Page 49 - Cultural Studies A Practical Introduction

Gender and Sexuality 33

stay within the bounds of the current standards for public morality.
It permitted the producers of SATC to challenge the boundaries for
representations of single women ’ s gender and sexual issues. The dialog was
frankly sexual, and the show also explored new terrain by depicting young
single women whose professional success afforded them a much wider
range of choices regarding sexual and romantic partners than would have
been possible for women a half century earlier in America. The show both

registered a significant cultural change and was itself an agent of such
change. That it was created and produced by gay men added an element
of gender complexity to the representation of the young women ’ s lives.
The show often recalled the norm - challenging excess that in the past was
to be found in such popular cultural forms in gay male culture as bur-
lesque, disco, and camp.
Prior to the contemporary era, the traditional format for heterosexual
mating was male pursuit and female acquiescence, with men winning bread
while women stayed home and baked it. The economic world sustained
that paradigm by permitting men access to wealth and denying access to
women. That economic structure and those cultural practices have begun
to change, although even in newly developed and supposedly “ advanced ”
economic cultures such as Ireland, the list of wealthiest people in the new
economy is still entirely male. Nevertheless, marriage is less attractive for
many people than it was a generation or so ago; 55 percent of men are
married, down from 69.3 percent in 1960, and 51.5 percent of women are,
down from 65.9 percent in 1960.
SATC depicts a new world in which women have economic power
(to a certain limited degree) and as a result have greater leverage in
negotiating a life format with possible mates. In such a new gender world,
the traditional marriage and parenting format can be treated with skep-
ticism, as in an episode entitled “ The Baby Shower, ” in which the four
female friends at the center of the show are depicted exhibiting disdain
for married life. Nevertheless, for all of its adventurousness, the show ’ s
driving narrative force was the quest for the right mate. In one episode
( “ Attack of the Five Foot Ten Woman ” ), two characters obsess over the
marriages section in the city newspaper. In the movie made of the
show, the main character, Carrie, when she is about to marry her
appropriately named mate “ Big, ” goes through her wardrobe throwing
out clothes that represent parts of her self that no longer “ count ” as her
in her new role in life. Even as it explores the detachability of sex from