Gilmore Girls Shows How Girls Should Be Treated

The Television Series, Gilmore Girls, portrays the life of a mother and a daughter during the beginning of the 21st century. Although so many Americans love this show due to its relatability and humor, this show possesses feminism in a way that is rare among any similar television series. Gilmore Girls recognizes traditional gender roles and lack of agency that women have in society refutes this idea. By showing a family of two women who are strong, independent, educated and infinitely amicable, this television series defies stereotypes of women.

In Gilmore Girls, Lorelai and Rory, mother and daughter, are the main characters. Lorelai and Rory live alone in a small town close to Hartford, Connecticut. Lorelai is the daughter of two extremely wealthy parents whom she lived with until the age of 16 when she became pregnant with Rory. Throughout the show Emily and Richard Gilmore, her parents, heavily criticize Lorelai for her acts of impurity and are embarrassed of her. In the show the audience is taught to dislike Emily and Richard and view their ideas of femininity as old and outdated. In this way, Gilmore Girls displays how society views women through the way that Lorelai’s parents view women. Lorelai’s mother and father also follow traditional gender roles in society. For example, Emily Gilmore always speaks very properly, dresses modestly and is very domestic while Richard Gilmore is the breadwinner for the family and does not deal with any of the housekeeping in their house. The TV show displays this lifestyle that forces the viewer to see this as absurd and unnatural and to see the very unconventional relationship between Lorelai and Rory as better.

The Television series also shows the two Gilmore girls as being young, independent and educated. In the Series, Lorelai Gilmore is even the manager at an inn where she is the boss of several men below her. Having a women displayed as a successful businesswoman refutes the idea of a patriarchal society. While it is very uncommon to have successful women in mainstream media, the show never calls this out, the show simply sets an example of how women can all be successful and professional in their lives. Often in the media women are view as being objects for the sexual pleasure of men. In Gilmore Girls, Rory and Lorelai rarely talk about the men in their lives and instead focus on the things that they love doing. It is crazy that having women in media express their desires is uncommon. While Rory and Lorelai sometimes have men in their lives, they never become completely dependent on them and they never change themselves for a man.

In conclusion, the show, Gilmore Girls, displays how women can be independent, educated and professional. The medial often unrealistically represents women in a false way that overlooks how complex females actually are. This show should be a model for other TV shows because it displays what it is really like to be a woman.