The Edge

Mad (Wo)Men

Posted by Sarah on March 1, 2012

Hey M-Edge Blog! My name is Sarah Windham and I'm M-Edge's PR Representative. For my first post, I thought it might be interesting to explore the difference between one of my latest TV obsessions, AMC's Mad Men, and the real world --or at least my real world. Needless to say, my field, Advertising and PR has changed a lot in the last few decades. As is its nature, it has evolved with the times, reflecting our culture's wants and needs. One of the more notable changes was the shift to include women in the workforce, and nothing dramatizes that more than Mad Men.

If you haven't had a chance to check the show out, give it a try. It's striking portrayal of the chauvinistic world that was Madison Avenue left me asking, could this have been accurate? In season one, the two characters that were most interesting to me were Betty Draper and Peggy Olsen. They seemed to be opposites; one the suburban non-working housewife and the other the working city girl. But underneath their social positions, I think they had at least one thing in common -- they were unfulfilled.

In Betty Freidan's The Feminine Mystique, she notes that during that time there was a general unrest amongst women. She wrote, "Of the growing thousands of women currently getting private psychiatric help in the United States, the married ones were reported dissatisfied with their marriages, the unmarried ones suffering from anxiety and, finally, depression." These feelings of dissatisfaction and depression were exemplified in both women. Betty Draper, for example, seeks guidance from a psychologist, suffers from numbness in her hands, and has an inability to deal with many day-to-day situations.

Peggy Olsen, on the other hand, sleeps with a slimy male colleague, requires the approval of this same individual, and appears unable make her own decisions. They both wrestled with unhappiness and confusion. What was their role? Who were they supposed to be? Even if they figured it out, how could they accomplish it in a world driven by the likes of Don Draper? No matter how far-fetched these characters are, I think this is something to remember. Today we are lucky; men and women are able to choose the life that makes them happy, whether that's a career, children, or something in between. Men can be stay-at-home Dads (imagine Don Draper doing that!) and women can be career professionals (witness me at M-Edge), it's up to them. Let's just hope the characters of Mad Men will be so lucky as to figure it out.

Pictured: Mad Men cast from AMC's series Mad Men