for raising

imperfect citizens and unmanly soldiers, for gang violence, and for any problems children

had if their mothers worked outside the home. Oprah Winfrey uses scandal gossip to

participate in maintaining the gender ideology about women as mothers that supports

patriarchy and keeps men in power.

SALLY JESSY RAPHAEL

Sally Jessy Raphael see~ mothers differently from Winfrey - she does not consider '~\\

mothers to be responsible for every problem a child has. In fact, Raphael has made a

point of asking experts if mothers are to blame for all of their children's problems, and the

expe11s continually say that mothers are not responsible for every childhood or adult / problem. 238

During a show about unplanned pregnancy, Raphael also said that women who do not want their children should surrender them for adoption. Raphael specifically stated that surrendering a child for adoption does not mean "abandoning" the child, it

237 Louv 56. 238 Multimedia Entertainment, "I Kicked My Child Out," Sally Jessy Raphael September 1, 1994; "Ashamed of My Stripper Daughter," Sally Jessy Raphael December 14, 1994.

67 means putting the child first. 239 Raphael, then, has done a good deal of gender breaking on the image of mothers.

Raphael also did some gender making on the subject of mothers, however. In a show about women who are beaten during pregnancy, Raphael asked the women why they kept getting into relationships with abusive men, intimating that the women were at fault. However, during the show a graphic was displayed which announced that four million women are beaten every year by their husbands and boyfriends. 240 If four million women are being beaten every year, it means that four million men are doing the beating. Those four million men are likely to beat any woman they have a relationship with. Women find themselves in more than one abusive relationship not because they are at fault, but because four million men physically abuse women. Women who are never abused by a man are probably lucky to have avoided one of the four million who do I abuse women. Those pregnant women were not at fault for being beaten - the men were I at fault for beating them. -

Thus, Sally Jessy Raphael has a mixed record in terms of the gender ideology about women as mothers:

''-.__,~ JENNY JONES \i \. Jenny Jones has done fewer shows on motherhood per se than either Winfrey or

Raphael, but she has also done both gender making and gender breaking on the issue.

During a show in which a woman acc~sed her sister of child neglect, Jones allowed a great deal of mother bashing to go by the studio audience. Jones herself said that she has decided to remain childless because she does not believe she could dedicate herself to her

239 Multimedia, "''I Don't Want It," Sally Jessy Raphael April 14, 1994. 240 Multimedia Entertainment, "Beaten and Abused," SaUy Jessy Raphael February 9, 1993.

68 children enough to be a good mother. 241 There was no discussion about the father spending as much time with the children as the mother was expected to.

On a show about two daughters (nineteen and twenty-one years old) who disapproved of their divorced mother's behavior, Jones expected the mother to change her ways to please her daughters. One eighteen year old daughter from another family . . wanted her mother to stay home and make cookies. And two sisters in their earlier twenties wanted their mom to stay home and babysit her grandchildren. Jones felt that the first two mothers had detached themselves from their daughters. Again, Jones did not discuss how much time the fathers were spending with the daughters.242

Jones did do some gender breaking on a show about unruly teens. Jones defended a mother who wished her daughter had never been born, saying the mother had been pushed to the limit. Jones also said the mother did not need to apologize to the daughter for living her own life.243

In comparison, then, Winfrey does far more gender making than either Raphael or

Jones on the issue of women as mothers. 244 Both Raphael and Jones do a mixture of gender making and gender breaking. Winfrey, then, uses scandal gossip far more often than Raphael and Jones to uphold the gender ideology about women as mothers.

241 Warner Bros., "Joanne's Sisters Haven't Spoken To Her In Years; They Say She Was A Bad Mother," Jenny Jones March 16, 1994. 242 Warner Bros., "Mom Parties Too Much," Jenny Jones February 23, 1994. 243 Warner Bros., "Wild Teens, Desperate Moms," Jenny Jones March 9, 1994. 244 Neither Jones nor Winfrey is a mother, but Raphael is. Jones does not hold mothers entirely responsible for their children. Winfrey expects women to take all responsibility for children. Raphael does not hold mothers entirely responsible for their children's problems. One can only wonder if Winfrey would heap the same burdens on herself as she does on other women if she ever did become a mother.

69 CHAPTER FIVE

WOMEN AND THEIR APPEARANCE

PAITERN 2 - WOMEN AND THEIR APPEAAANCE

The historical patterns show that gender ideology defined women's appearance as "·

more important than the use of their minds. Although the proper shape for women's

bodies changed froin thin to fat to thin again, gender ideology dictated that women who did not fit the ideal of the moment were supposed to change their bodies using artificial means in order to be sexually attractive to men. As the ideal for various body parts changed, women were supposed to change their bodies to match the ideals. As clothing and hair fashions changed, women were expected to change their hair and clothes in order to be acceptably attractive~ Gender ideology dictates that women should choose to do only what fashion experts told them to do.

Sexual attractiveness included feminine behavior as well as appearance.

Education and employment lessened women's sexual attractiveness to men. The requirements of femininity meant that women had to restrict their physical movement and appetite, their_ i!ltellectual achievement, and their activities in order to be sexually attractive to men. Frequently, women have had to wear fashions that restrict their bodies, sometimes in ways that were physically harmful. For women, functional was unacceptable.

In particular, gender ideology expected women to defy nature by looking young all of their lives. An older woman was deviant merely because she was older. To fulfill the changing expecta_tions of appearance, gender ideology expected women to focus their attention, time and energy on their appearance and ignore other aspects of their lives.

70 APPENDIXB

PROGRAM LISTS FOR SALLY JESSY RAPHAEL 1992

Women as Mothers Adults who treat their mothers like children Desiring to be a grandmother Parents who disapprove of a child getting a tattoo Getting married during pregnancy Being taken advantage of by one's children Sheltering one's children from certain types of entertainment Being concerned that one's daughter will not marry Helping in the criminal conviction process of one's child Mothering Mother-in-law living with married children Child rearing methods Child custody Encouraging one's daughter to be a cheerleader When a woman has an overwhelming desire to have a baby Pregnancy and infidelity Missing mothers Mothers who hate th~ir daughters' boyfriends Women and Their Appearance Attractive sisters Fat sisters jealous of thin sisters Obesity Unhappiness after extreme weight loss Sisters who are strip tease dancers Professions that involve being topless Physical attractiveness and dating Losing weight Staying a certain weight to please a spouse Older women who are show girls Undressing in public Beauty pageant for full figured women Dateless because of weight Working in the nude at a public restaurant Full-figured women Beauty pageant for mothers and daughters who overcame diversity Obesity Hiding facial disfigurement with makeup Being emotionally distraught over a bad hair cut Society's emphasis on looks Obsession with staying tan Wearing controversia.l clothing in public

110 Winfrey described one woman by saying she had "such great hair potential. 0 250

She then introduced the first three madeover staffers and said, "I picked out all the

clothes. "251 She also spoke of going shopping with one staffer to "find her perfect

fantasy gown. 0 252

Winfrey said about the madeover staffer #4,

She wasn't convinced about getting one and tried to hide. But we caught her. I caught her. Yes, I did.253

After this staffer came onstage, Winfrey said, "I was having a time dealing with her

because she didn't want to change. 11 254

After the staffer #5 came onstage to show her new hairstyle, Winfrey wondered if

the woman would be able to keep the hairstyle up, saying the "I can't imagine what that

flip's going to look like tomorrow. 11 255

Winfrey described the staffer #9 as "so obsessed with not letting us cut her hair,

we almost had to kick heroff today's show. 0 256 Winfrey described one computer

message from this staffer begging to be allowed to keep her hair long. The staffer also

called the hairstylist to beg him "not to cut" her hair.257

Winfrey described how some of the staff members "were really embarrassed when

· I showed up with the camera. 11258

With staff member #8 Winfrey discussed mammoth hips.259

250 Harpe 4. 251 Harpe 6. 252 Harpe 7. 253 Harpe 7. 254 Harpe 8. 255 Harpe 9. 256 Harpe 9. 257 Harpe 11. 258 Harpe 10. By showing up unannounced with her camera, Winfrey did not allow the subjects to have any choice about when and how they would appear on television. Winfrey makes a habit of taking choice away from people. In one show ("Racism Series Part VII - An Experiment in Racism: Blue Eyes vs. Brown Eyes," July 14, 1992), Winfrey involved her entire studio audience in a racism experiment without informing them about the experiment until after taping had started. No one in the audience was given a choice about participating in an experiment on national television. 259 Harpe 11-12.

72 Winfrey commented that staffer #12 was "not one bit of trouble. 11 260

Staffer #13, was the makeover done to surprise Winfrey. Staff member #13 liked the clothes she wore regularly because they were comfortable. The jacket she wore the most had a special meaning for her, because it was her brother's. Staffer #13 wore boots that were "perfect for Chicago slush, slime and all that." But under pressure from Winfrey, staffer #13 had started changing into "work clothes" at the office in order to

"look presentable so I don't embarrass her (Winfrey) or myself, or anybody in my family. 11 261

Winfrey and the experts then discussed what the experts did not like about current hairstyles and makeup. 262

Close to the end of the show, Winfrey revealed that she would soon be 40 years old so she has softened her makeup. 263

Finally, staffer #14 was brought out. Winfrey did a "real Cinderella make-over-­ talk about maximizing potential--to see just how fabulous we could make (#14) look."264

The result was a "fantasy"265 made to look "like you own a country. 11 26?

Winfrey ended the show by thanking everyone who participated, "even those who complained all the way. 11267

All the makeovers tended to go from comfortable clothing to clothing that somehow restricted women's movement - high heeled shoes, tight skirts, short skirts.

This transcript proves how totally Winfrey embraces the gender ideology about

260 Harpe 15. 261 Harpe 17. 262 Harpe 18-21. 263 Harpe 23. 264 Harpe 24. 265 Harpe 25. 266 Harpe 24. 267 Harpe 28.

73 women and their appearance. Winfrey did this in several ways:

She expected her staffers to be ready and willing to change

themselves in the name of fashion.

She defined the women who resisted particular changes as

"troublemakers. " 'fhus, Winfrey defined the women

who did not behave "properly" as deviant.

Winfrey also suggested that women were deviant ("embarrassing")

if they wore comfortable clothing rather than following

fashion trends.

She made it clear that looking old meant being deviant. .

She focused on particular body parts rather than on the women

as people.

She expected women to do what experts told them to do rather

than to think for themselves.

She expected the women to spend time and energy "improving"

their looks, which meant the women would have less

time and energy to focus on other parts of their lives.

This entire show was based on making women conform to the current beliefs about how women should look.

Winfrey has continued the gender ideology about appearance several times, doing several makeover shows. In one show, Winfrey made a negative comment about her

"African American buttocks." In this show, Winfrey sent a "fashion cop" out onto the street to see "what women are doing wrong." The fashion cop "busted" a woman who said she dressed the way she did because it was comfortable. 268

268 Harpo Productions, Inc. "Your Biggest Fashion Gripes," The Oprah Winfrey Show November 18, 1994.

7i In another show, Winfrey provided makeovers for news anchor women, and again

said that the women who voiced their own opinions caused "problems. 11 269 Winfrey

checked up on women she did makeovers for in the past, making surprise visits. Not only

did Winfrey take choice away from women by telling them what to wear, she also took

choice away from the women by taping them without first getting their permission. On

this show, Winfrey said the what matters is what you feel inside, but then turned around

and said she expected a guest to "keep up" her makeover.270 In all the makeover shows,

the makeovers tended to put the women into restrictive clothing.

Winfrey did shows in which she could have done some gender breaking on the topic of women and their appearance. She did a show on the negatives of modeling careers for girls, including eating disorders, low self-esteem, depression, drug use, men interested in the "model" but not the woman, and little self-development for girls who start modeling at a young age. 271 Despite this evidence, Winfrey made no connection between the societal emphasis on appearance rather than on personal development and the problems women in the modeling industry face.

Winfrey has also done shows about being overweight and losing weight, of course. Losing weight for the sake of one's health is important, but Winfrey emphasizes looks rather than health. 272 In a show on obesity and discrimination, Winfrey again made no connection between society's emphasis on the importance of appearance over personal development and the discrimination large-size people experience.273

269 Harpo Productions, Inc. "Fifteen Anchorwomen From All Over The Country Get A Makeover," The Oprah Winfrey Show November 14, 1994. 270 Harpo Productions, Inc. "Makeover Follow-ups - How Do They Look Now?" The Oprah Winfrey Show November 12, 1993 271 Harpo Productions, Inc., "The Ugly Side Of Modeling," The Oprah Winfrey .sbQw November 9, 1994. 272 Harpo Productions, Inc. "Losing Weight, Losing Friends," The Oprah Winfrey Show February 13, 1995. On this show, Winfrey revealed that she has been getting letter froms viewers who complain about how she talks about her body since she lost weight. Thus, it is clear that Winfrey emphasizes appearance rather than health. 273 Harpo Productions, Inc. "Inside The Life Of An Obese Person," The Oprah Winfrey Show February 7, 1994.

75 In a show on dieting, nutrition, and exercising, Winfrey said that weight loss comes after understanding personal fear. Winfrey said that weight loss is "not about power, it's about truth." However, when one audience member (a woman) said that when

. she told the truth about her life she was left out, Winfrey again made no connections between gender ideology and women's lives.274 Gender ideology is not about discovering truth, but about maintaining male power. When Winfrey had the chance to address this issue, she ignored it.

Winfrey did one show about beautiful women over 40 - the majority of her guests had had plastic surgery to make themselves look younger. Winfrey participated in the gender ideology that requires women to look young no matter what their age.275

Winfrey has proved time and again that she accepts the gender ideology of appearance, even though she herself has suffered because of the ideology. Like Mrs. L.

Abell, Catharine Beecher, Harper's Magazine,, and crowds of jeering men and boys,

Winfrey expects· women to wear restrictive clothing rather than comfortable, functional clothing. Like the beauty pageants that picked beauty queens and the newspapers that picked belles, Winfrey expects women to conform to a particular standard of beauty.

Like unmarried women who considered married women "old," Winfrey considers looking anything but young undesirable. Like the "experts' of the past, Winfrey expects women to conf01m to a particular body size. And like the critics of the women who did not conform, who were too fat, or too thin, or who wore bloomers, Winfrey defines the women who want to make their own choices as deviant. This transcript is a prime example of how Winfrey uses scandal gossip to maintain the gender ideology about women and their appearance.

274 Harpo Productions Inc., "Welcome To Oprah and Rosie's Cooking School," The Oprah Winfrey Show November 22, 1993. 27s Harpo Productions Inc., "The Most Beautiful Women Over 40," The Oprah Wjnfrey Show October 30, 1991 (rerun in March 1992).

76 SALLY JESSY RAPHAEL Sally Jessy Raphael has also done many shows about overweight women and

girls. In a couple of shows (with all women guests), Raphael dealt with discrimination

against heavy people. On a 1994 show, Raphael said that ill-treatment of heavy people

was a serious form of prejudice.276 Yet on another show about how some people treat

large-size people, Raphael said others treat you the way you allow them to treat you.277

In this third show, Raphael made gender by holding the guests responsible for the actions

of others and ignoring the power of the ideology. If the girls were experiencing sexual

harassment, would Raphael blame them? In another show, Raphael remarked that

younger and younger women are getting plastic surgery, but did not question the

practice. 2?8

On a show about holiday depression, Raphael talked to expert Dr. Richard

Carlson. 279 Carlson said that appearance is not a source of satisfaction, that even people

who others think look good can be insecure about their looks. The expert said that the

happiest people are those who concentrate on what they like about themselves as people.

Raphael asked three women guests to briefly state one thing they liked about themselves.

Then she smilingly gave the women makeovers, new wardrobes, and beauty supplies.

Thus, Raphael ignored reality to maintain the fantasy of gender ideology.280 Like

Winfrey, Raphael uses scandal gossip to support the gender ideology about women and

their appearance.

276 Multimedia Entertainment, "I Went Undercover As A Fat Woman," Sally Jessy Raphael May 3, 1993; "I Hate That My Relative Is Fat," Sally Jessy Raphael November 18, 1994. 277 Multimedia Entertainment, "I'm Fit, My Child Is Not," Sally Jessy Raphael June 30, 1993 278 Multimedia Entertainment, "Turn Back The Clock," Sally Jessy Raphael December 22, 1993. 279 Dr. Richard Carlson wrote the book, You Can Feel Good Again: Common Sense Therapy For Releasing Depressjon & Changing Your Ufe New York: NAUDutton, 1993. 280 Multimedia Entertainment, "Lose The Holiday Blues,• Sally Jessy Raphael December 16, 1993.

77 JENNY JONES

Jenny Jones does both gender making and gender breaking in terms of women and

their appearance. On one makeover show, the new fashions included movement restricting tight skirts and high heels. Jones herself participated in the makeover by changing into a "sexy" outfit that restricted her movement.281

But dming other shows, Jones frequently breaks gender. When one guest complained about how another guest looked, Jones asked, "What's wrong with being fat and having red hair?"282 ·· During a show on infidelity, Jones told a woman who had gained weight because of having a child that she was beautifut283 During a show about young lesbians, Jones said the girls could look anyway they wanted to look. 284 Jones thus breaks gender by challenging the belief that only women who look a particular way can be considered beautiful.

Jones did one show about women who felt their good looks were a hindrance in their social lives. When members of the studio audience were hostile to the guests, Jones addressed the hostility, pointing out that some women seemed to be hostile to the guests just because they looked good.285 Here Jones recognized that some of the women in the studio audience were making the women on stage deviant through hostility.

All three of the hosts, then, use scandal gossip to do gender making in terms of women and their appearance, though Jones does so much less than the others. Even when the hosts did shows that pointed out the problems of focusing on appearance, they did not question the belief that women should focus time and energy on their looks. For the makeover shows, women were often put into short tight skirts, clothing which restricted

281 Warner Bros. Telepictures Productions, "Sexy Sisters Give Makeovers To Plain Jane Sisters," Jenny Jones October 7, 1994. • 282 Warner Bros. Telepictures Productions, "Daughters Who Complain About Their Father's Promiscuity," Jenny Jones October 14, 1994. • 283 Warner Bros. T elepictures Productions, "Infidelity That Results In Pregnancy" Jenny Jones October 10, 1994. • 284 Warner Bros. Telepictures Productions, "Teenage Lesbians Defend Their Orientation,"~ ~ February 23, 1993. 285 Warner Bros. T elepictures Productions, "Believing One's Good Looks Are An Impediment," Jenny Jones October 4, 1994. •

78 the women's movement. These short tight skirts are merely the hoop skirts and Grecian

bends and corsets of the modern age - they continue the pattern of gender ideology which dictates the functional clothing for women is wrong and restrictive clothing is right.

By rewarding women for wearing restrictive clothing, all the hosts are participating in

supporting patriarchy.

It is also important to note that the shows which encourage women to focus on their looks fit right into the capitalistic structure of television programming as defined by Raymond Williams. During the commercial breaks the ads for diet plans and aids, exercise programs, cosmetics, fashions, hair products, and hygiene products continually remind women that they need to spend their money on something that will change their looks or body and make them more acceptable to their society. The structure of television talk shows encourages women to spend money that keeps the corporations going and growing. This capitalistic structure has no room for women who think about what they like about themselves in order to be happy.

79 CHAPTER SIX

WOMEN AS DEVIANTS

PATTERN 3 - WOMEN AS DEVIANTS

Historical patterns show that gender ideology made deviants of women who stepped out of the approved roles of mother and sex object, particularly women who moved into the masculine realm and women who expressed anger. As women moved further and further into the masculine realm, gender ideology defined some areas as more important thail others, and saved those areas for men. The deviance label for women frequently rested on accusations of improper and immoral sexual behavior.

OPRAH WINFREY

In the show for this topic, Winfrey talked to a mother who had an extramarital affair and got pregnant. Although the woman wanted to keep the baby, her husband told her she had to choose between him and the baby. The woman gave her baby to the child's father to raise. Winfrey also talked to two women who had been divorced and who had not been able to see their children afterwards.

Winfrey opened the show "Left My Baby For a Man, Now I'm Sorry" by saying

You know, I've said many times that a person can only learn to fly once they shake the mud off their wings. And today's guests say that they have been stuck deep in that mud for years. Today I'm talking to mothers who say that they· have committed the ultimate sin. That is, they abandoned a child years ago, haven't been able to release their feelings of guilt about it and their shame for doing it. ... psychologists say that these are some very common themes that may run through your life if you have felt abandoned or were abandoned:

80 Effects Of Childhood Abandonment * You have a hard time trusting anyone * You cling to bad relationships because you're afraid to be accused of abandoning someone * You tend to over-parent your children to compensate for what you didn't have as a child * You constantly attract attention to yourself to make up for your feelings of neglect ... today, we're going to be talking about the devastating effects of childhood abandonment. 286 Winfrey described guest #1 as "wracked with guilt because she left her child (23) years ago. 11 287 Guest #1 got pregnant as the result of an extramarital affair. She kept the baby for a short time, but her husband told her to surrender the baby for adoption or lose him and their three year old daughter. Because Guest #1 did not want to lose her husband and daughter, she sent her baby to live with his father. Guest #1 felt "absolutely terrible" about giving up her baby, but did so because "my husband said no, he couldn't have him ... as a son. II Winfrey responded by saying, "Yeah. Which you can understand. n288 Guest #1 thought that since her husband was in the military and they moved from base to base they could say they had adopted the baby. But the husband would not agree because he "was ashamed. He said every time he'd look at him he wouldn't it would remind him." Winfrey sai4, "I'm sure it would have ... And that's not a fate you would have wanted for your son. 11 289

286 Harpo Productions, Inc., "Left My Baby For A Man, Now I'm Sorry" The Oprah Winfrey Show December 14, 1993: Transcript pages 1-2. 287 Harpo 2. 288 Harpo 3. 289 Harpo 3. · ·

81 So the father of the baby took him, and Guest #1 saw him "quite a few times when he was a baby." She continued to see her son as much as she could between her husband's assignments. She maintained contact when she couldn't see him through letters and phone calls. Winfrey asked, "Were you filled with guilt? ... Are you ashamed of what you did?"290

Winfrey asked if Guest #1 felt like a mother, implying that she could not legitimately feel like his mother because "a mother is more than a title." Winfrey said it is "the sense of nurturing and guidance and love and feelings that make you a mother. "291 Winfrey and Guest #1 then discussed Guest #1 's overprotectiveness with her daughter.

Winfrey went on to say

... a lot of people believe that. .. you should have natural instincts about mothering ... And the idea of giving up your child goes against nature ... did you feel horrible about that?292

When Winfrey asked Guest #1 how she felt that day and Guest #1 responded that she felt nervous, Winfrey said "You have a right to be nervous, really. 11 293

Winfrey went to a commercial break after saying

And we're talking today about issues of guilt and shame surrounding abandonment. And when we come back: Should (Guest #1 's) son ... forgive his mother for abandoning him? Do you think he should? We'll find out after (Guest #1) meets him again after 23 years.294

When Winfrey came back from commercial, she said,

Today we're talking about childhood abandonment and the devastating effects that it has on mothers, also on children. 295

290 Harpo 4. 291 Harpo 4. 292 Harpo 5. 293 Harpo 5. 294 Harpo 5. 295 Harpo 5.

62 Winfrey introduced the son by saying,

She gave him up to be raised by his father's family, but then lost ~ack of him over the years. In just a few moments, she's going to be reunited with her son and ask for his forgiveness after 23 years of being separated. One of the questions we're asking is: Should he forgive her?296

When Winfrey asked the son how he felt, he replied that he was "Extremely" nervous. Winfrey then asked,

So tell me, what have you felt all these years? Have you felt abandoned? Have you wondered why your mom would leave you? Have you wondered that?297

The son replied that

I did feel abandoned and I always wanted to know why she up and went and left me.. .lt was very hard for me, sort of, to come to terms with. 298

Winfrey asked what he had been told as a child, and he replied that his stepmother had "told me little ... things why she had to leave. 11299

Winfrey went on to ask

And.so over the years, what did you think about your mom? We want to know what kids feel when they realize that their mom has left them. 300

Winfrey did not believe a young man she knew in a similar situation who said he didn't mind not having a mom. She believes that "you always long for what it would have felt like."301

The son of Guest #1 talked about his difficulties getting close to his stepmom, and how "even today it's still hard for me to come to terms with." In response to Winfrey asking about the "hole inside you" he said he "can't get close to any female because I'm

296 Harpo 5. 297 Harpo 6. 298 Harpo 6. 299 Harpo 7. 3oo Harpo 7. 301 Harpo 7.

63 afraid at the end of the day they're going to leave me just like my mom did. "302 Winfrey felt like crying. 303

The son was glad to see his mother and wanted the relationship to get better. 304

Winfrey discussed how the women the son has been dating and unable to commit to must think the son was a jerk. Winfrey prompted the son to say that his behavior is directly traceable to his mother's abandoning him. Winfrey asked the son if he thought his relationships with women would improve now.305

Winfrey asked if the son thought it was his fault his mother left, and he said he thought his mother left and his dad brought him up because of the color of his skin. 306

Winfrey asked Guest #1 if she left her son because of the color of his skin. Guest #1 said no. Then Winfrey asked if it was because of the affair and her husband, and said "it was impossible for you to have him and still have your daughter and your son. "307

Winfrey then repeated that the show w~s about abandonment and how children react in adulthood because of being abandoned by their mothers. She introduced an expert to talk about the son's "classic response" to being abandoned.308 According to the expert, the reasons a mother "abandons" her child (including divorce and death) are - unimpo1tant, because the child always feels abandoned.309

The expert and Winfrey agreed that children abandoned by their mothers "feel like (they're) going to die."310 Children who are "abandoned" by their mothers feel unlovable, which impacts them all of their lives. 311 Winfrey talked more than once about the "hole" inside people "abandoned" by their mothers.312 An audience member

302 Harpo 7. 303 Harpo 7. 304 Harpo 7-8. 305 Harpo 8. 306 Harpo 9. 307 Harpo 9. 308 Harpo 9. 309 Harpo 10. 310 Harpo 10. 311 Harpo 10-11. 312 Harpo 7, 11.

84 talked about feeling anger at her mother, who died. The son of Guest #1 said he no

longer felt anger because his stepmother "pulled me through and told me not to feel anger

towards her (his mother). 11 313

Winfrey asked Guest #1 if she wanted to ask her son for forgiveness. Guest #1

said yes and made the request. The son forgave her and the audience applauded. 314

Winfrey described the next two guests as both "moms that walked away from

their children because of divorce" and "moms who say that divorce tore them away from

their children. 11 315

Winfrey introduced Guest #2 by saying

she divorced her husband and left him to take care of her kids. And she hasn't seen them in 25 years. She says she's devastated that she did not provide any kind of mother role model for her children.316

Winfrey introduced Guest #3 by saying she had

actually found her daughter after 24 years but is afraid now to contact her. (Guest #3) hasn't seen her baby girl since she was three and says she would be devastated if her daughter rejected her.317

Winfrey talked with Guest #3 first, who said her daughter "was taken away from me when she was ... a year and a half." She had not "physically seen her since she was three." The mother-:-in-law of Guest #3 "felt she would be a better parent than I would and she did everything in her power to take my daughter from me. 11 318 Guest #3 had written 50 letters to her daughter without sending because she was afraid of her daughter's reaction.

313 Harpo 12. 314 Harpo 12. 315 Harpo 12. 316 Harpo 13. 317 Harpo 13. 318 Harpo 13.

65 Winfrey turned to Guest #2, who said she had a problem with the term

"abandonment."319 Winfrey insisted it was the proper term to us, that no matter what the

circumstances are, the child always feels abandoned.320

Guest #2 said that after her divorce "there would have been communication if the

walls didn't go up in trying to reach these kids by phone ... A "door" was "slammed.. .in

my face." 321 Winfrey asked if the children closed the door, but Guest #2 said adults

closed the door. Guest #2 was not allowed to speak to her children, and was told

everything was fine.

Winfrey asked Guest #2 if she felt guilt, but Guest #2 said she felt

disappointment. Winfrey said that people who surrender their children for adoption feel,

'"Well, at least they were in a good home. "'322 Winfrey said that even if adopted

children are raised in good homes, there were still

ramifications of what it feels like to then find out that somebody didn't want you, or under the circumstances couldn't handle you or whatever the circumstances were.323

Winfrey introduced the daughter of Guest #2. When the daughter said she was

happy to be with her mother, Winfrey asked what the "but" was. 324 The daughter said

she was scared. Winfrey asked, "Do you feel like if you allow yourself or allow her any space in your life that it'll only just hurt you again?" The daughter said, "No ... I'm over it.

She hasn't been able to be pa1t of my life, so ... "325 Winfrey asked, "Are you really over it?" The daughter replied, "Pretty much." Winfrey focused on the "pretty" part, implying that bad times were still ahead by saying, "That's not a happy ending. That's just a beginning." 326

319 Harpo 13. 320 Harpo 13-14. 321 Harpo 14. 322 Harpo 15. 323 Harpo 16. 324 Harpo 16. 325 Harpo 17. 326 Harpo 17.

86 Winfrey turned back to Guest #3, discussing her desire to see her daughter but her fear of being rejected. Guest #3 said,

It's very hard. I've watched so many of these shows and I've heard the people in the audience ... criticizing the mothers or the fathers. And I just want to say to you people out there that until this happens to you, you have no idea what it feels like. 327

Winfrey asked Guest #3 why she had written but not sent fifty letters to her daughter. Guest #3 said that her daughter receives her mail at her father's address rather than her own address, that her daughter had not received any of the letters the producers of Winfrey's show had sent her. Winfrey wanted to know why Guest #3 didn't just

"march right up to the door then?"328 Guest# 3 replied that her daughter lived several hundred miles away and she didn't have the money to go. Winfrey said she would give

Guest #3 the money to go.

Winfrey then introduced Guest #4, a younger woman whose mother had

"abandoned" her when she was two. Winfrey Guest #4 believes "the loss of her mother has prevented her from developing trusting relationships with anybody, including her husband ... 329

Winfrey used the examples of Guests #2 and #3 to ask if Guest #4 now understood that her own mother was probably unable to care for her, that circumstances forced the women to "abandon" their children. Guest #4 was in contact with her mother, but her mother did not become a part of her life. The expert on the show suggested that the mother was not healthy emotionally and therefore was incapable of being involved in her daughter's life. 330

Winfrey ended the show by bringing out the granddaughter of Guest #2 so they could meet for the first time.

327 Harpo 18. 328 Harpo 18. 329 Harpo 19. 330 Harpo 19.

87 Throughout this show, Winfrey worked hard to lay all the blame for the children's

problems at the feet of the mothers and to absolve the fathers of all responsibility for

anything. At no time did Winfrey ask how the adult children felt about what their fathers

had not done for them. In each case, Winfrey ignored the responsibility of the fathers.

The son of Guest #1 grew up not knowing why his mother

had "abandoned" him. Winfrey did not ask why the

father who raised him did not explain the situation

to him. Winfrey did not ask why the father

apparently talked to the son less than the stepmother

did about the situation. Winfrey also did not

wonder why the father did not make sure the son

had contact with his mother.

Guest#2 said she was prevented from seeing or talking to

her children by their father. Winfrey said nothing

about the father's actions, and expected Guest #2 to

feel guilty for "abandoning" her children.

Guest #3 wrote many letters to her children that were

intercepted by the father. Winfrey said nothing

about the father's actions.

Winfrey also protected the husband of Guest #1 at the expense of the baby boy. She saw nothing wrong with making an adult male's feelings more important than the needs of an infant. Winfrey found it "understandable" that the big adult male would expect to be protected at the expense of a baby.

86 All of these cases illustrate the "terrible choices" women find themselves forced to

make as described by Dr. Leach in the topic of women as mothers. 331 Guest #1 was

forced by her husband to choose between her two children. Guests #2 and #3 discovered

that divorcing their husbands meant being prevent from seeing their children. Winfrey

gave only slight attention to the difficulties these women faced, preferring instead to

focus on the how the mothers had ruined their children's lives .. She also continually

emphasized how terrible the mothers should feel, repeatedly using the words "guilt" and

"shame." Winfrey also continually emphasized that the children should feel terrible,

asking them if they felt abandoned. She asked the son of Guest #1 if he had a "hole"

inside him because his mother "abandoned" him.

None of these women intentionally walked away from their children. None of

these women "abandoned" their children with the expectation of never seeing them again.

All of the women found themselves in situations that forced them to part from their children. All of these situations were partially created by adult males. Winfrey held none

of the adult males responsible for their actions in creating these situations in which children were hurt. Winfrey held the women responsible for everything and absolved the adult males of anything.

In other shows about parenting, Winfrey rarely talked to fathers, continuing to blame mothers for all problems that children have. On one show about different parenting styles, an expert said that parents do what they have learned to do by watching their own parents. The expert also said that parents tend to blame themselves for problems their adult children have, but need to stop blaming themselves by stepping out of the parent/child role into an adult/adult role. 332 Winfrey ignored what this expert said when she dealt with parenting in later shows, like the one analyzed under Women as

Mothers.

331 Harpo, "How To Be a parent Your Child Won't Hate Later," 7. 332 Harpo Productions, Inc., "Raising A Child You like," The Oprah Winfrey Show January 13, 1994.

89 In one show, Winfrey did do a little bit of gender breaking in terms of women as deviants. While discussing different views of parenting, Winfrey felt that a woman who was son-y she had children was not deviant. Winfrey does not believe that everybody inherently has the desire to have children.333 This goes against the gender ideology that wants every woman to believe she is meant to have children and can be fulfilled only through having children. So Winfrey is capable of recognizing the harm of gender ideology.

But the harm of gender ideology cannot be overcome until it is recognized for what it does. Howard S. Becker wrote .that deviance is defined by those in power, by those who have the capability to impose their rules on others. The determination of who is deviant, then, is a "question of political and economic power. "334 In a patriarchy, men have the power to define women as deviant, no matter what the situation. This means that when women are the victims of crimes committed by men, the deviance label is applied to the women victims rather than to the men who committed the crime. 335

The purpose of applying the deviance label to women when men are clearly at fault is to protect the power of men. The historical patterns show numerous times when women were labeled deviant to protect men.

Colonists protected male property rights by accusing the women who inherited property of witchcraft. Critics of religious radical Anne Hutchinson protected the male clergy by declaring Hutchinson deviant. Office bosses protected men by firing women workers who were the subject of sexual rumors. Ellen Swallow Richards protected men by telling women they did not belong in school, and should make themselves pleasing to the men. Medical experts protected men by defining menstruation and childbirth as pathological. Experts protected men by declaring women deviant for choosing careers over motherhood. Other experts protected men by making female sexuality the root of all

333 Harpe Productions, Inc., "Should You Have Been A Parent?" The Oprah Winfrey Show April 11, 1994. 334 Howard S. Becker. Outsjders (New York: Free Press, 1963) 17. 335 Schur 7. · ·.

90 family and juvenile problems. Government officials protected military interests by

declaring women who worked for peace as deviant. Phyllis Schlafly protected male

privilege by calling feminists deviant. And Oprah Winfrey protects men when she

defines mothers as deviant because the actions of the father separated the children from

their mothers. Winfrey uses scandal gossip to uphold gender ideology about women as

deviants.

SALLY JESSY RAPHAEL

Sally Jessy Raphael also spends a great deal of time talking to and about deviant

mothers. Raphael did one show about children and the mothers who abandoned them.

One daughter felt abandoned by her mother but her father had never been in her life much

either. The father actually abandoned the daughter first and for more of the daughter's

life, but Raphael ignored this. Another daughter's father took the girl and disappeared

with her after a divorce, preventing the mother from seeing the daughter. 336 In both

cases, Raphael upheld gender ideology about mothers by blaming the mothers for

everything and protecting the fathers from all responsibility and blame. - In a show about whether or not to have children, Raphael, like Winfrey, did some

gender breaking by agreeing that not everyone women should have children. 337

Raphael, however, sweepingly identified women as deviants in a way that neither

Winfrey nor Jones did. On three separate occasions, Raphael told women and girls on

her stage, and all the women in one studio audience that they were lying. 338 Raphael

336 Multimedia Entertainment, "I WantTo Meet My Runaway Mom," Sally Jessy Raphael November 25, 1994. . 337 Multimedia Entertainment, "Childless By Choice," Sally Jessy Raphael March 21, 1994. 338 Multimedia Entertainment, "Mothers Who Have One Night Stands," January 19, 1993 (Raphael accused every woman who had ever been on her stage and said she got pregnant using birth control of lying.); "I Don't Like The Way My Daughter Dresses," June 10, 1994 (Raphael accused the teenage girls of lying because they said they dressed provocatively to please themselves, not to get male attention.); and "What Do Men Want," November 24, 1993 (Raphael accused every women in her audience of lying because none of them said they pretended to be stupid to get male attention.)

91 decided the women were lying because they were not saying what Raphael wanted to

hear.

Sally Jessy Raphael, then, uses scandal gossip to define women as deviants and to

protect men.

JENNY JONES

Jenny Jones spenqs the least amount presenting mothers who are deviant because

of the way they raised their children. Many of the mothers presented as deviant on Jones'

show are criticized for their dress or unladylike behavior. Jones tends to defend these mothers' right to dress the way they chose to dress.339

Jones tends to focus more on women who are deviant because of their sexual activity.340 Jones protects men by continually focusing on ~omen as the deviants when sexual acts require two people, usually male and female.

In the lists of programs for all the hosts, it is interesting to note that many of the programs under this topic deal with women as deviant mothers. Because gender ideology expects women to be mothers, failure to fulfill that role according to patriarchal standards makes women deviant. Oprah Winfrey and Sally Jessy Raphael are hardest on women for being deviant mothers. Jenny Jones is hardest on women for being sexually deviant.

All of the hosts, however, use scandal gossip to protect men by declaring women deviant for situations and relationships in which men participate.

339 For instance, Warner Bros. Telepictures Productions, "Daughters Who Disappro~e of the Way Their Mothers Dress" Jenny Jones September 15, 1994. * 340 For instance, Warner Bros. Telepictures Productions, "Mistresses" September 26, 1994 *; "Woman Tells Why She Likes Being "Kept," February 11, 1992; "Three Infamous Madams Talk About Their Lives," February 17, 1992; "Women Who Say Sex Is Their Hobby," March 10, 1992; "Happily Married Women Who Are Having Affairs," October 16, 1992; " Wives Have Had Children With Men Other Than Their Husbands," March 10, 1993; "Teenage Boy And Older Woman Are In Love," May 12, 1993; "Mothers Who Flirt With Their Daughters' Boyfriends," January 24, 1994; "Sisters Torn Apart When One Steals The Other's Husband," March 2, 1994, Jenny Jones.

92 CHAPTER SEVEN

TEENAGE GIRLS

PATIERN 4 - TEENAGE GIRLS

Gender ideology put much pressure on teenage girls to mold themselves to fit the

proper roles. The pressure for girls to conform to standards of physical beauty began in

the teen years. Their appearance was often their only means of being accepted.

The ideology also defined teenage female sexuality as a corruptive power capable of

destroying all of society. The corruption of teenage female sexuality could be avoided

only by strictly controlling it.

OPRAH WINFREY

Under this topic, Winfrey does an almost complete about face from the way she

handles the other three topics under discussion. Rather than presenting teenage girls ~s

serious problems to society, Winfrey most often does shows about the problems teenage

girls face - violence in schools, sexual harassment and gender bias in schools, physical

abuse by boyfriends, low_self-esteem, problems between mothers and daughters

(problems stemming from different stages in development rather than from the girls

themselves).341 When Winfrey does shows about problem teens or teens who behave

differently, she usually includes both teenage boys as well as girls - being homosexual in

a homophobic society, institutionalization, juvenile crime, white middle class teens who

adopt black fashion and music, talking to teens, teen pregnancy, sex education, weight

problems.342

341 Harpo Productions, Inc., "When Did You Lose Yourself? Why Are Young Girls Losing Self­ Esteem?" April 19, 1994; "My Teenage Daughter Is Driving Me Crazy," The Oprah Wjnfrey Show August 2, 1994. · 342 Harpo Productions, Inc., "Part I - So You Think You Want A Baby,• The Oprah Winfrey Show December 16, 1994.

93 When Winfrey focuses only on girls as problems, she usually does so by talking

about girls who are violent. Violent teenage girls do pose a threat to society, so this

section considers a trans~ript about several extremely violent girls.

The show "Aggressive Girls" dealt with teenage girls convicted of kidnapping,

murder, and assault. One girl had an affairwith her brother-in-law, then did nothing

while her brother-in-law murdered her sister. Another girl participated in robbing and

kidnapping a store manager. Four girls kidnapped, tortured, beat, sodomized and then set

on fire a twelve year old girl. Winfrey opened the show by saying

These high school girls should be spending their time getting ready for college, ready for the prom, flirting with boys or just doing their homework. But instead, they're doing time for murder. · It's an image that we're seeing more and more on the nightly news. Teen-age girls who turn to violence to get what they want...today, girls are muscling in on traditional male turf and using deadly force to get what they want. Although teen-age girls are traditionally listed as the group least likely to kill, the FBI now reports that violent crime by girls who are under 18 is up an alarming 63 percent since 1988. It seems like we're raising an entire generation of aggressive girls with no morals.343

Winfrey introduced Mother #1 of a teenage girl convicted of second degree

murder for helping her sister's husband murder her sister. Daughter #1, who was sixteen

at the time of the murder, participated in the television program from her prison.

The murdered sister's husband had been abusive to his wife. The family kept

throwing the husband and the sister-in-law together, and the two had an affair. The

husband murdered his wife when she decided to divorce him. 344

The brother~in-law had talked about wanting to kill his wife before the murder.

343 Harpo Productions, Inc., "Aggressive Girls," The Oprah Winfrey Show February 9, 1994: Transcript page 1. 344 Harpo 2-4.

94 When Winfrey asked Daughter #1 if she had tried to talk him out of it, Daughter #1 said,

Well, mainly, I wanted to ignore it. I was--in part of my life, how I was when there was something un--you know, pleasant or anything for me to think about, I would try to ignore it, push it away so I wouldn't have to think aout it and deal with it. And that's what I did. 345

Mother #1 described Daughter #1 as "always" wanting "to please any and everybody. "346 When Winfrey asked Daughter #1 if she was aware of the physical abuse in her sister's marriage, Daughter #1 said she ignored it. Mother #1 said her son-in­ law was not abusive to Daughter #1.347

Winfrey asked how the Daughter #1 felt about participating sister's murder.

Daughter #1 replied,

I take responsibility for .my actions that I did. I wasn't there when he killed her. But what I did enabled him to be able to kiil her. 348

Winfrey asked, "Do you feel like you murdered her?" Daughter #1 replied, "Not by myself. But... what I did enabled him to kill her. 11 349

At one point the day of the murder, Daughter #1 was in the house with her sister and brother-in-law, and had the gun in her hands. Her brother-in-law told her to put the gun down, and she did. Winfrey said,

But I really don't see much difference between you and him... you had time and time and time and time even with the gun•in your hand to stop it in the house.350

345 Harpo 6. 346 Harpo 8. 347 Harpo 3. 348 Harpo 7. 349 Harpo 7. 350 Harpo 7.

95 Winfrey began the next segment of the show by saying,

Today, we're talking about the new breed of criminal, the angry teen-age girl. You know, girls today are doing things that were just. .. unimaginable 20 years ago. Armed robbery and assault and even murder. Experts say that girls are now becoming more violent because they don't know how to handle their feelings of aggression, although a lot are being taught to be more aggressive, not so passive. So they lash out in criminal ways as boys have done for years. 351

Winfrey then introduced Mother and Daughter #2. Daughter #2_was convicted of

participating in the robbery of a store and the kidnapping of the store manager. Daughter

#2 was also 16 at the time of her crime. She participated in the crime because her crime

partners were

... my friends. And they gave me the attention I wanted and needed. And so whatever they thought was right or whatever they wanted to do or whatever would make them like me more is what I ~anted to do. 352

Winfrey clarified what Daughter #2 said by paraphrasing:

So you were doing it to please your friends or you just didn't care; you're not really even thinking for yourself. 353

When Winfrey asked about right and wrong, Daughter #2 said

It didn't make a difference. It didn't matter to me. 1--1 didn't care about what was going to happen to him. And I didn't really care about what was going to happen to me.354

Later in the show Winfrey introduced a mother whose twelve year old daughter had been t011ured, beaten, sodomized, and burned alive by four teenage girls. 355

Winfrey described this crime as " ... the most horrible thing. Have you ever heard of anything so horrible? Done by four girls. "356 None of the girls involved in this crime

351 Harpo 7-8.· · 352 Harpo 11-12. 353 Harpo 12. 354 Harpo 12. 355 Harpo 13. 356 Harpo 14.

96 were interviewed, but the mother of the victim stated that three of the girls participated to

"gain the acceptance" of the ringleader.357

Winfrey introduced the next three guests, three teenage girls in prison for violent crimes,

My next guests are part of an alarming trend of aggressive girls who tum to violence to get what they want.358

After discussing their crimes with these guests, Winfrey introduced an expert who

pointed out the societal conditioning to use violence to solve problems - "a true addiction

to violence .. .in this society."359 Winfrey agreed with the expert and said, "The point

here is to recognize how we have consciously contributed. 11 360

During this show, Winfrey used "aggressive" six times to describe these girls.

She also used the words "aggression" and "anger" once each. This show was about

violent girls, and Winfrey presented the girls as violent, but she described them as

aggressive. Even the title of the show was "Aggressive Girls" rather than "Violent Girls."

Not all aggressive girls are violent, and certainly not all angry girls are violent, but

Winfrey makes no distinction between aggression and violence or anger and violence.

According to gender role ideology, females should be passive and males aggressive.

Because male aggression is considered normal, it is not equated with criminal violence.

So by continually describing these violent girls as aggressive, Winfrey is suggesting that the girls who step outside their assigned gender roles to become aggressive rather than passive are dangerous to society - so dangerous that they could become killers.

In her study of how women are defined as "mad," Phyllis Chesler found that

a powerful woman .. .is experiences as dangerous ... especially if she is in any way sexually knowledgeable, independent, or "aggressive."361

357 Harpe 14. 358 Harpe 16. 359 Harpe 18. 360 Harpe 19. 361 Phyllis Chesler, Women & Madness (New York: Avon, 1972) 243.

97 Gender ideology considers aggressive females dangerous, and so does Oprah Winfrey.

In another show on teen violence, Winfrey talked about a teepage boy who shot

another boy, but only talked to teenage girls on her stage.362 In yet another show about

violence, Winfrey talked again only to-girls.363 Winfrey did one two part show which

addressed the issue ·of male violence as a societal problem. 364 Despite statistics which

show that males are far more violent than women, Winfrey discusses the violence of teenage girls more often. 365 By doing that, she contributes to the gender ideology that teenage girls are dangerous to society.

In a show about women who got involved in bank robberies because of the men in their lives, Winfrey made a statement which was meant to. show that the women involved in the robberies were abnormal. In reality, Winfrey's statement showed why the women became bank robbers. Winfrey said, "Most mothers raise their daughters to be -\ respectable women in society."366 Winfrey meant that most women are raised to not ., I commit crimes, because they are raised to do what others expect them to do in order to be respectable. Because women are raised with an emphasis on being respectable, they are raised to value what others think (outside approval) rather than to value what they think themselves (inside approval). When women who value outside approval become involved with criminal men, their training tells them to do what their men want them to do. The mothers who raise their daughters to be "respectable" are raising women who give up their own voices. By her statement, Winfrey gives her approval for raising girls to be respectable, and is thus making gender.

Although Wii;ifrey mostly does shows about the problems teenage girls face, she still makes gender. In the l 920s, educational experts started warning that uncontrolled

362 Harpo Productions, Inc. "Bully/Nerd Clinic," The Qprah Wjnfrey Show January 7, 1994. 363 Harpo Productions, Inc. "Young Girls Who Have Committed Acts of Violence," The Qprah Wjnfre,v Show November 18, 1992. · 364 Harpo Productions, Inc. "Families Of Violent Teens Discuss Their Children's Behavior And Possible Solutions To The Problem," The Qprah Winfrey Show October 3 & 4, 1994. 365 Andrea Blum, Julie Harrison, Barbara Ess, and Gail Vachon, Eds .. WAC Stats· The Facts About Women (The New Press: New York, 1993) 55-57. 366 Harpo "Women Coerced Into Robbing Banks," January 20, 1994.

98 teenage girls could cause family problems, juvenile delinquency and school problems for

their future children. Journalists and religious leaders saw the sexuality of teenage girls

as the root of all family problems. Schools instituted special programs to teach teenage

girls their proper roles so that society could be saved. Winfrey uses scandal gossip to

continue the same message when she focuses on the violence of some teenage girls and

equates female aggression with violence.

SALLY JESSY RAPHAEL

While Oprah_ Winfrey mostly breaks gender about teenage girls, Sally Jessy

Raphael seems to go out of her way to make gender about teenage girls. Raphael rarely if

ever does shows just about teenage boys. She occasionally does shows that present

problems both girls and boys face. 367 She has done several shows that present both

boys and girls as problems, but there are always more girls than boys among the

guests. 368 Often, if Raphael has teenage boys or young men as a guests, it is because

they are living with their girlfriends, or their girlfriends are pregnant, or the girls are

doing something else wrong. 369 When Raphael does shows about problem teens, the

problem teens almost always turn out to be teenage girls. Reading over Raphael's

program lists under Teenage Girls indicates just how concerned Raphael feels about teenage girls (Appendix B).

From the program lists, it is apparent that Raphael is very concerned about a number of things involving teenage girls: how teenage girls present themselves to the world through their behavior, dress and makeup; how teenage girls treat their parents;

367 Multimedia, "Brave Kids Speak Out," January 31, 1994; "Teens Face Parents; October 11, 1993. 368 Multimedia, "Teen Racism," February 7, 1994; "Mothers Who Want to Disown Their Children Or Who Regret Their Children Were B" September 1, 1994; "Teen Alcoholics," December 13, 1993;" "I Don't Like The Way My Daughter Dresses," November 22, 1993; My Kid Refuses To Go To School," March 29, 1993; "My Daughter Will Never Survive Prison," November 5, 1992; Sally Jessy Raphael 369 Multimedia, "Teens Brides," April 1, 1994; "I Want To Live With Him," April 1'1, 1994; "My Daughter Is Growing Up Too Fast," September 20, 1994, SaUy Jessy Raphael,

99 teenage girls who turn to violence and crime; teenage girls who are sexually active; and

teenage girls who are mothers.

What Raphael says about and to teenage girls is revealing. Following the

makeover of one teenage girl from baggy clothes to feminine clothes, makeup and hairdo,

Raphael said that one girl had become "a person."370 On an update show which included

a sixteen year old teenage girl who had been dating a 25 year old man, Raphael said,

"Every mother of a teenage girl can understand what my next guest has been through. ,,371

One sho~ about teenage girls who dress provocatively included an expert who

said the girls dress like Madonna not for sexual reason but for power. The power comes

from the attention our society gives to females who dress provocatively.372 Raphael

could have used this information to do some gender breaking about teenage girls, but she

did not.

When Raphael discusses sexually active teenage girls, she mostly ignores the

necessity of a (usually) male partner for sex to be possible. If Raphael were to investigate

a bit, she would discover that two-thirds of the males who get teenage girls pregnant are

over twenty years old.373 By having only or mostly the pregnant girls on her stage,

Raphael places the blame for pregnancy on the girls while protecting the adult males who

get them pregnant. 374 Ruth Sidel wrote that the whole discussion of teenage pregnancy

isolates the issue "from the social context in which young women live," and that in fact,

"many young people are doing exactly what our culture expects, and implicitly or

370 Multimedia, "Help! My Daughter Is A Tomboy," SaUy Jessy Raphael March 22, 1994. 371 Multimedia, "Sally's Guests: Where Are They Now?" Sany Jessy Raphael May 6, 1993. 372 Multimedia, "Teens and Provocative Dress" Sally Jessy Raphael November 22, 1993. 373 Mike Males, "'Recovered Memory,' Child Abuse & Media Escapism" Extra! (September/October, 1994): 11. 374 Raphael occasionally mentions that the teenage girls on her stage are sexually involved with adult males. However, once she has acknowledged the involvement of adult males, she goes right back to talking about the teenag·e girls, thus protecting all those men from taking responsibily for their actions. On one show, a graphic displayed on the screen revealed that most of the girls who were sexually involved with adult mailes felt pressured into sex. ("My Daughter Is 13 Going on 30," November 11, 1994). Raphael made a comment about how that statistic bothered her, but her discussion with the guest expert focused only on how to deal with the teenage girls, placing all the responsiblity for the sexual relationships on them.

100 explicitly, tells them to do."375 By focusing only on teenage girls, Raphael is continuing

the pattern of ignoring the social context that protects men.

Over all, Raphael uses scandal gossip to present teenage girls as problems to society, especially 10 their sexual behavior. She is repeating what experts since the 1920s have continually warned against - that teenage girls could ruin our society unless they are

firmly controlled. The issue of control is discussed frequently on the shows about

teenage girls.

The study done by Whiting and Edwards on childrearing in different cultures

uncovered some interesting information on the issue of control. As cited earlier under the

topic Women as Mothers~ Whiting and Edwards discovered that the mothers they studied

in the United States place the most emphasis on controlling their children and the least

emphasis on training and nurturing their children. Whiting and Edwards found that when

parents emphasize control, the children tend to react by seeking dominance as a way to

express their egoistic needs.376 Thus, by emphasizing that mothers (Raphael rarely talks

to fathers) need to control their teenage daughters, Raphael is in fact encouraging a style

of parenting that leads to the problem behavior that she so frequently showcases. But by

continually placing the blame on the teenage girls, Raphael is continually making gender

and protecting men.

JENNY JONES

Jenny Jones mostly breaks gender concerning teenage girls. When Jones does

shows discussing girls who are sexually active, Jones often reminds the audience that the

girls are young, that they are not old enough or knowledgeable enough to be held entirely

responsible for their behavior.377 During one show on sexually active girls, Jones talked

375 Ruth Sidel, On Her Own: Growing Up in the Shadow of the American Dream, (New York: Viking, 1990) 129. 376 Whiting and Edwards 153. 377 Warner Bros., "Teenage Girls Who Want to Have Babies" November 1, 1994 *; "Sisters Should Slow Down; Young Teenage Girls Defend Their Promiscuous Sexual Behavior," May 25, 1994, Jenny Jones ·

101 about a double standard towards girls with multiple sex partners as opposed to boys with

multiple partners. 378

Jones has done shows about how teenage girls dress too old and too sexy.379

When she did makeovers for girls who were dressing too sexy, she asked the experts

which of the girls had caused the most "trouble. 11 380 In this case, Jones defined the girls

as deviant for wanting to make their own decisions.

While Jones does not approve of young girls who dress sexy, she also does not

think the girls have .to look a particular way in order to be acceptable. But during one

show about teenage girls who dress too sexy, Jones did not challenge family members

and audience members who used words like "slut," "whore," "prostitute," and "tramp" to

describe the girls. 381 By not challenging the use of those terms~ Jones was not

challenging the gender ideology that makes sexual deviants.

So Oprah Winfrey and Jenny Jones do gender breaking about teenage girls fairly

often. Both Winfrey and Jones, however, also use scandal gossip to make gender about

teenage girls.

It is interesting to note that in terms of teenage girls and mothers, Winfrey and

Raphael are on opposite ends. Winfrey holds mothers entirely responsible for the problems children have; Raphael keeps saying that mothers are not to blame for all their children's problems. Winfrey mostly presents teenage girls as people facing all kinds of problems; Raphael i:nostly presents teenage girls as problems for all of society.

378 Warner Bros., "Teen~e Girls Reveal Active Sexual Lives," Jenny Jones November 1, 1993. 379 Warner Bros., "Makeovers For Sexy Teens," March 1, 1994; "Siblings Who Disapprove of Their Teenage Sisters' Dress" November 10, 1994 *; "Teenage Strippers and Their Parents" November 14, 1994 *; "Makeovers For Teens. Who's Mothers Think They Dress Too Sexy" November 16, 1994. • 380 Warner Bros., "Siblings Who Disapprove of the Way Their Teenage Sisters Dress" November 10, 1994. • 381 Warner Bros., "Makeovers For Teens Whose Mothers Think They dress Too Sexy" November 16, 1994. *

102 CONCLUSIONS

Culture is not artifice and manners, the preserve of Sunday best, rainy afternoons and concert halls. It is the very material of our daily lives, the bricks and mortar of our most commonplace understandings, feelings and responses.

Paul Willis Working Class Culture382

A social system leads to certain kinds of behavior on the part of its members regardless of their personal qualities or traits. We tend thereafter to attribute to the individuals the qualities expectedin them by the system. Sheila Ruth Issues in Feminism383

The three hosts under discussion, Oprah Winfrey, Sally Jessy Raphael and Jenny

Jones, all use scandal gossip to make gender. Jenny Jones, however, makes gender much

less than Winfrey and Raphael. Jones is less likely to hold women entirely responsible for their children's problems; she challenges assumptions that women should look one particular way; and she holds adults responsible for many of the problems teenage girls have. When Jones presents women as deviants, she tends to focus on sexual issues - she does not make women deviant for all manner of situations. Thus, Jones breaks gender mor~ than she makes gender on the issues under consideration for this study.

The results for Oprah Winfrey and Sally Jessy Raphael are different. As the most popular talk show host in the world, Oprah Winfrey continually supports gender ideology about women as mothers, women and their appearance, and women as deviants. Sally

Jessy Raphael continually supports gender ideology about teenage girls. Between the two

382 Paul Willis, "Shop Floor Culture, Masculinity and the Wage Form," Working Class Culture: Studies in History and Theory. ed. John Clarke, Chas Critcher, and Richard Johnson. (London: Hutchinson, 1979) 184-185. 383 Sheila Ruth, Issues In Feminism (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980) 37-8.

103 of them, Raphael and Winfrey illustrate how the theories discussed at the beginning of

this study fit together to explain the continuation of patriarchy.

As television talk show hosts, Winfrey and Raphael are part of the institution of

mass media. Louis Alhusser theorized that institutions work together to enforce

particular social norms while insisting on their neutrality. Antonio Gramsci theorized

that oppression is most effective when subordinates participate in their own oppression.

Because pau·iarchy is about subordinating women, Raphael and Winfrey show how

women participate in their own subordination by accepting and seldom questioning the

dominant ideology. As part of everday life with their five day a week talk shows,

Winfrey and Raphael illustrate Todd Gitlin's theory suggesting that the dominant

ideology becomes part of everyday practice.

Raphael and Winfrey's acceptance of gender roles follows Marilyn Frye's theory

that those very roles. are barriers for women in a patriarchy. Lana Rakow suggested that

gender roles change to fit the current needs of the dominant ideology, illustrated by the

ways Winfrey and Raphael expect women to fit themselves into the current beliefs about

mothers, femininity, acceptable behavior, and the dangers of uncontrolled teenage girls.

The expectation that mothers should control their daughters and train them to be

respectable proves Ann Whitehead's theory that the relationship between mothers and

daughters is the most effective place for women to oppress each other.

Thus, Raphael and Winfrey are participating in what John Fiske and John Hartley

call the bardic function of television by transmitting the beliefs and values of patriarchy.

Although guests on the talk shows reveal the inadequacies of the culture through the

stories of their lives, Fredric Jameson theorized that this release of anxiety is necessary for the patriarchy to be able to continue. By using the symbols of gender ideology to direct their guests' anxiety into resolutions acceptable to the dominant ideology, Winfrey and Raphael reinforce patriarchy.

104 It is fair to assume that Sally Jessy Raphael and Oprah Winfrey's have at least

some intentions of helping the women and girls on their shows improve their lives. No

doubt all the women who participated in gender ideology across the centuries had the sole

intention of helping women and girls improve their lives. Only when we look closely at

the repetitions of words and patterns in actions over time does it become obvious that the

people being helped are not the individual women and girls being addressed, but the men

in power. So like Elizabeth Blackwell, Katharine Wormeley, Ellen Swallow Richards,

Christine Frederick, and like all the white women who felt superior to women of color,

Oprah Winfrey and Sally Jessy Raphael are continually making gender in the support of

patriarchy.

Women as television talk show hosts - and all women - will continue to support

patriarchy as long as they use scandal gossip. Deborah Jones pointed out that scandal

gossip continues patriarchy because it uses patriarchal gender norms as the standard for

judging women. As long as women use patriarchal standards for judging other women,

they will continue the oppression that affects their own lives. Ending the patterns that

maintain patriarchy means recognizing how the everyday talk of women can be a way of

participating in their own oppression. · 'f As the most.poptJlar talk show host in history, Oprah Winfrey holds a unique place in our society, and in the world. Winfrey understands a good deal about the power of her position. Starting in 1994, Winfrey made several changes in her show, wanting to focus on positives more than negatives. She decided to use her talk show "as a way of voicing my vision of what the world should be."384 Unfortunately for all of her female viewers, Oprah Winfrey's view of the world is largely a patriarchal view, as this study shows. If Winfrey understood how scandal gossip supports patriarchy, if Winfrey stopped judging women by patriarchal gender norms, she could begin to change the world.

384 Reynolds 1995: 19.

105 Ann Meyer Spacks pointed out that gossip can be used either to exclude people or to include people. Scandal gossip is an exclusive type of gossip because it's purpose is to mold women to gender norms. Chatting, as defined by Deborah Jones, is a positive form of gossip. Chatting gossip is about sharing feelings and giving comfort, about developing awareness, about listening without judging, and about validating experiences. If Oprah

Winfrey started using chatting gossip to break gender rather than scandal gossip that makes gender, she could give women a truly new view of the world.

106 APPENDIX A

PROGRAM LISTS FOR OPRAH WINFREY

Women as Mothers Reunions between women and their former daughters-in-law Parenting Mothers who feel neglected by adult kids Parents of children switched at birth Spouses disagree over childrearing Reuniting with one's child after many years Wife abuse and pregnancy Fighting for custody of a grandchild Menopause When one's son is reluctant to marry Refusing to give one's grown children financial assistance The state of the family in the U.S. Disapproving of a child's spouse Motherhood and stress Child care Deviant Women Abusive parenting Being declared unfit to raise a child Retaliating against an abusive parent Third trimester abortion Abandoning one's family Coerced by a spouse into committing a crime Learning a secret about a parent When a parent underestimates a child's potential Children choosing to live with fathers Lesbianism Women who fail to pay child support Daughter who disapproves of the way mother treats father Women and drunken driving

Women and Their Appearance Feeling too unattractive to go out in public Beauty and women over 40 Spring fashions Cosmetic surgery Teenage Girls Mothers who disapprove of the age of their daughters' boyfriends When teenage girls engage in violent acts

107 1993

Women as Mothers Acting as a surrogate mother for a family member Confronting a demanding mother Family therapy Incest and pregnancy Adoption Motherhood and stress Parenting skills Talking to teenagers Feeling ashamed of one's child

Women and Their Appearance Makeovers for staff members Makeovers for working mothers Winfrey discusses nutrition, exercise and dieting Hairstyling mishaps Guests who received makeovers on previous shows

Women as Deviants Attraction to men with sexual addictions Disapproving of a divorced mother's interest in men Dating a daughter's boyfriend Disapproving of a divorced mother's behavior Mothers who kill their children Women's criminal behavior Women who are reluctant to commit to marriage Child abandonment Putting a child up for adoption Teenage Girls Violence in schools Sexual harassment of girls in school Violent behavior in teenage girls Spendthrift teens Teens who want to have babies Violence in teen relationships Juvenile crime Mothers objecting to the way teens dress Mothers disapproving of white teens adopting black culture Talking to teenagers White middle class teens who adopt black fashion and music

1994 Lists

Women as Mothers Disciplining a child Parenting styles Women who got off welfare Revealing a child's paternity Views of parenting

108 Parents discuss bad experiences with day care centers and babysitters Corporal punishment Parenting advice Parents give teens tips on dating Covert surveillance of babysitters New moms and babies Parenting Women and Their Appearance Obesity and discrimination Makeovers for the Oprah staff Self-image and the perceptions of others Testing husbands' attentiveness to their wives' appearance Diet scams Experts offer beauty advice Hairstyling tips Modeling Industry Makeovers for anchorwomen Fashion pet peeves Women as Deviants Women involved in bank robberies because of men Taking extreme measures to pay the bills Anorexia Losing custody of a child Abandoning new born babi~s Mothers who want to give away their violent children Mothers who turned to crime Teenage Girls Institutionalizing teens Teen violence Teen girls who turn to violence to get what they want Sex education for teenagers Whether teachers discriminate against girls Pre-teen girls and self-esteem Children and weight problems Teens and plastic surgery Problems between mothers and teen daughters Violence in teen relationships Teens and homosexuality Teen motherhood Teen violence towards parents

109 APPENDIXB

PROGRAM LISTS FOR SALLY JESSY RAPHAEL 1992

Women as Mothers Adults who treat their mothers like children Desiring to be a grandmother Parents who disapprove of a child getting a tattoo Getting married during pregnancy Being taken advantage of by one's children Sheltering one's children from certain types of entertainment Being concerned that one's daughter will not marry Helping in the criminal conviction process of one's child Mothering Mother-in-law living with married children Child rearing methods Child custody Encouraging one's daughter to be a cheerleader When a woman has an overwhelming desire to have a baby Pregnancy and infidelity Missing mothers Mothers who hate th~ir daughters' boyfriends Women and Their Appearance Attractive sisters Fat sisters jealous of thin sisters Obesity Unhappiness after extreme weight loss Sisters who are strip tease dancers Professions that involve being topless Physical attractiveness and dating Losing weight Staying a certain weight to please a spouse Older women who are show girls Undressing in public Beauty pageant for full figured women Dateless because of weight Working in the nude at a public restaurant Full-figured women Beauty pageant for mothers and daughters who overcame diversity Obesity Hiding facial disfigurement with makeup Being emotionally distraught over a bad hair cut Society's emphasis on looks Obsession with staying tan Wearing controversia.l clothing in public

110 Staying young Calendar models Friends' envy of weight loss When a mother is envious of a daughter's weight loss Women who arc anxious about turning 40 Disliking one's face Taking off clothes in public

Women as Deviants Being married to a mama's boy Embarrassed by mother Interfering mothers-in-law Parents who choose to have relatives raise a child Embarrassed to be in public with mother Being unable to please one's mother Women who are romantically obsessed Eatirig disorders Unwed single mothers Divorcing a parent Being accused of child abandonment Embarrassment over a parent's sexual activities Ashamed of mother Daughters disapproving of the way mother treats father Mothers-in-law who break up marriages daughters who spend too much Teenage Girls Teenage girls with bad manners Mothers who hate their daughters' boyfriends Mothers who disapprove of their daughters' ways of dressing Violent acts in school Teenage girls and a preoccupation with appearance Ungrateful teenage daughters Teenage girls and makeup Teenage daughters staying out all night Girls prevented from graduating from high school Daughters who spend too much Having a flirtatious daughter When teenage girls become romantically involved with older men When a daughter wants to begin dating at an early age Amy Fisher College students and partying Teen modeling and nudity Conceited teenage girls Update show - teen slob returns

Women as Mothers Mothers upset over daughter's divorce Single motherhood and sexual activity When a mother is affected by a daughters divorce Reuniting with a child after years of separation

111 When mothers feel rejected by newlywed daughters Women beaten during pregnancy Being prohibited from seeing one's grandchildren Mothers who interfere in daughters' relationships Raising a spouse's child from an affair Mothers who want their daughters to wed Adoption Feeling responsible for a child's homosexuality Infertility False pregnancies Questioning a child's paternity Disliking a mother's fiance

Women and Their Appearance Obsession with one's appearance Physical disabilities Disliking one's appearance Discrimination against large-size women Weight gain after marriage . Mothers who abandoned their children Lesbian mother loses custody of child Mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law who don't get along Holiday blues (makeovers) Regaining a youthful appearance with surgery and diet

Women as Deviants Parents who want to get rid of their kids Anorexia and bulimia When husbands are physically abused by wives Being married to a domineering woman Infanticide Homemakers leading double lives Being called an unfit mother Mothers who refuse to pay child support False memory syndrome Obsessive love Mothers who abandoned their children

Teenage Girls Teens and curfews When parents allow teens to have sex at home Teens and exotic dancing Extramarital affairs with babysitters Teens and prostitution Truancy Sexual child abuse Girls who experience puberty at an early age Teenage girls in abusive relationships Teenage girls and sex Obesity in teen girls Teen pregnancy Teens and gangs Teens and stalking

112 Marital discord caused by a teenage girl Children who bully their p~rents Teens and provocative dress Teens and alcoholism (one boy) Teens and sex (a teen couple and mother and father) Youngsters adopting characteristics of another race Update show - teen girl dating older man returns

1994

Women as Mothers The effect of a daughter's divorce on her parents Reuniting adopted children with birth mothers Unplanned pregnancy Mothers-in-law who have custody of grandchildren Extramarital affairs and pregnancy Disciplining children Disapproving of a child's intended spouse Disapproving of a smfs girlfriend Choosing not to have children Women and Their Appearance Seeking to help family members with weight problems Surprise makeovers for Mothers Day Disapproving of a mother's appearance Mothers who feel neglected by their newlywed daughters Disapproving of a son's tre~tment of women Being dumped during one's pregnancy Mothers who want their unmarried children to find spouses Embarrassment over a relative's weight Anorexia - pressure on female gymnasts to be thin Women as Deviants Disapproving of an adult chilc:l's parenting methods Women taking extreme measure to earn a living Choosing not to have children Disowning a child Women and heroin Women and the use of pornography Romance with a mama's boy Women who marry several times · Mothers and daughters who socialize together Women who use men Mothers who want to disown their children Meddlesome ex-wives Disapproving of a mother's promiscuity Mothers who want their sons to cheat on their wives Anorexia Pregnant mistresses Daughters who are strippers

113 Teenage Girls Teens and gang rape Racism and teens Teen pregnancy Sexual harassment among teens Conducting searches on students Moms who are embarrassed by the way their teen daughters dress Teens and marriage Teen girls living with their boyfriends Second Annual Take Our Daughters to Work Day Teens and interracial relationships A murder case involving teens Teens and stalking Manipulative daughters Disapproving of a da1,1ghter's lifestyle Teens and partying Confronting a former high school bully High school policies concerning teen marriage Teens and their parents discuss sex Teen pregnancy Allowing teens to have sex at home Tomboys Teens who act older Teens and provocative dress Considering disowning an unruly teenager

114 APPENDIXC

PROGRAM LISTS FOR TENNY TONES 1992

Women as Mothers Male soap opera stars and their mothers Discussion of childbirth and options for pain relief Single moms on dating and sex Pediatric psychologists discuss methods of disciplining young children Mothers whose children have no time for them anymore Professional women who are "swamped with guilt" Mothers of stripping sons Seventeen children and their mother describe life in a large family Successful parenting Learning to accept gay children Preventing spoiled children Parents who have nothing in common with their children parents who have "downshifted" their lives to be more involved with their children A mother, puts eight children through college on $10,000 a year Diagnosing and treating children with allergies Having babies after 40 years of age Ill-mannered children in public places Mothers-in-law and sons-in-law who do not get along Women and their Appearance Hair stylist Jose Eber Defining cut, classic, trendy and hot sexy Fitness trainer demonstrates exercises Women and provocative clothing as everyday wear Makeover by Jose Eber for a couple Americans and dieting - Exercise and bribery for weight loss Three husbands makeover their wives Jenny describes her own breast implant experience Men who prefer large women Cosmetic ripoffs Experts speak out on breast implants Discussion of women's delight in buying new shoes Glamour addicts Fashion dos and don'ts Richard Simmons, weight-loss and exercise guru Two women who grew up with bad body image Use of models or real people in advertising and women's self esteem Skin experts discuss methods of fighting wrinkles Hair styles and personalities Exercise Linda Wells, editor of Allure Magazine, dispels beauty myths

115 Big breasted women in entertainment Beautiful gay women, handsome gay men; dispelling the stereotypes, myths Help for women with breast implants Women as Deviants Children who think their mothers are too sexy Woman tells why she likes being "kept" Three infamous madams talk about their lives Daughter talks about her four homosexual parents Women who say sex is their hobby Woman who is afraid to marry Young women who feel they will never marry "Tough Chicks;" women men fear and women envy Kept women discuss t.heir lifestyles Prostitution · Mothers who are in relationships with daughters' former boyfriends Unlikely marriages; older women, younger men Wives have had children with men other than their husbands Domestic violence in gay and lesbian relationships Men who were raped as boys by their mothers Women who were sexually abused as children by their mothers Family accuses one member of seducing all the male members What happens when your sister takes away your man Pregnant women who are having affairs Teenage Girls A plastic surgeon and a psychologist discuss teens having cosmetic surgery Teen town meeting; teens talk about their hopes for the future Teen girl who married her stepfather 1 Teen-aged girls who have married or are living with older men Teenagers and sex 1993

Women as Mothers Mother-daughter relationships Mothers protest daughters' lavish shopping habits Mothers-in-law who hate their sons in law Mothers who hate their daughters' boyfriends Parents protest son's involvement with older woman

Women and their Appearance Women say they try to meet unreal standard of beauty; give examples of discrimination Women discuss how they hate their bodies and why women in general have low self-esteem Women who changed their body images to see how others would react, from fat to thin, flat- breasted to big-breasted, from brunette to blond, from female to male Mothers angry with overweight daughters Audience members give advice against breast implants New look, better lie? Weight loss disrupts family life

116 Women as Deviants Aunts of young girl claim their sister is an unfit mother Daughters who are embarrassed by their mothers' provocative appearances Women in prison for nine years for alleged sexual affair with 13 year old Mother left teenage daughters home alone while on vacation; son and stepson of Sharon Shoo She tricked me into marriage by getting pregnant Women who are standing by their cheating men Relationship between older woman and teenage boy Mother of three leaves children home for night; they fend for selves Adults are reunited 22 years later with mother they accuse abused them Mothers and daughters who have had sex with the same man Wives have had children with men other than their husbands Women who have married men in prison on murder convictions Women who are fascinated with killersJeffrey Dahmer and Robert Chambers Six women who are playing the field and having sex with as many men as they can Teenage boy and older woman are in love Happily married women who have fallen in love with other women Mothers who became prostitutes to support their children My mom is a terrible mom Mom stole my boyfriend Adult daughters who say their mothers are too sexy Prostitution in Hollywood Adult women confront mothers who abandoned them at young age Triangle where mother and daughter love same man Mothers and daughters who work in adult entertainment industry At odds over Mom's teenage lover Women who love large men Children who are embarrassed by their overweight moms Mother falls in love with daughter's boyfriend Older women, younger men; women over forty and boys from 17 up describe liaisons Women who have embezzled money to buy gifts for their men Daughter had mother's baby; young women whose mothers asked them to have a baby for them when they were young teens

Teenage Girls Teenage lesbians defend their orientation Teenage girls and their mothers argue over weight issue Teenagers and sex; mothers who think their teens are dating too early Mothers whose daughters are out of control My daughter is dating too soon Mothers whose unmarried teenage daughters are pregnant again Teenage girls reveal active sexual lives, initiated at ages nine through 16 Parents object to t~enagers' style of dress

1994

Women as Mothers African-American mothers who disapprove of their daughters dating white men Mom is a matchmaker Mothers who hate their daughters' boyfriends Mom is jealous of stepmother Mom liates child's spouse Meddling mothers-in-law

117 Women and their Appearance Women who are cursed by beauty Big women, whose friends do not like the way they dress, undergo makeovers Richard Simmons: hope for the heavy Women give their sisters makeovers Frumpy moms and sexy daughters Women as Deviants Kept pregnancy a secret Mothers who flirt with daughters' boyfriends Kids irate about how mom dresses Moms who party with their daughters Mom parties too much Mother married daughter's ex Sisters torn apart when one steals the other's husband Children who are embarrassed by their overweight moms Woman's sisters haven't spoken to her in years; they say she was a bad mother Women who say they will marry their fiances regardless of their affairs Parents protest against son's involvement with older woman Women who engage in one-night stands Competition between mother and daughter for the same man Sisters who do not speak because one had an affair with the other's fiance Older daughters say their mothers are wrong to keep having babies Older woman and the younger man she married When families object to a woman's career choice Daughters who disapprove of the way their mothers dress I'm a mistress and proud of it My Mom dresses too sexy Teenage Girls Growing up too fast; 12 year old girls who look 18, date 16 and 18 year old boys, and are sexually active Makeovers for sexy teens, aged 12 to 18 Wild teens, desperate moms Defiant teens, desperate moms argue over sexual activity Raising your child's children; mothers whose unmarried teenage daughters are pregnant again Teens ruining mom's love life Teens who want babies; young girls, 13 to 17, who are pregnant Young teen girls defend their promiscuous sexual behavior College girls who party too much Parents object to teenagers style of dress Teenage sex Relatives who disapprove of the way their teenage sisters dress Confronting the older boyfriend of one's pregnant teen daughter Teenage strippers and their parents Makeovers for teens whose moms think they dress too sexy

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