Madam Secretary: The Model Modern Woman

 

Madam Secretary: The Model Modern Woman

Good morning and happy Tuesday! It appears that this will be my final blog article of July 2022, so almost a farewell to summer too, unfortunately. Luckily, I have just the perfect Quote of the Week for this time of the year:

"Summertime is always the best of what might be."

- Charles Bowden

    From its pilot episode in 2014 to its series finale in 2019, Madam Secretary has captured the hearts and minds of innumerable viewers. Fans who have witnessed the rather unconventional State Department—and, spoiler alert, eventual White House—reign of Elizabeth McCord know that she doesn't operate like the "usual DC bureaucrat" (as so fondly put by her dear husband Professor Henry McCord); instead, Bess manages to maneuver the world of self-serving agendas and clay feet with a unique sort of moral grace. For instance, in spite of the usual (and more) party turbulence within DC, she opts to remain centrist, eventually convincing President Dalton to run his reelection campaign as an independent candidate to avoid compromising on topics that should not be so political, should not have to be compromised on for the sake of party loyalty. And while there is inevitable backlash from such a decision, us viewers are able to see that Madam Secretary and the administration make it work, from good-willed, politically unbiased negotiations (barring White House Chief of Staff Russel Jackson's often fussy role as the administration's handler of its political face) to the occasional strong-arming of finicky foreign diplomats. Yet even with everything her job demands, Elizabeth still manages to co-run a household that is devoted, accepting, and fun, with affectionate and rather witty bickering that keeps the show light and heartwarming in a way no other political drama can. She is, in the simplest terms, a model modern woman. 

    From the very beginning, it’s also made abundantly clear that the three McCord children are nurtured and raised with a very principled education, thanks to both their ethics professor father and strongly righteous mother, therefore resulting in steel morals. So it’s no surprise that Stevie, Elizabeth and Henry’s eldest, often takes quite the offence to any notion that her job as Russel Jackson’s White House intern and her ability to enter law school is purely due to a her parents rather than her own intelligence and hard work. As her father put it, “She grew up with an ethics professor; we’re a little sensitive about charges of working the system.” 

    In a specific scenario, Stevie had informed Russel Jackson’s fill-in secretary, June, that she would be at a doctor’s appointment in a few days’ time during noon. As it turns out, the “doctor’s appointment” was, in reality, an interview for a position as a legislative correspondent for one Congresswoman Kane. Unbeknownst to Stevie, June had already predicted such a scenario, thanks to both her knowledge as Russel’s former secretary for many years and her connections in DC. June later asks Stevie how her interview went, with the latter obviously being surprised at how the older woman knew of her true appointment, although Stevie briefly denies that it was truly an interview. The young McCord eventually caves and tells the secretary that it went quite well, and that she was even offered the job. June nods dismissively, saying, 

“Well, of course she offered you the job. You’re a hot ticket.” When Stevie responds with a slightly befuddled look, June continues. 

“You have an inside ticket to the White House, not to mention a direct line to your mother. This town will take connections over anything else, so if you’re going to allow yourself to be poached, hold out for your best offer.” 

    While June’s advice was delivered with fully well-intended sincerity, Stevie’s insecurity over nepotism was drawn out once again in this instance. A few days later, Stevie confronts June with her sentiments, saying she felt underestimated in the fact that June had implied she’d only received the job offer due to her connections. And while June says she didn’t say “only,” she is sorry that she made Stevie feel underestimated. 

    The conversation could have ended there, of course, but for the sake of a little thought provocation, it didn’t. Stevie continues on a rampant with her beliefs and feelings, saying that while June’s generation of women “didn’t necessarily learn to be comfortable with ambition in the same way,” they [women in general] “have to demand more power ourselves, you know? Otherwise, we just all get stuck serving powerful men.” Realising she had just implied that she believed June was a woman “stuck” serving a powerful man, Stevie attempted to backpedal, but it was too late. 

    After having watched this episode, I thought of the unfair but pervasive belief that women of older generations were/are somehow more submissive to the global patriarchy than women of today are; that they, for whatever reason, hadn’t done quite as much in their part fighting for a power balance between genders. But had we all forgotten “unbought and unbossed” Shirley Chisholm, who was not only the first American woman to make a presidential bid but also the first Black woman to do so? Not to mention the fact that she became the first Black woman in Congress in 1969, most likely when June was still just a little girl! Or perhaps many of us modern women just don’t know the stories of legends like Mildred “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias, a four-time world record breaker and 1942 US Olympian track and field star who won multiple gold medals. Track and field wasn’t her only strength though; Babe excelled in multiple sports—especially golf, having won ten Ladies Pro Golf Association major championships. Did I mention that she’d also founded the LPGA? Again, all this before “women of June’s generation” were even born. 

    It is empowering and invigorating to think that we are at one of the farthest points we have ever been in the fight for women’s rights, gender equality, and more (although recent events have certainly backtracked us). But I believe we must correct our thinking that us merely existing in a time where we have the right to be so full of flagrant, public ambition as women without as much judgement or alienation somehow makes us superior in achievement to our predecessors. After all, our foremothers pushed forward with their literal blood, sweat, and tears to ensure that we could have the space to settle our spotlights in the world. They gave us their bodies, their minds, their ideas, legacies, and dreams for just the sliver of a chance that one day it would add to women’s greater good, that one day we could have the opportunity to work centre stage rather than behind the scenes like they were so often forced to do. It is that tough as nails ambition, the one that isn’t made of self-serving agendas and clay feet, that I admire the most about women of previous generations. 

    So yes, Elizabeth McCord most certainly is the model modern woman, from her role as a world leader to her role as a mother of three. And Stevie McCord most certainly is a clever, on-the-rise young woman with the mind and drive to satisfy her ambitions, even without her relations. But let us never forget the millions of fighters who came before, model women in their own contributive ways, who widened the mould that modern women today can step into. 

- TCP.