Working women have enjoyed a positive decade on entertainment television but the trend may not continue as new shows return the focus to homemakers and "pretty sidekicks," a report said recently.
The National Commission on Working Women has released a report that studied 10 years of television programming as it honored several shows "for excellence in portraying and reporting on working women's issues."Broadcast awards were presented to ABC's "God Bless the Child," a made-for-television movie about a mother and child in poverty; an NBC Nightly News segment on the nurses shortage in America; an ABC World News Tonight report on the child care crisis; and two National Public Radio features dealing with the decline of women artists, and the discrimination faced by female chefs.
The report, "Ten Years in Prime Time: An Analysis of the Image of Women on Entertainment Television, 1979-1988," cited the increased diversity of the roles of working women as television's most significant improvement over the past decade.
But the good ratings were flawed by the industry's preoccupation with greed and wealth through much of the '80s.