In the news: The Week the Women Went

From Marsha Lederman of the Globe and Mail:

  • Small-town Alberta’s 15 minutes of fame
    The Week the Women Went, a new reality-TV series premiering on CBC tonight, is billed as a rare and large-scale social experiment. Based on a 2005 BBC production of the same name, and produced by Vancouver’s Paperny Films, the show examines what happens to a town when almost all of its women leave temporarily.” Read more.

From Michael D. Reid of the Victoria Times-Colonist:

  • Television: Woman-free town no macho fantasy
    “The diverse townsfolk include Mairead Morrison, whose talk-of-the-town affair ended her marriage to James. Unlike his sister Julie and others, he has forgiven her. Julie’s ex-husband Sam Holinaty is a party boy who grows closer to 11-year-old son Keaton. Then there are Teresa and Jeremy Ottenbreit, whose fragile marriage isn’t helped by Jeremy’s announcement he won’t be back from his fishing trip by the time Teresa starts doing shooters on that Rocky Mountain-bound bus.” Read more.

From Kevin Brooker of the Calgary Herald:

  • Cameras spotlight the men in aprons
    “My interest, if that’s not too strong a word for a ripped-off TV concept by a production company whose resume includes such gems as Kink and Road Hockey Rumble, mostly stems from a suspicion that the narrative will stick to a cliched gender analysis.” Read more.

From Vinay Menon of the Toronto Star:

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One thought on “In the news: The Week the Women Went”

  1. What I notice about these reviews is that it’s mainly URBAN men giving them. They like to make fun of the rural men who know nothing about cooking and cleaning and children, and like to state that they’d never be that pathetic at such duties, but the truth of the matter is that many of those men would be lost in a small town like Hardisty because urban men dodn’t have the skills to survive in such a small town. I’d love to see a sequel to this series called “The Week the Men Went”. That would bely a crisis of its own. Yes, rural Canada is staunchly divided via gender roles but there are good reasons for that. Men have a lot to do themselves. Many men work long physical shifts at tiring jobs in the mining, forestry, farming and gas/oil sectors. Many have extensive yards to take care of, vehicles to fix and the like. That leaves many women to do the cooking, gardening, cleaning and childcare. It’s the way it needs to be.

    In cities, a man’s role is taken away. With small yards (or no yards), nearby mechanic shops, convenient fixit shops and non-labour intensive jobs, men in cities do not have as much to do so have time for housework, childcare and the like. That leaves less for women to do. Men and women in cities do not have to work nearly as hard as rural men and women. Trust me on this. I’ve lived extensively in both worlds and I’ve seen the differences.

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