In her review of CBS' new drama The Good Wife which premiered last night, Alessandra Stanley notes that "television dramas rarely do very well with the underbelly of politics." The show promises the story of the political wife who, as Dana memorably wrote, is asked to "stand by your man" in the wake of a sex scandal.
But, in fact, the show moves on from the sordid political scandal very quickly, and takes up the larger question of what happens when women on the Mommy track attempt to re-enter the workforce:
The Good Wife puts an incredibly romantic spin on the challenges of going back to work. Within the first episode, Florrick lands a plum firm job and wins a high-profile criminal defense case, humiliating her stereotype of a female boss (Christine Baranski), the kind of woman who pretends to mentor younger women, but is actually threatened by their success.
But what happens to the real-life Alicia Florricks -- the women who attempt to claw back to the top after years or even decades at home with the kids? For one thing, their income suffers: A woman can expect her salary to drop by 2 percent for each year she stays home from work. That means a woman who earned $80,000 10 years ago, then quit her job, can expect her new salary to be $64,000.
Read the rest of Dana's take here.
--The Editors
