Betty, Peggy, and the Post- : Women in Mad Men

Meeting date: 9/19

Attendance: Clay, Marshall, Charlie, Candace, Lauren, Tim, Catherine

Episode 2: Ladies' Room

In Mad Men’s second episode, entitled “Ladies’ Room,” the show’s creator and lead writer Matthew Weiner begins to address a mere reality of the 1960s which has evolved into a throbbing social issue today: sexism and the objectification of women. The episode explores these questions through portrayals of sexual harassment in the workplace and displays of an ideological belief in the inherent inferiority of women in both the workplace and the household. By thematically endowing the episode (telegraphed by the title) with the gender issue, Weiner touches upon chords of the post-feminist discourse being explored in mass media and cultural studies. In the “Tyra Banks Is Fat” reading for class, Ralina Joseph has deposited arguments and propositions related to this vein of post-feminism. It is incumbent upon the scholar reading both the mass mediated text of Mad Men and critiques of texts containing similar, gender-oriented context to discover how each can inform and elucidate further truth from the other.

In “Ladies’ Room,” Weiner depicts the character of Peggy and her introduction into what the audience understands as a typically male-dominated and sexist 1960s workplace setting at Sterling Cooper. Peggy observes women crying in the bathroom, is subjected to fraternity-boy repartee at lunch, encounters and resists sexual advances by male co-workers, and, ultimately, after a moody and music-accompanied sequence of men staring at her while they pass by her desk, takes her own visit to the Ladies’ Room. At this point, Weiner guides Peggy’s character to “suck it up” rather than have an emotional breakdown. This internalization Peggy makes of the structural inequality in her workplace materializes Ralina Joseph’s “pervasive post- logic” in which subordinated groups, in the interest of progress and civility, must “move on.” However, more subtle than this is that, in lieu of the character Peggy’s actions, Weiner’s action of producing this instance in a mass mediated fiction actually represents what Joseph would term an “operative, functional post-moment.” That is to say, Weiner’s aim is to critique a rise of post-feminism he sees in workplace culture or within society at-large by aesthetically reminding his audience of the emotional pain caused to women.

Weiner constructs a more sub-textual reference to the gender code in the episode through further surveying Don and Betty’s marriage and his affair with Midge Daniels. In “Ladies’ Room,” Betty and Don’s relationship is centered on her psychological struggles and the resultant effects on the state of their marriage. Aside from nods to the taboo nature of psychiatry in early 1960s popular opinion, Betty’s surfacing insecurities and struggles allow the audience to turn a more deeply critical lens toward her relationship with Don. The introduction of the divorced character of Helen Bishop, Don’s refusal to share his past with Betty, and Betty’s reliance on Don’s wisdom regarding her need for psychiatric help all reveal Weiner's suggestion to the audience to understand the character of Betty Draper as childlike, innocent, and submissive. Simply put, Weiner posits that middle to upper-class housewives of the 1960s were yet a largely subordinated group, coddled and punished like children within the household all while being expected to act with the utmost chivalry and class without. Expected to be dependent on their husbands for everything, Betty and her neighbor friend can not comprehend the concept of divorce and live in terror of the threat of martial disharmony, something that Betty senses might be all-too-close to home. Then, for Joseph, the idea of Helen Bishop becomes a “post-moment” within the narrative of Mad Men and an operative one to remind to modern audiences that the odor of 1960s female subordination still lingers.

Joseph’s post-feminist position complements Weiner’s rendering of female subordination and objectification in Mad Men’s 1960s and both critics would argue that there exists the same ideological structure today; Joseph would go further to applaud Weiner for challenging that structure and proving those gender boundaries are more malleable today than ever.