This book by Bonnie Dow--Prime-Time Feminism: Television, Media, Culture, and the Women's Movement since 1970--has a first chapter on the Mary Tyler Moore Show and "lifestyle feminism." I think that I may need to do more research on the history of feminism in order to understand this book and its arguments, but I'm really interested in that as well!

Recently, Susan Patton's op-ed piece in the Daily Princetonian has attracted signifiant attention for its controversial call to Princeton women to work to earn a so-called "MRS." degree while at Princeton. The questions about gender, human sexual behavior, education, social class, and politics (and others) that this article raises are varied--and how we ask (and begin to answer) them depends on our particular disciplinary approach. In a reply to this post, please ask one question that you have about this article and/or a related issue that it raises for you. Your ideas might start broad--see if you can narrow them in the same way that I have modeled below--and the way that Wayne Booth advises in "The Craft of Research." Then, begin to explore the internet and post one link to an article, book, piece of media, or web resource that might help you address this question in some way.

MY INTEREST

One of the first questions that I have upon reading this article--as a 19th-century literary scholar-- is about the way that women who choose not to get married are represented. The blog post from Slate seems, of course, to defend women who choose to focus on their career or personal drives/ambitions/desires rather than on finding a man to marry. But I'm also thinking about the way that representations of career-oriented women might be varied and perhaps change through time.

INTEREST TO TOPIC

Right now, this interest--representations of career-oriented women--is still really broad, so I'll want to narrow it in order to generate a more focused topic. Thinking more about the article, I begin to consider Susan Patton's own experience--she graduated in 1977--and the way that "working women" were represented in the 70s. Now, I've narrowed a bit: representations of career women in the 70--perhaps on television.

A MORE FOCUSED TOPIC

I'll still want to narrow more, since this broad interest is likely unapproachable in a 10-page paper. But I know, for instance, that the Mary Tyler Moore show was one of the first television shows to depict a "Career Woman" who chose to pursue her work over a family. I'll start there--Mary Tyler Moore and the representation of working women in the 70s.

TOPIC TO QUESTON

Now, this how can I begin to turn this "topic" into a research question? Right now, my topic has two main keyterms: Mary Tyler Moore and representations of working women. Is there a third term that I can add here to formulate a question?

I wonder: was this television show progressive and supporting such a life path? Was it problematizing her choice? Perhaps both simultaneously? I remember that the 1970s were a big decade in terms of the feminist movement. How is MTM responding to this movement in its representation of working women? As you can see, adding this third term--feminism--allowed me to create a more focused research question.

I'm going to start my research here--with "Mary Tyler Moore" in the 70s--and think about this earlier text in order to see how representations of career focused women might have been responding to the ideas of Second Wave Feminism.