Could we be more sexist? June Lockhart, everyone's mom, played a woman physician, Dr. Janet Craig, on Petticoat Junction after Bea Benaderet died. I've been a JL fan since I was very tiny, when I first saw her on Lassie.
I still like to watch PJ, with my tiny little girl cat, Miss Bangles, curled up in my lap, cup of coffee in hand. The show comes on 6:30 am weekdays. I suppose it was a statement of its time; even professional women had to meet standards of cosmetic "beauty", and sitcoms were made of the way intimidated males, and sometimes females, reacted to them. So much for the tradition of healing women that led up to the Janet Craigs of this world.
Other shows are probably worse, though the episode where Billy Jo Bradley, played by the late Meredith McCrae, wore pants and became a "libber" till male ridicule forced her petticoat back over her head, is the most heinous I can remember.
Make Room for Daddy has early episodes where Danny Thomas sings his well adjusted, healthy "tom boy" daughter into a debutante. I wanted to wretch, and can't watch the show the same way. In another episode, Danny managed to sabotage his wife's attempts at work.
The feminine mystique was clearly alive and well.
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