Analysis #5 - Feminist Critique of I Love Lucy

The classic 1950’s sitcom I Love Lucy exemplifies theories of feminism, most dominantly of which are from the feminist theorist Simone de Beauvior who examines how women’s identities and roles in society are created not autonomously, but through their male counterpart. In this video of clips from the episode entitled “Job Switching”, Lucy and her husband, Ricky decide to switch their roles – Lucy starts to become a part of the work force and Ricky stays home to take on domestic chores. Eventually, both agree that each others original “gender” roles should be kept and a reversal of these roles prove to be futile in the discourse of gender identity.
Beauvior believes that this type of identity, wherein the “man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him” inherently reduces the woman to not being an equal to the man. In this clip, Ricky states that “… the only reason why women claim that housework is so hard is because they don’t use their heads”. This reinforces the dichotomy between man and woman, in which the woman is referenced as not an individual, but as part of the collective whole of being a “woman”. As Beauvior states: “men say ‘women’, and women use the same word in referring to themselves. They do not authentically assume a subjective attitude” (Beauvior The Second Sex). By Ricky stating that women as a whole hold an inherently idiosyncratic characteristic, he is subjugating women and reducing them to non-autonomous beings. Furthermore, by Ricky giving this generalization about “women” and separating them himself, he is demonstrating that women is an “other” – that, as Beauvior writes, “he is the Subject, he is the Absolute – she is the Other” (Beauvior The Second Sex). By denigrating women and saying that “they don’t use their heads”, this implies that men hold the power of being the “absolute” and the woman is just an “other” that does not fit in his category.
Further examples of how the reversal of gender roles only debilitate men and women is when Lucy, while working in the chocolate factory states “… I think we are fighting a lost cause”. This statement insinuates that the rigid cementation of the distinct roles of men and women in society should be kept in tact. As feminist theorist Judith Butler writes, “… gender is a kind of persistent impersonation that passes as the real” (Leitch 2541). That is, women should acquiesce that their role is best suited as domestic housewives and trying to break away from this is not normal, successful, or “real”. By having this episode be comic in nature, and eventually portraying how when men and women do not take upon their given roles of “making up two castes”, the duality between men and women is broken and proves to be futile. Women should thus be feminine in nature, a notion that they and society knows it’s defined through what Susan Bordo describes as “bodily discourse” by embodying the ideology of women being domestic housewives that act as the “chief emotional and physical nurturer” (Leitch 2245).

Works Cited
Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. Introduction: Woman as Other. 1949.
9 August 2010. /2nd-sex/introduction.htm>.

Leitch, Vincent B, ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. New
York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2010.