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Emily Norman
Professor Shirilan
ETS-305
December 18th, 2015
The Gendering and Stereotyping of Soap Opera Viewers as Collectively Female and Why
this is a Contradiction
When I mention to people that I’ve chosen to study the world of daytime soap operas for
my Performance Studies course, it’s easy for them to make the mistake of thinking that I
will be studying the actors’ performances. It seems logical enough that to discuss soap
operas – a genre teeming with overwrought, melodramatic acting – in such a course
would lead to a profile on the actors’ performances. However, I find that the
performance put on by the viewers of daytime television is much more interesting one to
delve into. In that vein, then, of looking at viewers of soap operas and not the programs
themselves, I have taken note of one key characteristic of the daytime audience that has
turned up over and over again since soap operas’ inception: they are all assumed to be
women. Indeed, when asked in 1977 if he was nervous about introducing storylines that
skewed younger on daytime, CBS executive Michael Ogiens replied, “these [older]
women have daughters who watch too” (Allen 128).
And those daughters did grow up to watch soap operas, although, that begs the
question: why didn’t the sons? Why are male viewers so regularly excluded from being a
recognized part of the soap opera audience? Indeed, even in instances when men are
included in this group, they are oftentimes stereotyped as being gay or feminine.

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Why does this taboo exist? Why is there a socially constructed barrier that prevents
men from watching soap operas with their masculinity still intact? I will be looking at
this question with regards to both history as well as theories of gender construction within
society. Finally, I will be looking at the slippage that occurs between the gendering of an
entire audience and the stories that are broadcast into homes nationwide. I will be doing
this by looking at once storyline in particular: the gang rape of Marty Saybrooke in the
spring of 1993 on One Life to Live (1968 – 2012, television; 2013, web). In this case, a
disturbing amount of violence is enacted against a female character. If this is truly a
women’s genre, why are soap operas telling such blatantly misogynistic stories?
Unsurprisingly, this phenomenon of gendering an entire audience rises up out of a
specific historical context. At the dawn of the 1930s, radio was quickly becoming a mass
medium. Programs such as Amos ‘n’ Andy captivated huge American audiences at night,
which was alluring to advertisers who wished to reach large amounts of listeners with
their products. Meanwhile, however, by 1930, there was little to no research being done
on daytime listeners; “in 1930 no firm data existed on how many people were available to
listen to radio before 6:00 P.M., who they were (except that they were female), whether
or not they were disposed to listen to radio at all during the day, or if they would attend to
advertisements broadcast during the day” (Allen 106). Here, we see perhaps the earliest
example of gendering the daytime audience; indeed, it happened before the term ‘soap
opera’ was even coined. Stations and their advertisers, without “firm data,” concluded
that all daytime listeners had to be female.
Why is that, though? I suppose this notion must have risen out of the tired ‘women
stay home while men go to work’ narrative, but it warrants mentioning that this sweeping

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statement was made in 1930, during the Great Depression. By 1932, the unemployment
rate in the United States would reach a staggering 23.6% (“United”). That means that
nearly one in four Americans were out of work. Continuing with the narrative that only
men had a place in the workforce, that means that nearly one in four American men were
at home during the day. That seems an awful lot of men to discount all in the name of
conforming to gender roles.
Also in 1930 was the official launch of Irna Phillips’ Painted Dreams, long accepted
as the very first daytime serial. Phillips, an actress who would go on to create Guiding
Light (1937 – 1952, radio; 1952 – 2009, television) and As the World Turns (1956 –
2010; television), was commissioned to “[develop] a daytime serial story that would be of
special interest to women, and, hence, to manufacturers of products used in the home”
(Allen 111). This, of course, set the baseline for all future gendering of viewers of soap
operas – although, again, the term would not be coined until the end of the 1930s. These
daytime serials, from their very inception, were meant to be directed toward women, and
not toward men. They were meant to be vehicles through which advertisers could sell
dish soap and medicine to female buyers. Indeed, in 1932, a study concluded that “the
program sponsor should realize that the housewife in a majority of cases is the member of
the family who has the most influence upon family purchases and is the one who spends
the greatest amount of time in the home. She is, therefore, the member of the family
most easily reached by radio broadcasts” (Allen 107).
Although this was the social climate of which soap operas were born, this is very
much no longer the case. Feminist movements of the 1970s resulted in large numbers of
women flocking to the work place in lieu of staying at home. Recent data from the

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United States Department of Labor shows that 57.2% of women of working age in the
United States participate in the labor force, as opposed to 69.7% of men (“Latest”).
While these rates are still not equal, they are certainly much closer than they would have
been in the 1930s, when women were considered to be the homemaker of the family by
default, and, therefore, the only conceivable audience for daytime dramas. Indeed, if
57.2% of women and 69.7% of men are participating in the work force, that means that
42.8% of women and 30.3% of men are not participating in the work force; in other
words, a nearly equal number of women and men are home during the day, when soap
operas are broadcast.
This, however, has become a rather moot point in recent years, as television-viewing
habits have changed greatly in the digital age. Amanda Lotz’s The Television Will be
Revolutionized, first published in 2007, discusses some of these changes in great detail:
“Unlike the fairly uniform experience of watching television in the
network era, by the end of the multi-channel transition, there was no
singular behavior or mode of viewing, and this variability has only
increased in the post-network era. For example, research of early DVR
adopters found that they sometimes engaged television through the
previously dominant model of watching television live. However, at other
times and with other types of programming they also exhibited an
emergent behavior of using the device not only to seek out and record
certain content but also to pause, skip, or otherwise self-determine how to
view it. Control technologies have effectively added to viewers’ choice in
experiencing television, as they have enabled far more differentiated and
individualized uses of the medium” (Lotz 16).
This recent shift in viewing behavior also helps to break down the misconception that
only women watch daytime. Most viewers in 2015 depend upon technologies such as the
DVR to record their programs for a later time or date. This, coupled with online
streaming devices such as Netflix, Hulu, and, perhaps more ethically questionable,
YouTube, ensures that little to no viewers remain to watch programming in its original,

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broadcast timeslot. Therefore, any and all arguments that women are the sex more likely
to watch soap operas because of their placement in the daytime are rendered rather
useless. In a time when every program can be accessed after the fact, there are no gender
restrictions on who can access it.
The most interesting part of the gendering of the collective soap opera audience,
however, is not that it is presumed to always be female; it is the fact that men are not
allowed to take part in this experience due to a socially constructed taboo. Men who
break this taboo are often ostracized or considered to be feminine. In fact, a quick
Google search of ‘men watching soap operas’ yields the following results: “Straight Men
Don’t Watch Soap Operas”; “Are Dudes who Dig Soap Operas a Turn Off?”; “Do REAL
Men Watch Soap Operas?”; “Why Can’t Straight Guys Like Soaps?”.
The first of these results – “Straight Men Don’t Watch Soap Operas” – is a blog post
written by a woman named Carolyn Ridder Aspenson, who proclaims this to be “a
factually based commentary.” She prefaces much of her actual commentary with a rather
defensive disclaimer that sexuality makes no difference to her before continuing; “I know
there are ‘signs’ than can give [being gay] away… I now know that gay men simply dress
better than straight men… Therefore, let me tell you how incredibly happy I was to know
that it’s a proven fact that straight men don’t watch soap operas. Finally someone clued
me in!” This, in itself, is a disturbing commentary, not rooted one iota in fact, as she
announces it to be. A person’s sexuality cannot be determined by examining his or her
taste in clothing or television. Regardless, she continues down this path a little longer:
“That realization has created some great trepidation and angst for me!
I’ve been up all night thinking about this and have come to realize some
things about some very important men in my life! I hate to write this for
all to see, but I simply must deal with my issues in the best way possible

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and writing is like therapy for me. Some of the most important men in my
life are, well… Gay… My Grandpa was a tough guy. Not someone to
mess with because let me tell you, he had some serious connections into a
world of not so nice people! You saw my Grandpa you showed him
respect! Little did I know that the man with five children and countless
grandchildren was, well…Gay… Poor Grandma. I wonder if she ever
knew? Thankfully during my father’s formative years there was no TV. I
might not be here if there had been” (Ridder Aspenson).
Here, we see Ridder Aspenson begin to apply this “factually based commentary” to real
life, as she assigns her grandfather a sexuality based on his preference in television.
What I find most interesting about this anecdote, however, is the fact that she
characterizes her grandfather as a “tough guy” and someone to whom “you showed…
respect” in the past tense. These are just two of the many traits that have come to
represent normative masculinity; “real men” exude toughness and are “not someone to
mess with.” Therefore, by putting these traits in the past tense, Ridder Aspenson is
dismissing his normative masculinity, due to the fact that he broke a hereto forth
unspoken rule: men do not watch soap operas, and, those that do, are gay. Additionally,
Ridder Aspenson contemplates what may have happened had her father grown up
watching soap operas; “[she] might not be here…”. Again, this line of thinking is
absolutely absurd; does she truly believe that, had her father caught a glimpse of As the
World Turns growing up, he might have become exclusively interested in men?
Indeed, she does go on to write that her son must be gay as well; “it amazes me that a
five year old boy who truly has no idea about sexual preferences or how he’s going to
end up in life can be gay at such an early age. But let’s face facts, the kid has spent many
a day snuggled up next to me, watching General Hospital” (Ridder Aspenson). Here, we
see that not only can “real men” not watch soap operas, but “real boys” have also been
forbidden. This seems even stranger; after all, she does assert that he “has no idea about

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sexual preferences.” Why is it, then, that a boy would be considered gay at the age of
five years old just for watching a particular genre of television?
The answer, of course, goes hand in hand with the fact that gender is a social
construction. At the beginning of her essay “Performative Acts and Gender
Constitution,” Judith Butler quotes Simone de Beauvoir’s claim that “one is not born, but,
rather, becomes a woman” (Butler 214). This, I think, is a particularly important quote to
keep in mind while considering the mass gendering that is at work when discussing soap
opera audiences. Butler then goes on to write, “in this sense, gender is in no way a stable
identity or locus of agency from which various acts proceed; rather it is an identity
tenuously constituted in time – an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”
(Butler 215). This last, italicized phrase – “stylized repetition of acts” – is, I believe, the
most helpful term. If, as Butler asserts here, one becomes their gender through a
“stylized repetition of acts,” then it must be that participating in the socially constructed
rules and regulations, so to speak, of soap opera viewership helps to establish one’s
gender. This does not mean that all females must watch The Young and the Restless to
“[become] a woman,” but, rather, that all males must refrain from watching The Young
and the Restless in order to remain men. When this repetition of acts is broken – when
Ridder Aspenson’s grandfather and son sit down to watch soap operas – the identity is
broken, and the men who are consuming daytime drama are no longer “real men.”
Up to this point, I have looked less at soap operas as a text, and more as a vehicle
through which gendering takes place. Now, however, I would like to turn my attention to
the genre as a text, and look at a flaw in the logic that soap operas are a “women’s
genre.” This flaw lies in soap opera storytelling itself, which has a distinct infatuation

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with violence against women, or, more specifically, rape. In Dianne L. Brooks’ chapter
“Rape on Soaps” in Feminism, Media, and the Law, she writes:
“The history of sexual violence on soap opera is nothing if not
problematic. Many people associate soap opera rape with the Gone with
the Wind rapist-as-over scenario, and it is true that very often soap operas
have functioned to demean women characters by making them either fall
in love with their rapists or become a better character as a result of the
crime. These approaches to rape rely on and therefore serve to reinforce
the mythology that informs rape discourse and the operation of rape law”
(Fineman, McCluskey 109).
This, of course, serves to further bolster this slippage between the presumed female
audience and the stories they are told to consume; why would women want to watch
other women be sexually assaulted, and then demeaned further by falling in love with
their rapist, or, perhaps even more disturbing, “become a better character as a result of the
crime” over and over again?
And, indeed, it is over and over again. Upon Googling ‘soap opera rape’, a page from
‘Soap Opera Wiki’ comes up with a list of rape victims; that number is currently at 82,
although I certainly make no assertions that this is an entirely accurate number.
Regardless, however, 73 of those 82 fictional rape victims are women, meaning that
nearly nine in ten rape victims on daytime television are women (“Fictional”). For a
genre that is purportedly intended for women, this seems like a staggering amount of
violence against them; in fact, even if one were to spread those 73 rape storylines out
over ten years, viewers would still be inundated with about seven rape storylines a year.
In order to look closer at this contradiction, I have chosen one particular rape storyline
to be a sort of case study: the gang rape of Marty Saybrooke. This storyline ran in the
spring of 1993 on ABC’s One Life to Live. It helped to launch the acting careers of
Susan Haskell and Roger Howarth, both of whom won Emmys for their performances as

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rape victim Marty Saybrooke and rapist Todd Manning, respectively. To give a very
brief synopsis – although the concept of a ‘brief synopsis’ is a bit like a mythical creature
in the realm of soap operas – Marty Saybrooke is a college student at Llanview
University when she drunkenly attends a Spring Fling fraternity party. Three of the
fraternity brothers, Todd Manning, Zachary Rosen, and Powell Lord III, corner her in a
bedroom, where they violently assault her. When Marty leaves the fraternity house, she
immediately calls for help; she has the appropriate tests taken at the hospital and calls for
the brothers’ arrests. The ensuing trial aired for much of the summer of 1993, during
which a series of pertinent questions were raised in regards to whether or not Marty could
somehow be to blame for what happened at the party: was her drunken state and
revealing wardrobe a mixed signal to the frat brothers; was her past sexual promiscuity to
blame; did her past sexual relationship with Todd Manning somehow negate the violence
of her attack? The answers to all of these questions, of course, were a collective,
resounding no, which perhaps lends a bit of credence to soap operas as a “women’s
genre”; the writers at One Life to Live genuinely wanted to tell a social commentary story
and raise awareness about sexual violence.
However, not to stray too far off topic, the contradiction lies in the rape scene itself:
“…A conscious effort was made to dramatize the rape from other than the
usual voyeuristic perspective. There were no full-body shots of the
assailants and the victim together during the assault; instead, most shots
were close-ups from the perspective of the victim. There were relatively
few shots of the victim in a pained expression; rather, there were shots of
her wrist ties or the gag about to be used. These scenes were constructed
to disturb rather than to excite or invite the audience to watch” (Fineman,
McCluskey 116).
If this scene was filmed “from the perspective of the victim,” then that would mean that
the audience is being invited to view this scene through the eyes of Marty Saybrooke.

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While certainly no audience member, male or female, would be comfortable with this
kind of perspective, it seems particularly cruel to make female viewers endure sexual
violence through their television sets. Furthermore, Brooks writes that “these scenes
were constructed to disturb rather than to excite.” Once again, it can be argued that the
writers at One Life to Live wished to disturb all of their audience, regardless of gender, in
order to force them to think more closely on sexual violence.
However, remember that this is a genre for “[older] women” and their daughters;
remember that, in all of the studies performed, it was concluded that women were the
members of the family at home during the day; remember that men who watch soap
operas are not “real men,” and are, therefore, shamed from doing so. If all of these
presumptions about female viewership of soap operas is true, then why would legions of
soap opera writers continue writing stories that disable and inhibit female characters?
Why would they write “to disturb rather than to excite” the women that they claim are
watching?

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Allen, Robert C. Speaking of Soap Operas. The University of North Carolina Press, 1985.
Web.
Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution.” The Performance Studies
Reader. Third Edition. Henry Bial and Sara Brady. New York: Routledge, 2016.
214 – 225. Print.
“Fictional Rape Victims.” Soap Opera Wiki. Wikia. Web.
<http://soap-opera.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Fictional_rape_victims>.
Fineman, Martha, and Martha McCluskey. Feminism, Media, and the Law. New York:
Oxford UP, 1997. Web.
"Latest Annual Data: Women of Working Age." Women's Bureau (WB). United States
Department of Labor. Web. <http://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/recentfacts.htm>.
Lotz, Amanda D. The Television Will be Revolutionized. New York and London: New
York University Press, 2007. Print.
Ridder Aspenson, Carolyn. "Straight Men Don't Watch Soap Operas." Carolyn's World.
Web. <http://www.eyeonsoaps.com/carolynstraightment.htm>.
Schechner, Richard. Between Theater and Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1985. Print.
"United States Unemployment Rate." Infoplease. Infoplease. Web.
<http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104719.html>.