Desperate Housewives

The Desperate Housewives is a TV drama shown on ABC. It is now in its fifth season, and has had tremendous success. This fictional atmosphere outlines the absurd happenings of Wisteria Lane. It follows the obscure lives of a group of women who adhere to their own crazy family lives. This seemingly perfect suburban neighborhood is filled with: domestic struggles, children, crime, and death while putting on a smile when they see their neighbors at any instance. The show has been awarded six Emmys and two Golden Globe Awards. The show continues to attack fictional problems in an American suburban setting; Erma Bombeck does not.
Erma writes about very real situations in the life of a female housewife. Similar to Desperate Housewives, she has had tremendous success. She was around for a period of 30 plus years with columns in female orientated magazines. 900 newspapers have Bombeck publishings. He points out persistent problems between the reality and the myths of being a mother. Unlike the hit TV show mentioned earlier, her problems are very real. She debunks the supermom ideal in her columns, and ousts the images that TV and media have potrayed them as. She began writing during the women’s movement of the 1960’s and continued to empower housewives through the 90’s. She writes for the stay at home mom, about the stay at home mom. The persona she adopts in her excerpt from At Wit’s End urges the women’s movement through a descriptive prose narrative. Some topics she covers includes: swim suit shape, raising children, the horror of snow days, and drinking. She explains typical situations of a housewife that I would never have thought otherwise. The fact that the “Act of God” known as a snow day is looked so down upon by housewives actually makes sense. Speaking for the opposing gender, mothers have to work those snow days instead of sending their children off to school like field mice on the prairre. Her persona does not fit the model of a suburban housewife because she regrets marriage and a few other nuances she tries to avoid. She says that children more often than not do no appreciate their hardworking mothers and she admits that no family is perfect.
The Desperate Housewives and Erma draw parallels about certain topics. For the most part, whatever these women do in their private lives, must stay private. In both societies, whether fictional or real, the women must protect what dignity they have. While the women of Desperate Housewives strive to remain perfect in everyday life, the real suburban housewife struggles to live everyday life. In conclusion, she does a great job outlining the problems of a housewives’ world.