Given the amount of anxiety a lot of people are feeling after the election results were announced in the wee hours of the morning last Wednesday, I thought I would write an encouraging article. I'm not going to preach or anything. I just wanted to point out that television has been surprisingly progressive and uplifting of late. This may not sound like a big deal, but it's a media platform, which is undeniably one of the most important mediums for how societal constructs form.

First is the season two episode one of CBS's Life in Pieces, a family sitcom told in four short sketches. The episode in question is titled "Annulled Roommate Pill Shower" (which is a medley of all the mini-titles. The sketch I want to talk about is the last one, "Baby Shower." In this sketch, the family tries to throw a baby shower for Jen (mother of Lark and wife of Greg) but is quickly shut down when Greg tells them that Jen has had a miscarriage. So everyone rushes to stash the decorations and hide any evidence of the baby shower.

I, for one, think that this comical approach to a heart-breaking situation is just what the doctor ordered, especially in a time when there are so many opinions and stigmas surrounding childbearing.

Later in the sketch, Jen does discover that they had planned to throw her a baby shower and she goes off to have a little melt down by herself. The matriarch of the family, Joan (Greg's mother and a therapist), goes in after her and confesses that she has had miscarriages too.

Joan's openness about such a sensitive subject and assuring Jen that there is no need to feel a sense of shame or failure is an extremely progressive attitude. So I applaud the Life in Pieces writers for tackling such a charged subject. And I am thankful that it came at a time when a lot of women are wondering where they fit into the scheme of things in this world and whether society thinks they are worth anything.

I'll be talking about Jane the Virginand The Mindy Project in the next two installments of my series "Gender Roles &..."

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