The Week The Women Went Television Show
Women Leave Town for a Week as Part of Hit Canadian Reality Show
The show, produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, is a popular reality television show in Canada. Now in its second season, the current show chronicles the real lives of men in the Maritime town of Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, as they struggle to keep their kids fed, their houses in order and all their other work done too.
The show moved to a different community in each of its two seasons. The first season was based on families in Hardisty, Alberta.
Reality Show Plot
The Week the Women Went is an entertaining look at what would happen if women left their families and homes in the care of their husbands for a week. For most of the men, cooking a healthy meal for their kids, doing the dishes and finishing the laundry is something they've never done before.
Once their wives head out for a relaxing week-long break, the men find out just how busy a woman's day can be. For some men, the jobs are small, such as a few minor home repairs. Other men who blocked out their wives' complaints finally get a chance to see how frustrating it can be when they have to cook supper under a leaky kitchen roof or a fork becomes the only way to flush a broken toilet.
Many of the men featured on the show are also dealing with work or family conflicts and use the extra time at home to reconnect with their children. In addition to their duties at home, the men must also finish a community project aimed at revitalizing the town.
Canadian Social Experiment
The Week the Women Went is an experiment in human behaviour, according to the CBC. As the show's website says, "The series seeks to answer a simple, yet poignant question: what would happen if women disappeared?"
The Maritime community of Tatamagouche has a long history in the fishing and farming industry, and most residents adhere to traditional roles of men and women. The majority of women in the town, 167 of them according to the CBC, participated in the show.
"The Genuine Progressive Index for Atlantic Canada shows that Nova Scotian women do nearly twice as much unpaid housework as men - a ratio almost unchanged in the past forty years even though these same women have doubled their contribution to the labour force," the CBC adds.
Canadian Reality TV a Hit
The show is a hit in Canada and has already been nominated for a Gemini award. News articles about The Week the Women Went talk of men discovering a new appreciation for their wives, mothers and sisters.
A January 27, 2009 article in The Record, based in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, by writer Joel Rubinoff sums up the show as "a chimp in an apron attempting to dice potatoes, do the laundry, discipline children and keep the house clean."
"The chimp might have good intentions, not to mention an opposable thumb, but any resemblance to the human keepers who normally do these tasks would be strictly superficial," Rubinoff added in the story "The Women Went ... The Men Turned Into Monkeys."
The show is also popular on the social networking site Facebook, and has attracted more than 2,800 fans so far. The Week the Women Went airs Wednesday nights on CBC.
The Week the Women Went
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