New America

Show female characters engaging with both work and personal/family responsibilities while acknowledging tensions and challenges between work and home.

Don't reinforce tropes like hard-charging boss ladies who ignore their families, supermoms who do it all easily, the glorification of mom-guilt, or women who are uncommitted to their paid work because of motherhood, unless you plan to interrogate these stereotypes.

Show male characters as loving, involved, committed parents and caregivers, and make sure they’re seen at home and at work when relevant.

Don't reinforce tropes that feature men who care as either clueless and/or abusive fathers or “mannies” without paid jobs.

Show women and men taking equal responsibility for household and caregiving tasks, with characters acknowledging and navigating conflicts that sometimes arise.

Don't default to traditionally “male” and “female” roles unless that’s key to who your characters are, and avoid caricatures of universal harmony or conflict.

Make children, older adults, or people with disabilities visible when they’re part of an on-screen family. When they’re off-screen, discuss where they are and who is caring for them.

Don't allow family members’ care needs to be invisible in a story, depict care as unrealistically easy, or make caregiving solely a mother’s responsibility.

Acknowledge family responsibilities and their effects on characters’ work lives. Consider how they would exist in real life and how they would affect a particular character given their demographics, job, and position within a workplace structure.

Don't place characters in workplaces without any reference to their home lives and relationships unless the character genuinely lacks these things, and their isolation is part of the story.

Acknowledge the demographic, economic, and systemic privileges and barriers that have shaped characters’ work, family, and care-related circumstances.

Don't treat characters’ successes and failures as solely determined by their individual effort or competence, or ignore how socioeconomic status shapes work-family challenges, solutions, and consequences.