Women on "The West Wing"

Women on "The West Wing"

When I watched The West Wing for the first time, the ways in which the show, one I would argue is one of the best written series to ever grace our televisions sets, handled gender and sexism often struck me. At certain times I would pump my fist triumphantly in the air because of a particularly powerful feminist moment, but there were many others where I cringed. All too often these would happen in the span of a single episode. So finally I sat down to critically analyze the women of The West Wing, and the show certainly has some powerful moments and strong points, but I have to say it: The West Wing had a woman problem. Here’s a four point breakdown of that problem:

1. The show doesn't have enough female characters.
2. Those characters that are female tend to have jobs that are viewed as less important than the jobs of the male characters or are only featured because of their relationship to an important male character. To elaborate, many of the female characters are at the assistant level and there is only one female senior staff member for most of the show. Furthermore, many of the recurring female characters are members of the president’s family.
3. The women are often used as a  plot device so the “smart man" can explain some complicated issue to the confused woman, a stand in for the audience. All to often the audience surrogate is CJ Cregg or Donna Moss, two of the central female characters. Less often do we see Toby or Sam or Josh portrayed as the confused one.
4. The gender of the female characters is almost always ignored or viewed as irrelevant. 

While all of these four points contribute significantly to The West Wing's problems in handling gender, point number four is arguably the most important point and the part of the problem that affects women most. Expanding on the idea that a character's gender identity is often ignored it's worth saying that it’s rarely acknowledged that there are many fewer women working in the Bartlet White House than there are men and when it is pointed out (once, only once) the issue is never delved into. Instead, it's used as a humorous one-off line. I have a really hard time believing that the gender of the female staffers never affected their jobs or how peers perceived them. In the real world being a woman matters. It changes how people treat you, what is expected of you, and the obstacles you encounter in life. Why, then, was this facet of the female characters so completely ignored for most of the show’s seven year run? Ignoring the effects of a patriarchal society on female characters in The West Wing was harmful both to women and the show. Women need to see their stories portrayed realistically on television and discounting the gender of female characters and the ramifications of gender for those characters discounts the very real effects of misogyny and sexism in the world we live in. And why ignore gender? Gender is good for a show because it provides so much plot material. What good reason is there not to tell the stories of women affected by sexism? I truly believe the writers diminished The West Wing by refusing to tell the all too true stories of sexism and gender in the workplace, especially because that workplace was the White House.

Certainly The West Wing did handle women well in some ways. The female characters were always strong characters. They were well-developed and never tropes. That’s a pretty tall order on television these days.  In addition, the show often put women in powerful positions they have not yet attained in the real world like the White House Chief of Staff or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. That's certainly commendable.

I'll be honest. I love The West Wing. I can't even pretend I don't but that doesn't stop me from wishing the show had done a better job handling the stories of women. I genuinely hope to see more television shows that are as well-written as The West Wing. I hope to see more shows that put women in places they have historically never been. I hope to see more shows that have strong female characters who are not merely tropes. I hope to see more shows with compelling narratives. I hope to see more shows that matter in the way The West Wing did. But when I see those shows I hope they do a better job telling the stories of women. I hope they don’t write women who are seen as less important than men. I hope they don’t write women as the constantly confused characters. And, above all, I hope they don’t ignore gender and sexism and the very real ways they affect women. I hope they don’t ignore women's stories. I hope they don't ignore our stories.