Thinking About the Feminist Family

I’ve often thought that American feminism, at least American feminism of the variety that traces its intellectual origins to Gloria Steinem, doesn’t wear well on the rest of the world. The thorny independence of its projects and its unwillingness to make concessions have enabled a lot of advances in the American cultural scheme of glorifying the strong individual, but created some pretty rigid (and often polarizing) boundaries for those of us trying to picture a version of ourselves from within its midst. And in cultures not built on overt celebration of the individual, inventing oneself from a location of American feminist isolationism is all but impossible.

This week’s Private Practice, “Past Tense,” which aired on October 29, uses Sharbat (Rome Shadanloo) as a focalizer for confronting this impasse. Sharbat arrives at the practice with her parents, claiming to have been raped. The family is Afghani, and Sharbat’s father has arranged a marriage for her to a rich man that will take the entire family back to Afghanistan. One problem: Sharbat’s sexual violation means that her hymen has already been broken, and she won’t bleed on their wedding night. The family wants Addison (Kate Walsh) to perform a surgery that would repair the damage to her hymen, allowing the marriage to go forward.

The women of the practice are appalled and a lively discussion follows about medical ethics: is the “beneficent” component of the medical ethics standard defined as what is medically beneficial, or what the patient believes is beneficial? Lab results come in during the conversation that complicate things even further: sperm is still present. Addison confronts her about the possibility of the abuse still taking place and Sharbat admits she was never raped—it was a lie to cover her relationship with her boyfriend. She explains that she still wants to go through with the surgery because her love of her parents, who are miserable in America, is the love that gives her the most happiness.

From here, the show settles into one of its “the patients take care of the doctors” moments. Addison extrapolates from Sharbat’s radical repositioning of herself to preserve the love she finds in her family a solution to the on-going background conflict of Private Practice: the power struggle between Sam (Taye Diggs) and Naomi (Audra McDonald). In its pursuit of this story line, the writing has been a little reminiscent of the hackneyed clichés from the first season. Naomi, the woman, is the care-giver concerned with patients and Sam, the man, is the relentless breadwinner concerned with the bottom line. Thankfully this old dance seems to be in intermission for the time being. Addison takes her teachable moment from Sharbat and confronts the entire practice about the need to move on from past wrongs and focus on functioning as a family again. Her speech does nothing for Sam and Naomi, but when it comes time to vote for who will run the practice, Violet (Amy Brenneman), Dell (Chris Lowell), Cooper (Paul Adelstein), and Pete (Tim Daly) block vote to put Addison in charge.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Stethoscopes

I always thought that Addison (Kate Walsh) was the coolest character on Grey’s Anatomy. Like the phenomenal woman Maya Angelou describes, she rises, she rises, she rises. And when she got tired of being the only one around her willing to rise, she had the courage to reinvent herself. I thought that this made a great beginning to the spin-off show Private Practice.

And then I saw the first season.

The writing was absolutely horrific; the characters were uncomplicated clichés. Last year’s writers’ strike was the best thing that could have happened to the show.

But I really thought the show could find its way, so I tuned in for the start of season two. And I’m happy to report that things are looking up! The show seems to have mostly lost interest in Sam (Taye Diggs)’s commercialism and Cooper (Paul Adelstein)’s freaky sex habits, both major improvements to the plot. The show instead has returned to Addison herself and the process of starting over in middle age, which is difficult even if you are gorgeous and a fabulously wealthy double board-certified neo-natal surgeon.

It seems that all of the gorgeous and wealthy professional women of this show are having the same problem. Overwhelmingly, the show is asking an interesting question: when your life doesn’t go the way that women’s are “supposed to”—you find yourself single at middle age, you can’t have kids, you don’t want kids, you don’t want the stable relationship with the great guy—how do you deal? How do you cope with being constantly at odds with the expectations that surround you?

What I like most about the show’s new direction is that it doesn’t pretend that these questions can be answered in forty-five minutes a week. “A Family Thing,” aired on October 1, was messy, and none of the ends got tied up, or even look like they can be. Dr. King (KaDee Strickland) is still not sure if she’s dedicated to her career because she loves it, or because it’s a shelter from having meaningful relationships. Naomi (Audra McDonald) has still added professional failure to her failing personal life. Violet (Amy Brenneman) still doesn’t know how to not live her life in a non-relationship with Cooper.

I hope that they can keep it going. The drama is not as artificial as Grey’s Anatomy, and the characters are just starting to get interesting. Addison’s story has the potential to become one of the most meaningful for women on television at the moment.