OK. Many of you are too young to know much about Mary Tyler Moore and the characters she played on TV sitcoms. So, I am here to tell you about her and what generations of women before you learned from her.
Mary Tyler Moore became a household word in the 1960’s when she starred as Laura Petrie, the wife of Dick Van Dyke on The Dick Van Dyke Show. She played the typical housewife/stay-at-home mom who was popular in the day. She was quirky and smart and got herself into trouble about as often as Lucy Ricardo on the I Love Lucy show. She was beautiful, smiley, looked great in capri pants, could dance up a storm — AND all while she cooked dinner and waited on her man. We loved her, and she entertained us, but she did not necessarily inspire us. It was her next role that took women’s admiration for Mary Tyler Moore to the next level.
In her role as Mary Richards, TV news producer on the 1970’s Mary Tyler Moore Show, she created a vision of the new independent woman we all wanted to emulate. She was single, in her thirties, confident, and she wanted a career — and she knew she was entitled to one. In fact, she wanted a career over everything else. She saw no reason why she could not compete on an equal footing with men, which she did with grace, charm and humor. She was seen and she was heard on issues that were hardly talked about in those days, like equal pay and birth control. More than fifty years ago, she helped shape the thinking of young women today in terms of their ambitions, their capabilities and their sense of personal and professional value.
We all owe Mary Tyler Moore a great debt of gratitude for her pivotal roles in our coming of age as young women in America, and that is why there were so many public tributes to her when, sadly, she died earlier this month. Her death left holes in the hearts of many who loved her and admired her. I am one of those, and I still get a thrill from watching footage of the opening scenes of each episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show where she throws her girlish beret up in the air in downtown Minneapolis with great gusto that said it all: This is my town, and I will succeed.
We all need a role model like that — especially young women lawyers who continue to buck the odds at each turn as they are challenged with survival in what is still a man’s world. Women lawyers, as smart and accomplished as they are, still represent fewer than 20% of the law partners in America, and, according to a recent survey, women partners make considerably less than male partners for performing the same work. Women lawyers are still passively excluded from many of the important client development events in their firms, and flexibility to meet the work-life demands so many women experience is still far from a given.
More than anyone who ever has graced a TV set, Mary Richards was your “gal,” as women were referred to in her day. More than the female TV lawyers, who often are too dramatic and too unrealistic, Mary Richards was the real deal.
She always kept her eye on the prize, and so should you.
