LESSONS FROM THE WOMEN OF ‘MAD MEN’

Ok yes, I watch Mad Men, yes I watched all 7 seasons.

Well because I loved the fashion and I love history. History of Women and just how much we have fought for over the centuries and even the strides we’ve made.  And the clothes were just epic. Really defined the decades well. That wardrobe manager was on point for sure

So today I will share what I learned from some of the lead female characters in the show.

So I’ll start with …….

BETTY

She struck me as this lady who was defined by the man in her life. She always had a title, daughter, wife, mother, host, etc. Her husband always tagged her along to his business dinners. She played the part of a good trophy wife.

I felt that she barely knew who she was most of the time. She was always playing a part. Being married young didn’t play in her favor though that was normal those days, she barely knew who she was. Making her husband look good was her ultimate goal but it didn’t help her at all. He was constantly cheating on her and she was left in constant distress not knowing what to change.

She took a lot of her frustrations on her children.

In the end she did finally bounce back and found her voice. She was more certain of who she was and finally started to do things for herself and take more control of her life

JOAN

What can I say, it’s great to see a curvaceous woman on a show, but that’s not all there is to Joan.

The first time I saw her in the show, she stood out as a really good manager, especially of the girls in the office who were all too keen to be misused by men there. Men were so inappropriate in the earlier seasons, especially on how they treated women.

Joan tried to show the women that getting attention from men wasn’t the ultimate goal. That is a lot of what she got

She was more than her looks and she wanted to be seen in that aspect. She was forced to do a lot of things that she resented because of that fact.

She did manage to pull ahead as the show progressed. At a high price but she felt it was the only way. She tried to defy the way women were perceived in those days and tried to strike a balance between her looks and her intelligence. She didn’t feel the need to compromise her looks to be taken seriously; she wanted to be taken seriously despite of them

PEGGY

Peggy was the ultimate career girl. Well, she didn’t start that way. She was the desperate girl at the office, trying to get the attention from the men around her. She even ended up getting a child with one of them.

Peggy eventually got her act together and became more than a secretary. She became a copy writer, a job that was mostly given to men at the time. She had to constantly prove herself and had to take a lot of crap from the men at that time. By the time the show was coming to an end she had earned their respect, not just from the men, but the women as well. She inspired the women to strive for more and fight for their rights in the office.

Her personal life suffered a lot because of this and was viewed a lot as a threat to the men at that time. She longed for companionship, which eventually came but not easily.

Considering there were no women in high positions at work at the time to look up to Peggy did well for herself, even drawing from her male co-workers, even though it didn’t always work in her favor.

MEGAN

Megan was that girl who had it all. She was every woman’s envy. Looks and brains and seemed to have it all together. She was determined to be the ultimate career woman.

But then she got married. Then everything changed. Her career took a hit and her husband constantly upstaged her.

The confident woman who knew what she wanted in her life suddenly became doubtful of herself. She lost who she was and found it hard to redefine herself. In turn her whole life crumbled and even her career suffered.

At the end she ended up being totally dependent on her ex-husband for upkeep as she tried to figure out what next in her life.

She definitely should have waited to marry a few more years; I feel she’d have made better decisions for sure.

SALLY

Sally was those girls who thought she didn’t want to be like her parents and tried to do her best to be their opposite.

She looked down on her mum for being defined by the men in her life and she looked down to her dad for cheating on her mum.

She looked a lot at her parent’s weaknesses and was determined not to have any. What she didn’t realize is that her parents had a lot of strengths but just had a lot of personal issues to deal with.

In the end she realized she had more in common with them than she thought and a lot of who became was as a result of her upbringing.

Sometimes, we are hard on our parents because all we see is what they did wrong and we forget to focus on what they did right and see their human side.

Pictures courtesy of blog.wsj.com, damemagazine.com and madmen.wikia.com


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