Small town in Alberta survives absence of women in new reality show
Lee-Anne Goodman, THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO - For stay-at-home moms, golf widows and women who feel otherwise trapped at home with the kids, it's something of a fantasy: a week away at a posh resort, no kids, no husband, no phone, no housework and the sweet expectation of pending gratitude for their years of domestic toil.
That dream came true last year for the women of Hardisty, a small town in central Alberta, and the CBC was there to document the fallout in "The Week the Women Went," an enthralling new reality show premiering Monday night on the public broadcaster.
"I don't do nothing around the house; she does it all," one of the male townsfolk says in the show's first episode, one of many who express utter trepidation about the week ahead. He goes on to beg his wife not to leave in a subsequent episode.
Others are cocky, insisting they'll have no trouble staying on top of all the housekeeping and child-rearing duties in the absence of their wives and girlfriends.
In each case, nothing goes precisely as anticipated.
Based on a successful BBC series of the same name, the show's director and producer says many of the women were frightened about leaving for a week - some because they thought their families wouldn't survive without them, others because they feared they would.
"One woman said really early on: 'I have two big fears. The first is that I'll go away and the world will fall off its axis. The second fear is that I'll go away and it won't,"' Sally Aitken said in an interview Wednesday.
Others were genuinely fearful about the impact on their children, worried that the men in their lives were either too harsh, too short-tempered, too clueless or too unorganized to nurture them for a week. One single mother raising teenagers on her own fretted that her home would become party central in her absence.
Hardisty represented the perfect test tube for such a social experiment, Aitken noted, because of the nature of the work for many of the men in town.
"Some partnerships are much more 50-50, but because of the way the oil industry works, a lot of the men in town tend to work away for days, weeks and months at a time. That physically removed them from the household, and so for many of the women there was real hesitancy about whether or not they could do it for seven days on their own."
Unlike the BBC show, Aitken says, the CBC version of "The Week the Women Went" decided to explore not just how the men handle the week, but also what goes on among the women when they're living the high life in Canmore, Alta.
That proves an enticing element of the show: in episode 1, a battle royal is brewing between two of the women - the wife of one of the townsfolk who once cheated on her husband, and her openly hostile sister-in-law who's still angry about it.
Brad McKenzie, who was left behind to tend to his girlfriend's three children, says the town didn't suffer any ill effects from "The Week the Women Went," but adds there were rumours that things got dicey among the vacationing women.
"I heard some of the women were fighting a little bit on the trip, but with that many women, you're going to have a squabble anyway," the long-haul truck driver said with a laugh on the line from Hardisty on Wednesday.
The townspeople are on the edge of their seats about the show's debut, he adds.
"A lot of people really liked the attention, I think. A lot of people are excited about the show, and I think there are some people who are a little bit nervous to see what they're going to look like on camera."
McKenzie gave himself a grade of B-plus for his week's performance, even though his mother - who stayed in town - took the youngest child for a couple of nights during the week.
"But he always does that, he always goes to my mother's a couple of nights. It was just part of his weekly routine, and I didn't want to break up the routine," McKenzie said. "I think I did pretty good."
http://www.mytelus.com/ncp_news/article.en.do?pn=arts&articleID=2854661
? The Canadian Press, 2008
Lee-Anne Goodman, THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO - For stay-at-home moms, golf widows and women who feel otherwise trapped at home with the kids, it's something of a fantasy: a week away at a posh resort, no kids, no husband, no phone, no housework and the sweet expectation of pending gratitude for their years of domestic toil.
That dream came true last year for the women of Hardisty, a small town in central Alberta, and the CBC was there to document the fallout in "The Week the Women Went," an enthralling new reality show premiering Monday night on the public broadcaster.
"I don't do nothing around the house; she does it all," one of the male townsfolk says in the show's first episode, one of many who express utter trepidation about the week ahead. He goes on to beg his wife not to leave in a subsequent episode.
Others are cocky, insisting they'll have no trouble staying on top of all the housekeeping and child-rearing duties in the absence of their wives and girlfriends.
In each case, nothing goes precisely as anticipated.
Based on a successful BBC series of the same name, the show's director and producer says many of the women were frightened about leaving for a week - some because they thought their families wouldn't survive without them, others because they feared they would.
"One woman said really early on: 'I have two big fears. The first is that I'll go away and the world will fall off its axis. The second fear is that I'll go away and it won't,"' Sally Aitken said in an interview Wednesday.
Others were genuinely fearful about the impact on their children, worried that the men in their lives were either too harsh, too short-tempered, too clueless or too unorganized to nurture them for a week. One single mother raising teenagers on her own fretted that her home would become party central in her absence.
Hardisty represented the perfect test tube for such a social experiment, Aitken noted, because of the nature of the work for many of the men in town.
"Some partnerships are much more 50-50, but because of the way the oil industry works, a lot of the men in town tend to work away for days, weeks and months at a time. That physically removed them from the household, and so for many of the women there was real hesitancy about whether or not they could do it for seven days on their own."
Unlike the BBC show, Aitken says, the CBC version of "The Week the Women Went" decided to explore not just how the men handle the week, but also what goes on among the women when they're living the high life in Canmore, Alta.
That proves an enticing element of the show: in episode 1, a battle royal is brewing between two of the women - the wife of one of the townsfolk who once cheated on her husband, and her openly hostile sister-in-law who's still angry about it.
Brad McKenzie, who was left behind to tend to his girlfriend's three children, says the town didn't suffer any ill effects from "The Week the Women Went," but adds there were rumours that things got dicey among the vacationing women.
"I heard some of the women were fighting a little bit on the trip, but with that many women, you're going to have a squabble anyway," the long-haul truck driver said with a laugh on the line from Hardisty on Wednesday.
The townspeople are on the edge of their seats about the show's debut, he adds.
"A lot of people really liked the attention, I think. A lot of people are excited about the show, and I think there are some people who are a little bit nervous to see what they're going to look like on camera."
McKenzie gave himself a grade of B-plus for his week's performance, even though his mother - who stayed in town - took the youngest child for a couple of nights during the week.
"But he always does that, he always goes to my mother's a couple of nights. It was just part of his weekly routine, and I didn't want to break up the routine," McKenzie said. "I think I did pretty good."
http://www.mytelus.com/ncp_news/article.en.do?pn=arts&articleID=2854661
? The Canadian Press, 2008
