The sexism in this show really annoys me

I guess the times were different and it shows. Until the early '70's girls couldn't wear pants to school. I was born in the early 70's. I noticed that in the earlier episodes the girls always had on dresses when they went to school, but it seems around season 5 they were able to wear pants to school.

there is good and bad sexism.

I don't see much of a problem with 'let me take care of you' sexism with households. I DO see a problem with 'I work all day, you pick up my socks from the floor' sexism.

I am of, course, cool with 'girls can be anything' but in an encouraging, not forcing way.

and enough of the 'have to have it all' crap. something has to give when a ceo wants the kids to call her mommy and not the au pair.


the worst form of sexism is: what are you doing washing our neighbor's clothes for money? >slap< when the house needs money to stay afloat and the father keeps on drinking his wages away.



Oh God. Fortune vomits on my eiderdown once more. Edmund Blackadder.

The Brady Kids and US are contemporaries....actually by the late 60s the sexism was almost over... there is the good type like on the show and the bad type (Frank Sinatra et al beating up female reporters after having Mob connections and just wanting the gossip to go away, a la the Catholic priests and child molestation more recently).

Actually with mini skirts back then even, the girls WERE getting MUCH more liberation fashion-wise than, say, 1950s girls (the Screen Gems cuties like Mary Stone of "Donna Reed", the Anderson chicks - my favorite kind of sexism - on Father knows Best,etc.). THOSE teenage girls wore the SAME long lovely dresses as did their mothers. 

BTW In 1961 on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" Laura Petrie already was popularizing pants--capris in this case--in 1962 "The Jetsons" had Judy Jetson in both short wolf wqhistle slitted Minis (like something Tex Avery would design for Hanna-Barbera, given his 1940s slit-dressed hot chicks) AND capri pants..no naked legs! Jane Jetson though, kept the dress and no pants thing.)



Amanda Bynes is hot and Lindsay Lohan is not.
Profile pic: Courtney Thorne-Smith.

I think that's it, the contemporary aspect. When it's before your time, you see it as just how it may have been. When though it's during your time, you're aggravated that they weren't more empowered.

The Brady Kids are a bit older than me. I too was bothered by the sexism, especially in that episode. I did like when Jan said that boys should use hairdryers because many of them have longer hair than some of the girls.

It though was a sign of the times. There were strong women throughout history. These shows though were the sign of the times for their television eras.

I am a female. But one thing I never liked, was women wanting it both ways.

Like, they want to be fire-fighters, and to be eligible for all the fire-fighting jobs men do. But then they want certain requirements (like weight carried) changed for them. Which can cause a real liability, if she is physically unable to do the job.

Or, as someone else pointed out. The birth-giving woman says "here you go, stranger" and hands a two-month old baby to a nanny, day care worker, etc. Because her "ca-REER" means everything to her. Then has a tantrum when the kid bonds more with the person raising him than with her. Or the nanny tells her the kid took his first steps, etc.

Growing up in the 1970's, while women were forging careers in traditional male dominated roles, there was a huge divide between the genders in school as to what were deemed acceptable pursuits. When I watch 'The Brady Bunch', I understand that the gender inequality portrayed on the show does not exist now, but that it reflects how things generally were.

That said, the show did have its moments where it showed that the girls/ women were equal to men. Does anyone remember the big driving test between Greg and Marcia? How about Marcia's foray into the Frontier Scouts? Don't forget the female doctor played by Marion Ross in season 1 !

I agree with you and I am a female contemporary--- of Cindy.

The show does reflect a lot of the prevailing sentiment back then of the different treatment for boys and girls.

I remember when i was in junior high, the girls were AUTOMATICALLY assigned to Home-Economics Class while the boys went to wood shop. I had to get special permission to have my class switched to wood shop since that's what I was interested in doing. Turns out, within a year, they changed the policy entirely and allows kids to pick what they wanted to take.

But I think the Brady Bunch always seemed to be behind the curve when it came to these things. It lagged by several years what people actually did.

When it comes to I Love Lucy, I just want to smack Ricky. Let's face it, Lucy was a 40 year old woman--- not a young ingenue and he treated her like she was a kid.

Women's lib was a thing back in the 70s. The writers incorporated it in the show.