Recently, in my Intro to Women’s Studies Class, I researched and conducted a PowerPoint presentation on how older television shows, such as I Love Lucy, Laverne & Shirley, and The Golden Girls went hand-in-hand with where feminism stood at the time each show was filmed. Before presenting my findings, I was worried that perhaps my work wouldn’t be good enough to share with the rest my class. But as I found myself digging deeper and deeper into my research, I realized that my findings were, indeed, important, and that it was worth sharing. In this article, I have decided to demonstrate some of my research findings so the rest of the world outside of my class could see.

-Lucy Ricardo, I Love Lucy:
-played by Lucille Ball
-summary: Lucy is married to Ricky Ricardo, a Cuban band leader, and they live in 1950s
Manhattan, NYC. Lucy is desperately wanting to be in show business like her
husband, However, despite her many desperate attempts to become more
involved in show business, Ricky is not budging. He insists on her staying at
home, caring for his needs, and tending to the house and the baby. Despite her
husband’s rules, however, she still persists on her dream of making it to
show business and gets herself into some sticky situations while doing so.

-Laverne DeFazio & Shirley Feeney, Laverne & Shirley:
-played by: Penny Marshall & Cindy Williams
-summary: Laverne & Shirley are two young women from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who
are roommates who work together at a brewing factory. They are trying to
make it through the world and all its struggles, and they can sometimes get
themselves into some sticky situations. They do have male friends, but they
mainly make it a point to solve their issues on their own.

-Sophia, Blanche, Dorothy, Rose, The Golden Girls:
-played by: Estelle Getty, Rue McClanahan, Bea Arthur, Betty White
-summary: Four elderly ladies are living together in Miami, Florida. They aren’t
depending on any man in their lives- they’re all either widowed or divorced.
They face struggles, and do get into some sticky situations, but it
seems that their problems are more realistic.

I was able to come up with a number of conclusions from my research.

1) I Love Lucy was set in, as well as filmed, in the 1950s. As we all know, the fifties were a very trying time for women,
as they were still considered to be under the control of men, and men were typically always the dominant members
of the household who made every single one of the decisions. I feel that this particular show was poking fun at
how women were trying to become independently successful without the help of men, and were trying to show
that doing so only led to stupid failure.

2) Laverne and Shirley, as well as The Golden Girls, was filmed in the 1970s and 1980s. This happened to be the time that the second wave of feminism was springing to action. the second wave involved women trying to establish equality in the workforce, as well as equal rights in reproduction, healthcare, family, etc. Laverne and Shirley, although it certainly demonstrated women to have more independence and free will, still showed far less feminism progress than The Golden Girls. For example, in most L&S episodes, the girls still managed to get themselves in extremely sticky situations and depended on a male to help them out. In TGG, on the other hand, while the women still tended to find themselves in some comical scrapes, they got themselves out with zero masculine help.