Sure, there's been a lot of chat about everything that's wrong with Mad Men and why women in general and feminists in particular should hate its unrepentant misogynystic guts. And let's face it: This is a show that glorifies gin, Lucky Strikes and getting laid (by anyone but one's spouse).
What's not to hate, right?
Not so fast. As Stephanie Coontz wrote a year or so ago in the Washington Post: "Mad Men's writers are not sexist. The time period was." And so as a woman and a feminist let me unapologetically admit that I cannot wait for the season five premiere on Sunday. Sure, it's great TV, and the attention to period detail is freakishly fantastic. (Pause here to drool over those dresses.) And, as nighttime soaps go, there's one hell of a story going on. But the real reason I love Mad Men -- as opposed to, say, its short-lived period clones (read: The Playboy Club and Pan Am) -- is because it resonates:
Lesson 1: The Way We Were. Want to know what second-wave feminism was all about? Or why we needed a focused movement? Look no further than the women of Sterling Cooper who, with the exception of Peggy (more later), type their days away in the steno pool or, if they're lucky, move up to the outer office, answering someone else's phone. What's great is that Mad Men doesn't pretend that these "career girls" are empowered -- as Pan Am and The Playboy Club tried to do. Instead, we get it right away: These gals are as hemmed in by the intractability of the system as they are by their rigid underwear. Their only defense against what we now call sexual harassment was a giggle and a shrug. And for those who wonder what The Feminine Mystique was all about, may I introduce you to the chain-smoking Betty Draper? She left her husband (as well she should have), ignores her kids and ran off to Vegas to marry another guy who treats her like a house pet.
Lesson 2. Where We Need to Go. So, yeah, we've come a long way in terms of career. Back when I graduated from college -- not that long ago, or maybe it was -- it was still legal for an employer to list an administrative job in the "female" classifieds and a managerial one in the "male." Most women who graduated from college were told they had three career options: secretary, teacher or nurse. And prospective employers were allowed to ask women what their husbands did for a living. Ugh. But for all the progress we've made, the workplace still hasn't caught up. Take away the ashtrays and the booze and if you look closely, you realize that the structure of today's workplace isn't all that different from Sterling Cooper's, where every Don had a Betty at home to take care of business. It's still designed by, and for, men. But the reality is that in today's world, Betty puts in 52 hours a week, just like Don, and then comes home to do the laundry. Even when men step up at home in ways their fathers never did, there's still the math: take the current workplace expectations, add in the omnipresence of technology that keeps us uber-connected 24/7, and there aren't enough hours in the day for any of us. Unless, of course, one has a housewife.
Lesson 3: Ask, dammit. In a word, Peggy. She started as a secretary and ended up a copywriter. Which apparently was pretty unheard of in those days. So how did she end up with a title, an office and a snazzy new job? She asked. Enough said. All too often, even decades after the days of Sterling Cooper, many of us are afraid to put ourselves out there, for fear we might be labeled as ambitious and thus, less likable. Or that we might get turned down. And so we cross our fingers and wait to get the nod from a higher up -- and then are grateful if we do. Sometimes it's the fear of failure that keeps us from taking those risks -- the possibility that the answer might be a big fat no or that even if it's a yes, we might fall flat on our face. But as the wise woman told us when we were reporting our book: You'll always get over a failure. But regret? It's not recoverable.
Lesson 4. Beware the personal brand. And then there's Don. Okay, he's a guy and we write about women. But, regardless of gender, he is the embodiment of what we call the iconic self, that image we create to project who we wish we were. Don is an illusionist, a mystery man who invented himself out of whole cloth and, as David Weigand writes in the San Francisco Chronicle, is "on the run from himself." Weigand, who compares Draper to F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby (Fun fact: Fitzgerald got his start as an advertising copywriter), writes:
Fitzgerald, the Midwesterner who went East to reinvent himself, saw both sides of the American "dream." On the one hand, ours has always been a culture of hope and aspiration. On the other, our abiding belief in change and the ability to reinvent ourselves can bring us perilously close to the edge of self-delusion.
Lesson 5. Embrace our differences as our strengths. It's a revolutionary thought, the idea that men and women bring different strengths and talents to the table. After all, we came up thinking that to be successful, we had to fit in -- to be "a man in a skirt," as one of our sources dubbed it. But what if we could tap into our authentic, feminine selves and do what we do best? Studies show, for example, that women are interactive leaders, we're sensitive to subliminal cues; we're multithinkers, multitaskers, and are more comfortable with ambiguity. Not to say one gender is better than the other. Just different. Which brings up one of my favorite bon mots from Man Men seasons past. The context may have been different, but you gotta love the line: "Don't be a man, be a woman. It's a powerful business when done correctly."
Follow Barbara & Shannon Kelley on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@undecidedbook
Laura Cress: Expectations for Mad Men Season Five
Lisa Solod: What We Need to Talk About When We Talk About Sex and Feminism
Erika Katz: Is Your Daughter Being Sexually Harassed at School?
3) I have talked with my parents and grandparents about this show. Living in the internet era with all information available to us at anytime, they often tell me that many of the cultural and political changes of that time were limited in terms of where you lived. My mom was not aware of the hippie movement until the 1970s. But the pattern I have gotten from my family is that you often are unaware of the changes that society has undergone until they have already occurred. When you look back on that era in 1980, you start to realize how much the world has changed. This is exactly how I feel about the present day and my own personal experiences during the1990s.
1) When you have hindsight with history, you always expect that the characters will foresee the historic change coming their way. Too many liberal commentators are looking for a key character that will be righteous and institute a culture change that we all know is going to come. But this show's focus has never been on politics and culture. This show is about its characters. The cultural and political changes of the era have always been a side note to the interaction of the characters at the advertising agency. The best example is the great scene between Betty & Don where she informs him that she no longer loves him with the JFK assassination coverage playing in the background. The characters recognized the horror for what it was and the show is about their reaction to these events without putting an emphasis on the event itself-CONT ABOVE
I don’t watch this show because I lived it and have no intention of going back there. I’ve moved onward and upward, and now I’m doing what I want rather than what a male boss tells me to do.
The funny (tragic? maddening?) thing is that the original misogynystic woman, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, is "educating" women in the "virtues" of those times, preaching that we should go back to the time before the "feminists" ruined it for all women.
She teaches women to dress pretty and use their "feminine wiles" to get what they want from men - since men are "simple creatures". How insulting to both men and women, and my question is why don't these women see it? She is encouraging women to stay home and take care of their children and men...never mind that there will be a new generation of women who are left without the means to support themselves if they find themselves alone (for whatever reason).
I think I need to start watching this show!