Janet Payne

McKee's chapter on trivialization discusses the point and counterpoint of issues in the public sphere that were considered private matters, or trivial, but were made public and thus political. By bringing out problems of relationship, these private issues are no longer solved in a private space but are socialized outside the domestic domain. Habermas suggest that by offering public solutions and intervention of these problems individuals are socialized by society directly and the protective role of the family are lost. My question is, if the family was doing such a good job of solving their private problems why did we need societal intervention? The answer is because women's issues were not considered problems for a masculine society in general, or Habermas for that matter. Writers of Ms Magazine were trying to bring to light the need for an outlet for domestic issues and a resulting ethical discourse. Hence, promoting Enlightnment of modernity. I watched the movie, Overboard, after reading McKee's chapter on trivialization. Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, a real life couple, play the characters of a widow and an heiress, Dean and Annie. Dean is a carpenter who does some work for the heiress but doesn't get paid. The heiress, self-centered and selfish, has an accident on her yacht and falls overboard. The resulting amnesia places her in a vulnerable position. Dean hatches a scheme to get free childcare and housework by inventing a past that includes marriage to him and motherhood to his four sons. Her reactions to life that is completely unknown to her and her need to find out her true identity is inconsequential for Dean and his boys. The ethical dilemma here is that the male of the specie is completely dominated over the female, disregarding her needs for his. Of course, there is a happy ending, it is a comedy after all, but the premise is, in a male dominated society anything goes. I would agree with McKee that by bringing feminist issues, once considered trivial, into the platform of the public sphere women issues are being addressed and therefore, women are better served.