Special for Women
1960s TV series about problems faced by women
Special for Women (also known as Purex Specials for Women) is an American daytime drama/documentary TV series that ran on NBC from 1960 to 1965, and also aired in England, Canada and Australia. The show dramatised problems faced by everyday women such as menopause, sexual dysfunction and the feminine beauty ideal, followed by a discussion of that episode's topic with a panel of experts.
The screenplays, mostly written by George Lefferts, were based on hundreds of hours of interviews with real women, social workers and mental health professionals. Lefferts told the Chillicothe Gazette:
All the women I spoke to weren't in the least reticent about giving me the story of their lives. Most people don't have anyone to talk to, I think. After the war, there was a basic revision of woman's role and a social lag in our attitudes hasn't caught up with it... And there is a groundswell of female opinion against the idea that the wife, after being educated for a career, belongs in the home... We have tried to present the attitudes and emotions as well as the facts. Here we try to capture the essence of reality.
The show's first season of eight episodes aired from 1960 to 1961.
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