Jeannina Perez
WST 3015 (Introduction to Women’s Studies)
17 March 2010
The pilot episode of Brothers and Sisters (named, ironically enough, “Patriarchy”) introduces us to the Walker family, a large, hectic group consisting of Mom, Dad, and five siblings. Although I don’t regularly watch the show, I have heard of it, mostly because of the notice it has received for the storylines surrounding Kevin, an openly gay member of the Walker family, and his developing relationship with eventual-husband Scotty. This episode, however, focuses on Kitty, the second-eldest Walker child, so this discussion will follow suit.
Kitty begins the episode in New York City, where she lives estranged by merit of distance from the rest of her Los Angeles-based family. She returns to LA primarily for work concerns; already a successful politically-conservative radio pundit, she is currently investigating a position as the Republican speaker on a late-night political television show. Her trip also includes visiting her family to celebrate her birthday. With the rest of the family involved in their own drama, Kitty’s major conflicts for the episode are her indecision about the job offer and her fear of confrontation with her mother, who is far more of a political liberal than she. The latter conflict resolves fairly positively. Kitty and Nora do argue in one scene, but for most of the episode, their issues are kept under wraps. While there is certainly noticeable tension between them, Kitty still receives reassurance that her worries of being rejected by her mother are unfounded: Nora admits that they “will probably always violently disagree,” but also that “[she] [has] never stopped loving” (“Patriarchy”) her daughter.
Though both conflicts have compelling points of analysis, I found the issues surrounding the job offer a bit more interesting, largely because they incorporate several aspects of the stress Kitty faces. Her Republican politics are the butt of many of her family’s jokes and what she perceives as a barrier between them; the job would require her to relocate to LA, forcing her to relinquish the independence-by-distance she has acquired since moving away from her family; and her boyfriend Jonathon pressures her to turn down what they both know is a highly strategic career move in favor of marrying and staying in New York with him. For Kitty, this job offers her the chance to advance her politics and reconnect on some level with her family, but potentially at the expense of the family she could have with Jonathon. Her situation is not uncommon among career-focused women, who often follow “the ‘be a man’ strategy;” they “finish school, find a job, acquire skills, develop seniority, get tenure, make partner, and put children off until the very last minute” (Crittenden 342). The problem with Kitty’s situation, and with that of the general career-focused woman, is, as Crittenden discusses, the assumption that parenthood is primarily the woman’s responsibility, even at the expense of her salary and career. Jonathon’s proposal exemplifies this. He offers her what is essentially an ultimatum: Kitty can either take this job and advance her career, or she can remain stagnant at work, marry him, and start a family, which no doubt will later become her responsibility to sacrifice for and raise. The consequences of not taking the job, then, seem ludicrously restrictive for someone so driven and career-focused as Kitty.
In some lights, however, the consequences of taking the job are just as restrictive. It is clear that Kitty has worked to gain independence outside of her family, probably because her political views differ so much from theirs. While she shows some regret about the distance this has created between her and her siblings, she also seems attached to the idea of remaining independent from them, which moving back to LA would hinder by sheer proximity. Taking the television job would certainly advance her career and identity as an empowered, political woman, but it could simultaneously pull her firmly back into a family defined by its relational identities to each other. She would be a career woman, yes, but also a sister and a daughter, with those roles prioritized by the sense of obligation that would likely develop from reconnecting with the rest of the Walkers. Even as the move would protect her from sacrificing her career for the relational identities of Jonathon’s wife and their children’s mother, it could easily force her, again, into another, different set of care-focused, “nonthreatening and disempowering roles . . . in society” (Seely 100) she has already worked to escape. Ultimately, Kitty makes no decision by the episode’s end and the conflict goes unresolved, leaving us with a clear sense of how difficult it is for a woman to not only choose between her family and her career in a society structured to offer her no other options, but also for her to maintain her own independent identity when our understanding of women inherently connects them to the roles they fill for someone else.
Works Cited
Crittenden, Ann. “The Mommy Tax (2001).” Women’s Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. Ed. Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 337-345. Print.
“Patriarchy.” Brothers and Sisters. ABC. 24 Sept. 2006. Web.
Seely, Megan. Fight Like a Girl. New York: New York University Press, 2007. Print.
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