The good wife's guide

The first text, "Women Read The Romance", deals with findings of extensive interviews from a group of compulsive romance readers in a central mid-western state. Romance reading constitutes a tempora
ry "declaration of independence" from social roles of wife and mother (70). I believe that women read a lot of these romance novels because the man in their life cannot fulfill the required emotional needs of the woman. I have heard of a lot of relationships starting very good, with a lot of romantic moments and emotional fulfillment, but eventually after marriage it slows down and that is most likely a cause for the romantic novel readings. The image on the right seems to be a very sensual, romantic, style of a man that the women who read these books yearn for. It may also be the case that in a negatively stressful or possibly abusive relationship that a woman reads these novels to escape from the stress or abuse that the relationship has caused because it is the only way to fulfill the emotional need.


The second text, "Cathartic Confessions or Emancipatory Texts?", is about daytime talk shows, especially Oprah Winfrey's program (523). The main argument of the article is that daytime talk shows fail to deal with structural issues or large issues dealing with a community but instead focus on a single person for individual solutions. The Oprah Show obviously promotes a more feminine aspect to her discussions, mainly focusing on issues concerning women (525). It generally focuses on sexual abuse or rape as a main concern when "deplorable" issues are brought up (527). This text was written in 2003 but I do know that Oprah does bring in guest celebrities and sexual violence is not the only thing that is talked about on the show now. However, all of daytime talk shows I believe go into the sphere of women's roles and stereotyping. They all assume that all women are stay at home moms and they all want to be changed from their mundane household and have some emotional needs fulfilled that their husband can't provide- which sort of goes along with the first article.


The issue of Women's roles comes into view because of the stay at home mom part, I am sure there are a lot of women that work nine to five and are interested in watching some "women's television" during the day but they can't because of their job. Statistically, yes, there are probably more women caring for the house more than men during the day, but I think its too stereotypical to have soap operas on every single major channel, and women's talk shows on the other channels pretty much throughout the entire afternoon and all the commercials are related to female needs, makeup, or hygiene products.


Here is an image from the old days regarding the role of a woman in the household, which relates to this topic in general: