Donna Clark: Symphonic Siren/Harried Housewife

[Stinger97]

 

Donna Clark grew up in a new-money family in Dallas. Her parents are entrepreneurs who founded a high-end gadget company (à la Sharper Image) called Razor’s Edge. An accomplished musician, Donna found her calling in computers while attending the University of California, Berkeley, with Gordon, where her music/math brain lent itself to engineering. Though Donna is resigned to her husband’s being mentally absent since their failed Symphonic project, she fears that the new Cardiff Electric PC project will result in the end of her marriage. Despite this, she tries to support Gordon, in the hope that this will be the thing that brings him back to life. Along the way, and as the project becomes all-consuming, she must deal with an increasingly erratic, distracted engineer who is causing havoc in her home.

 

[Hanahope]

Damn, a woman engineer only making $15,000?  Even by 1983 standards, that seems awfully low.  I used to work summers as a temp secretary and recall the salary, calculated out, as being more than that.

[PRgal]

I asked my mom about being in IT back in the day and she told me that in the 1970s, when she first arrived in Canada from Hong Kong, she noticed that the gender balance back in the "old country" was a little bit better (not by much, but still better).  She attributed this to the relatively affordable help that middle class families got (and can still get) over there.  That way, moms (and you know it's always the moms) don't have to worry about hurrying home to make dinner for the family.  The domestic helper will get everything started.  I went to school with quite a few people who are from Hong Kong and many have moved back.  While one might see Facebook posts asking about daycare here, there, there, it's about getting a referral for a helper.  The helpers, mostly foreign women from Southeast Asia (generally the Philippines), are live-in nannies and housekeepers for the families.  Someone like Donna, whether 30 years ago or today, wouldn't be as stressed about juggling home and career in places like Hong Kong.

[88Keys]

Wow, that info about Donna...I feel like, so far, the show has shown me NONE of that.  I know it's early, but I really want to know who these people are.  Especially her, as she strikes me as one of the more interesting characters in the cast.

[Yolapukka]

 Donna has largely been in a bubble reacting to Gordon, but she already feels more fleshed out than the three main characters and I'm more interested in her as a consequence.

[renatae]

Donna rocks. She is worth the other three altogether and then some. She's like the only sane and together person around. I like how she handled Cameron after Joe's selfish bid for publicity had them all just about going down the tubes. She acted like a mother to her and Cameron seems to have turned a corner.

[Snowprince]

I like Donna, I really do. But is there now or has there ever been a more blatant Mary-Sue character in the history of televised drama?

[dubbel zout]

Donna's boss turned down her sexual advances, so that's a strike against her. Heh. I know that's not what you mean, Snowprince. I think Donna suffers from the "one normal character in a sea of lunatics" syndrome more than being a Mary Sue. (Though I get why people would call her a Mary Sue). Someone has to be the grounding character, and that someone is Donna. John is probably that person for the Cardiff side of the show.

[Jamoche]

Damn, a woman engineer only making $15,000?  Even by 1983 standards, that seems awfully low.  I used to work summers as a temp secretary and recall the salary, calculated out, as being more than that.

That is low. In 1987 I got $24K at my first job in a Ft Worth software company that was a very good example of what to avoid in software companies - when I moved to California, I was told that was low even by Texas standards.

[dubbel zout]

Of course Donna is getting a terrible salary; it's not as if she has a family to support or anything. /sarcasm

 

For some perspective, it wasn't until 1974 (barely ten years before the show takes place), that women BY LAW were able to obtain credit in their own name without having a male (husband, father) as a cosigner. And given that women still make on average 81 cents for every dollar a man makes, Donna's salary is sadly realistic.

[Jamoche]

 Donna's salary is sadly realistic.

Except it's not. I should add that I'm also a female software engineer. Entry-level, 4 years later than this show, same part of the country, working for cheapskates, I was making about 50% more than her.

[Watcher0363]

After episode 9, we must face it. Donna is one of those sweet looking women, who has more than a little of the freaky deaky in her. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Especially since she is smart and inventive. Makes me wonder what her band camp story is.