When men were men. And women were skirts.
Vacuum cleaners, lipsticks and office desks: The
dynamics of gender in Mad Men’s female characters
Master Thesis American Studies Annemieke Conijn 5733944
Universiteit van Amsterdam July 2014
worldpeaceofcake@gmail.com
Index
Introduction
p. 3
2. Mad Men as a cultural media product
p. 5
2.1 Mad Men as a ‘Quality TV’ production p. 5
2.2 Complex narration p. 11
3. Mad Men in a historical context: Analysis of
female Mad Men-characters: Betty, Peggy and Joan
p. 17
3.1 Femininity as a concept p. 17
3.2 Analysis of Mad Men p. 19
3.2.1. Betty Draper/Francis p. 19 3.2.2 Peggy Olson p. 36 3.2.3. Joan Harris/Holloway p. 49
Conclusion
p. 55References
p
. 60Introduction
Within popular culture, there seems to be a fascination for the past. Quite some cultural products deal with several historical topics or try to portray a certain era. Movies like Django
Unchained or 12 Years a Slave and television series like Happy Days and That 70’s Show are
examples of these historical products that were created in another era. One of the most rewarded (and rewarding) examples of these ‘historical’ products in the contemporary television landscape is the series Mad Men, a series that deals with the late 1950s and the decade of the 1960s.
Mad Men has been a research topic for historians because of its historical background
and its accuracy. These historians take Mad Men as a reflection of American society and debate how it reflects history. Historian Beth Baily, for example, sees the series as one in which history is ‘a main character’.1 It is a television series that deals with ‘hot topics’ from the 1960s, such as the emancipation of women, capitalism, civil rights movement, the Cold War and the presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson.
The series was created in 2007 by Matthew Weiner and shows us the world of a successful advertisement agency in New York City, in the late 1950s and the 1960s. This agency, Sterling Cooper (Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce in later seasons), is a site for though business, sexual affairs, glamorous and charismatic people, and many, many, many dollars. The private life of the characters shows a world outside the office and portrays ‘ordinary’ sub-urban lives with their partners and children. Since it takes place in another time period, it offers the audience a fascinating insight of that era. The well-created and detailed world Mad
Men portrays is why historians like Baily praise the series for its use of history and its
historical accuracy.
I have to admit that I am a huge fan of the series and I love the world of creative advertising and smooth salesmen. Main character and creative director Don Draper is actually one of my favorite television characters ever because he is a skilled businessman and knows how to get important business deals. But watching the series for quite some years now, I noticed that the series does something very interesting with its main female characters. I was fascinated by the differences between them; I admired Betty for her pretty and ‘feminine’ appearance, but at the same time, I supported Peggy for standing up for herself in a world that
is dominated by men. I appreciated Joan for her professional attitude, but felt deeply sorry for her when she became the victim of sexism. With this ambiguous feeling in mind, I decided to further research the ‘deal about women’ on Mad Men. In this thesis, I will examine the series and look at how the dynamics of gender exactly works. By ‘dynamics,’ I mean the situation of gender as portrayed on the series and the susceptibility to social and economical change. How does Mad Men portray the lives of women and how does it relate to these to their historical context? This particular curiosity encouraged me to come up with the following research question:
How does Mad Men portray the gender dynamics in its historical context as a contemporary media production?
To answer this question, I will first look at the production of Mad Men as a television series to get an understanding of what kind of product Mad Men exactly is and why this series is made the way it is made. I will discuss Mad Men as a so-called ‘Quality TV’- production because this type of television making, influences the way the past is portrayed in Mad Men. This will be outlined in the second chapter.
In the third chapter, I will look at the historical context of Mad Men regarding femininity and feminism. What did it mean to be a woman in the 1950s and 1960s and how did they live? Why did the Second-Wave feminists gain prominence in the 1960s and what where their arguments? The concepts ‘gender’ and ‘femininity’ will be explained on the basis of well-known ‘gender’ scholars such as Judith Butler and these concept will be put in the 1960s context, on the basis of the rise of the Second-Wave feminists.
The fourth chapter includes the analysis of three important female characters from
Mad Men. These characters, Betty, Peggy, and Joan, their lives and struggles are analyzed.
These findings are connected to the historical background of Mad Men. This thesis will of course be closed with the conclusion in which I will discuss the research question. How do these women live their lives in the 1960s and how does Mad Men play with the gender ideology of this era?
2. Mad Men as a cultural media product
In this chapter, I will introduce Mad Men (2007 - ) as a contemporary media product that can be labeled as a so-called ‘Quality TV’-production, and I will point out how this type of production has influenced the way Mad Men represents history.
2.1 Mad Men as a ‘Quality TV’ production
The American television production Mad Men premiered on June 17th 2007 on AMC and is as
of 2014 still a running show in the United States and other countries, including The Netherlands where the show is broadcasted by broadcaster VARA. Matthew Weiner, also famous for his work on the award winning show The Sopranos, is the creator of Mad Men and is therefore an important person in the television industry.2
Before analyzing a series like Mad Men, I want to discuss the context of the series in terms of production and appreciation. Since the introduction of television as a site for the production of fiction, the medium has developed tremendously. As of 2014, there is a type of television production that can be labeled as ‘Quality TV’ and Mad Men can be considered to be such a production. Although the term ‘Quality TV’ does not have a very specific and objective meaning, television scholars usually use the term to indicate the improving quality of television series. The ‘Viewers for Quality Television Organization’ describes it as
something that ‘enlightens, enriches, challenges, involves and confronts. It dares to take risks, it’s honest and illuminating, it appeals to the intellect and touches the emotions. It requires concentration and attention, and it provokes thought. Characterization is explored (…)’3 The American media scholar Robert Thompson has summarized several characteristics of ‘Quality TV’ that originated from debates that other media scholars had about what ‘Quality TV’ is. Among them are the following:
‘‘Quality TV’:
can be defined by what it is not. It is not ‘regular’ television
• usually has a quality pedigree. These are shows by artists whose reputations were made in
2 “Mad Men”, International Movie Database (IMDB), accessed August 29, 2013,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804503/.
3 Robert J. Thompson, Television’s Second Golden Age. From Hill Street Blues to ER (New York: Syracuse
other, classier media, like film
• attracts an audience with blue chip demographics. The upscale, well-educated, urban-dwelling, young viewers advertisers so desire to reach tend to make up a much larger percentage of the audience than of other kind of programs
• tends to have a large ensemble cast. The variety of characters allows for a variety of viewpoints since multiple plots must usually be employed to accommodate all of the characters
• has a memory. These shows tend to refer back to previous episodes. Characters develop and change as the series goes on and events and details from previous episodes are often used or referred to in subsequent episodes
• creates a new genre by mixing old ones
• tends to be literary and writer-based. The writing is usually more complex than in other types of shows
• is self-conscious. Oblique allusions are made to both high and popular culture, but mostly to television itself. (…) Both the classier cultural references and the sly, knowing jabs at
television serve to distance these programs from the stigmatized medium and to announce that they are superior to the typical trash available on television
• has a subject that tends toward the controversial. (…) The overall message almost always tends toward liberal humanism. Jane Feuer stated that ‘Quality TV is liberal TV’
• aspires toward ‘realism’
• is usually enthusiastically showered with awards and critical acclaim.’4
What becomes clear from these characteristics, also according to Thompson, is that ‘Quality TV’ has more or less become a genre on its own because it has this set of characteristics and as viewers we know what to expect, just like we have expectations when we watch genres such as westerns or police shows. Thompson suggests a certain predictability in these shows because ‘the innovative elements that have come to define ‘Quality TV’ have become more and more predictable’ and that one could ‘recognize a ‘quality show’ long before you could tell if it was any good.’ Furthermore, it is something that was referred to as a ‘set of
characteristics that we normally associate with ‘good,’ ‘artsy’ and ‘classy.”5 As of 2014,
4 Thompson, Television’s Second Golden Age, 13-15. 5 Ibid., 16.
typical ‘Quality TV’ series are, for example, contemporary series like Lost, The Sopranos,
The Wire and indeed Mad Men. Media researcher Monique Miggelbrink has an interesting
approach towards Mad Men as a ‘Quality TV’-production in her article ‘Re-Evaluating History in Mad Men.’6 She first considers Mad Men to be a ‘Quality’ series, which she defines as a production with complex storylines and episodes that do not have a narrative closure each episode but are linked together. She also states that this type of television
production is ‘accompanied by immense academic output, either due to formal considerations or topics addressed.’ This statement is also applicable to Mad Men since the series uses subtle references to academics such as Marshall McLuhan7 and addresses many important topics that prove Mad Men’s intelligent writing, like feminism and capitalism.
A last point that I like to underline with regards to ‘Quality TV’ is a development that had become quite interesting in contemporary television landscape. In their book Legitimating
Television, Michael Z. Newman and Elana Levine describe how television’s reputation has
improved and how the medium has become an interesting site for professionals from the film industry. Furthermore, showrunners (the head of a television production) can now become so-called ‘auteurs’ and this is important for the legitimation of television as a culturally
important medium. It is this notion of ‘auteur’ and other authorship discourses that promoted other cultural expressions such as art, music, painting and of course cinema as ‘culturally legitimate.’ It is therefore common that cultural forms, especially the ‘newer’ forms such as cinema and now television, are legitimated ‘through the identification of artworks with artists who created them.’8
So Newman and Levine point out that showrunners in a television production can eventually reach the status of an ‘auteur’ and by stating this, they show how the status of television is elevated after a period in which television was symbolic for superficial and trashy culture. They follow a discourse of ‘television authorship’ in relation to ‘Quality TV,’ in a way that was also used to define an ‘auteur’ in the film industry, namely by using six ‘tropes of authorship.’9 The following tropes give a good insight in the contemporary
6 Monique Miggelbrink, “Serializing the Past: Re-evaluating History in Mad Men,” Invisible Culture 17 (2012),
1, accessed July 5, 2014, http://ivc.lib.rochester.edu/portfolio/serializing-the-past-re-evaluating-history-in-mad-men/.
7 Miggelbrink, “Serializing the Past,” 1.
8 Michael Z. Newman and Elana Levine, Legitimating Television. Media Convergence and Cultural Status (New
York: Routledge, 2012), 38.
television landscape and all of these are directly applicable to Mad Men:
1.) ‘The author as guarantee of art.’ This trope refers to a Romantic notion of authorship that guarantees that an artwork should have an artist and that works without artists ‘do not count as instances of art.’ Andrew Sarris adapted this idea to American film production and stated that American cinema could be seen as an art form if directors were seen as authors. The same could be said about television, since in this era the television author has gained prominence and can be seen as the individual mastermind of a production. Some of these authors include David Chase who created The Sopranos, J.J. Abrams from Lost and indeed Matthew Weiner from Mad Men. These authors know how to differentiate their products from ‘degrading forms of television’ and add aesthetic value to it.10
2.) ‘The author’s work as product of personal experience.’ This trope shows how ‘individuals who create culture are crafting expressions of their own concern within the constraints of a commercial medium’ and it is ‘often manifested through the identification of autobiographical elements in storytelling.’ So it helps us to see the creative function of the author as we get to know that his or her life is a source of inspiration in the production.11 David Chase’s authorship on The Sopranos was noticeable through his Italian-American background but also through his own experiences. The character Lydia was for example based on the personality of his own mother, the setting of New Jersey is the one where Chase spent his childhood and he explained that he used his psychotherapy as inspiration for the plot. It exemplifies how television has the possibility to become ‘a personal medium in which one individual’s vision can be realized, making TV shows subject to the same kind of interpretive strategies that have long functioned as means of making sense of artistic works.’ ‘Quality TV’-productions with authors are personal, in contrast to impersonal television productions that lack such a strong authorship discourse, like soap operas.12
In the case of Mad Men, the personal influence of Matthew Weiner is certainly noticeable. Not only does his son Marten play the role of Don’s daughter Sally’s friend, he also expresses his personal feelings through the series. By means of interviews with the press, Weiner explains his personal input on the series. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Weiner
10 Ibid., 45, 48. 11 Ibid., 48. 12 Ibid., 50.
states that he sees himself as a combination of the main characters Roger, Peggy, Don, Pete, Joan and Betty. He also explained the meaning of Mad Men as a personal experience:
That’s what Mad Men is about: It is a construct for me to talk about how I feel about the world, for me to talk about my family, my parents, my fantasies. To see my wish fulfillments, trans my enemies, vanquish my fears or see them played out. Even just for a lesson.13
In another interview with TVGuide.com, Weiner was asked why he made a drama series that is set in the ‘60s instead of a contemporary drama. He answered as followed:
It was a period that I had been interested in intellectually, historically. My parents are steeped in it and I love the art from that period. It was really a golden age, especially for mass culture. Catch 22 was being read the way people read The Da Vinci Code now. When you read a Jane Austen book, the manners really allow you to tell a story about what’s the same and what’s different. I definitely felt like a lot of what I was writing about is the way things are now and what we have lost and what changed.14
He also had to answer the question how Mad Men’s view of the ‘60s differs from other portrayals in pop culture. Weiner answered that:
There was a huge revisionist thread in this. Being raised in the shadow of the baby boomers, there was a version of the ’60 and ‘70s that was being passed down to us that was all about how amazing these people were. And of course the big cliché was they’d all sort of sold out. I was very interested in showing that cultural changes are drastic and huge and there’s no denying them. I was not interested in just sugar-coating it and playing the Stones and showing people with long hair. I was talking about what it is like to go through a big change like that. What would the death of Kennedy look like?15
13 Eric Konigsberg, “Mad Men Creator Matt Weiner on His Hollywood Struggles and How George Lois Is Like
Tony Soprano, Not Don Draper,” Rolling Stone, September 3, 2010, accessed October 20, 2013,
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/mad-men-creator-matt-weiner-on-his-hollywood-struggles-and-how-george-lois-is-like-tony-soprano-not-don-draper-20100903.
14 Adam Bryant, “The Perfectionist: Matthew Weiner Turns the World Mad,” TVGuide.com, December 7, 2009,
accessed October 20, 2013, http://www.tvguide.com/news/perfectionist-matthew-weiner-1012872.aspx.
What becomes clear is that Weiner was inspired to write and produce for Mad Men because of his personal fascination for that particular era. He sees Mad Men as a means of
self-expression and says that he sees a part of him in the main characters, including, interestingly, the female ones. This exemplifies the space that an author has in a television production, because he is the ‘genius’ within this production.
3.) ‘The author’s works constituting an œuvre.’ The third trope shows how the author’s identity needs to be transferred from the one production to the other in order to ‘guarantee of value within discourses of legitimating.’ This will eventually help television networks to broadcast and promote the television program (‘from the creator of…’) and the audience gets to signal specific signature styles and meanings. So this identification of ‘authorial marks’ through style and meanings across the works of an author proves to be an effective commercial branding and is essential to discourses of authorship and artistry in television.16 As for Weiner, the press and also the DVD boxes from Mad Men announce him
as ‘the creator of The Sopranos’ as the marker of quality. So Weiner being a writer of The
Sopranos guarantees the audience to have a production of high quality with Mad Men. For
example, the Dutch edition of the DVD box of season 1 announces Mad Men as the ‘frequently awarded series that is invented by The Sopranos-writer Matthew Weiner.’17 4.) ‘Attribution of artistry to the individual rather than a collaborating team.’ This trope refers to the phenomenon that the artistic credits are often rewarded to the individual mastermind of a production instead to the complete collaborating team. Of course, a sole showrunner or writer cannot produce a television series completely on his own: he or she needs a professional team, but author-discourses show that individuals are inevitably promoted as solitary sources of meaning. The culture of ‘Quality TV’ distinction, therefore, ‘obscures the conditions of industrial media production and substitutes for collaborative notions of authorship a Romantic vision of the autonomous individual.’18 Once again, popular press often frames Matthew Weiner as the person who is the ‘genius’ behind Mad Men and tends to ‘neglect’ the whole production team.
5.) ‘The author as celebrity.’ This trope connects to the greater role for the television creator within a culture that celebrates creative individuals. Newman and Levine notice that
16 Newman, and Levine, Legitimating Television, 50, 53. 17 Mad Men. “The first season”, (A-Film and Lionsgate: 2009). 18 Newman, Levine, Legitimating Television, 53.
writer-producers now have new public roles and new opportunities to perform their function as authors.19 As television has gained more appreciation as a medium, the author has got a new status of celebrity and this results in more visibility in popular press and promotion. Newman and Levine specifically mention the use of Twitter for the visibility and promotion of the author. Showrunners like Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy) and Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy) use Twitter and other social media to project their stardom, interact with the audience and to offer a sense of ‘authentic and perpetual access to fans.’ Furthermore, they are able to promote their shows by sending tweets and to establish an image of being ‘down-to-earth’ because these media make it possible to interact.20
6.) ‘Authorship as elevation.’ The last trope that is mentioned by Newman and Levine is more or less a summary of the other five tropes. The presence of an author is now central to the legitimation of television and the culture of this legitimation aligns ‘Quality TV’ with other cultural forms like cinema, literature and other forms of highly respected culture.21
2.2 Complex narration
Miggelbrink also refers to an important feature of ‘Quality TV’ that is also acknowledged by the famous media scholar Jason Mittell, namely narrative complexity, a feature that can also be found in Mad Men according to Miggelbrink.22 As Thompson and Miggelbrink already pointed out, Mad Men can be seen as a production with a complex narration, a characteristic of ‘Quality TV.’ It is in this light useful to refer to Jason Mittell and to highlight his idea of ‘narrative complexity,’ so that I can eventually point out how Mad Men’s historical
background on gender is portrayed through its characters and storytelling.
Narrative complexity is regularly included on ‘Quality TV’-shows and it distinguishes itself from conventional modes of episodic and serial form.23 Mittell argues that the US television era from 1990 until now is characterized by complexity, narrative experimentation and innovation. He describes narrative complexity as something innovative for contemporary
19 Ibid., 55. 20 Ibid., 56-57. 21 Ibid., 57.
22 Miggelbrink, “Serializing the Past,” 1.
23 Jason Mittell, “Narrative Complexity in Contemporary American Television,” The Velvet Light Trap, 15
US television and something unique for the medium.24
Complex narration can be seen as a part of ‘Quality TV’ because many productions with a complex narration appeal to a ‘boutique audience of more upscale educated viewers who typically avoid television.’ It is something that can be reinforced by technology because the audience gained more control over watching television thanks to time-shifting technology like VCR and video recorders, so viewers can re-watch episodes for narrational clues or to parse out complex moments. Furthermore, transformations from television to Internet make it possible to ‘embrace a collective intelligence for information, interpretations and discussions of complex narration that invite participatory engagement.’25 So the TV-landscape makes it possible to come up with a more complex narration structure than a classical or simpler structure that was often used before.
Audiences like this form of narration. They have got a more active role in consuming this narration and they have to follow a more active and attentive process of understanding ‘the complex stories and modes of storytelling.’ So what is this type of storytelling? As Mittell puts it:
At its most basic level, narrative complexity is a redefinition of episodic forms under the influence of serial narration – not necessarily a complete merger of episodic and serial forms but a shifting balance. Rejecting the need for plot closure within every episode that typifies conventional episodic form, narrative complexity foregrounds ongoing stories across a range of genres (…)26
Complex narration is self-conscious and has the ability to weave stories that will coincide.27 It offers a mode of attraction; it uses narration as special effects and pushes aesthetics to the foreground.28 Variations in storytelling are common and done with subtlety or delay. There is no fear of temporary confusion for viewers. It may lack explicit storytelling cues and may cause disorientation, so it is asking viewers to engage more to comprehend the story.
24 Mittell, “Narrative Complexity,” 29-30. 25 Ibid., 31.
26 Ibid., 32. 27 Ibid., 34. 28 Ibid., 35.
Temporary disorientation and confusion allow viewers to build up their comprehension skills through long-term viewing and engagement.29 Viewers want to be surprised, thwarted as well as satisfied with internal logic.30 So basically, complex narrations have many possibilities to play with the audience and can reach several effects on the audience, based on their logic or experience.
Miggelbrink argues that complex narration is crucial for Mad Men because it ‘is significant in the way Mad Men chooses to tell its version of the 1960s.’ As its complex narration features elements of nonlinear storytelling, (historical) events on the show are not presented as a coherent narrative but are marked by dissonance.31 As she puts it more
concretely: ‘The Mad Men narrative offers its audience the opportunity to experience abstract history through the life of different individuals’.32 Mad Men’s nature of a ‘Quality TV’ production is therefore important because it gives space for complex narration and thus the ability ‘to balance and address the personal and the political within one complex narrative trajectory.’33
In the case of Mad Men, playing with continuation is clearly visible and the series does not always follow a classical, linear, chronological storytelling. Instead, storylines are
expanded over a number of episodes, or are ‘forgotten’ and referred to in following episodes. So storylines that often involve the personal histories of the characters may remain unsolved throughout the season.34 An example of this would be Peggy Olson’s secret pregnancy that exemplifies her as a career woman as I will point out in the fourth chapter. This storyline remains unsolved throughout several seasons; the biological father Pete Campbell does not know about this pregnancy and the series does not refer to it until many episodes later. Mad Men’s storyline is defined by ‘virtual events’ (dreams, memories, visions) that
motivate the continuation of the story. The audience learns through Don’s memory that he is hiding his true identity and that he had adopted another identity during the Korean War, through Don’s memories. And Betty’s dreams and fantasies reinforce her feelings, so Mad
29 Ibid., 37. 30 Ibid., 38.
31 Miggelbrink, “Serializing the Past,” 1. 32 Ibid.
33 Ibid. 34 Ibid.
Men uses these visual techniques to explain or define a character’s decision or personality.
Miggelbrink argues that Mad Men also uses elements like music, editing and title sequences as narrative components, but for this research it is important to look at her arguments about characters as agents of history. Interestingly, Miggelbrink shows that Mad Men’s own memory is important for the representation of history because:
Firstly, the serial form entails that single episodes refer to each other throughout and thus, as the show proceeds, Mad Men’s serial memory gains in depth. Episodes are generally based on one another; nonlinear features like flashbacks, flash forwards, dreams, visions and temporal gaps additionally deepen Mad Men’s narrative scope. Secondly, the show’s mapping of the course of history of the 1960s – the first three seasons cover historical events from 1960 to 1963 – characterizes the show’s capacity for memory. The slowly building narrative allows for an expanded portrayal of history that captures the zeitgeist of the larger era.35
Following this insight, one can argue that Mad Men gives much space to characters to show their life and development, an approach that results in a retelling of the 1960s. Complex narration (with the help of memories, time lapses, et cetera) gives the portrayal of characters a greater depth. Miggelbrink states that complex narration focuses on the character’s inner life and that an accumulation of details on the show results in character depth. She actually prefers speaking of ‘character accumulation and depth’ instead of ‘character development’ and this phenomenon is central to Mad Men’s narrative; the characters become ‘agents in its
reproduction of history.’ They become agents because the focus on their lives ‘stresses the private aspect of history’ and ‘the audience becomes more and more involved in the character’s daily life experiences as a part of cultural history of the 1960s.’36
As characters are portrayed throughout the seasons, they accumulate their own biography and this is ‘determined and restricted by its historical context,’ but Miggelbrink also underlines and quotes Matthew Weiner’s view (as author) on ‘his’ show: ‘I am interested in how people respond to change. Are they exited by the change, or are they terrified that they will lose everything that they know? Do people recognize that change is going on? That is
35 Ibid. 36 Ibid.
what the show is about.’37 He stresses the importance of change and development in another interview about avoiding repetition on the show:
Just the fact that your characters are allowed to change…And that events that happen to them on the show, that they have memories of them (…). History changing in a permanent way is part of why I wanted to do the show. I’m going to tell this 10-year period, maybe longer, in their life, and you will look back, no matter what. At that pilot, they were so innocent then (…). The other thing that’s helping me from repeating myself, is that I have been specific, not only about history, but also about the ages of the characters, and where they live and what they do. Usually, writers don’t do this because they think it constrains them. But for me, actually, if you’re allowed to change, the difference between what was on my mind when I was 35 and what was on my mind now that I’m 45 is just huge. Being able to show Peggy Olsen at 22 and eventually at 30, it’s going to be that story for me. She’s going to be a different person, and the same person also. 38
Miggelbrink then continues to show why her article is so useful for this research with regard to the historical context that involves gender, because she keeps arguing that Mad Men portrays ‘an epoch in transition marked by social dissonances, and visualizes emerging political turmoil and social change’ and that its characters ‘exemplify climaxes and turning points in the history of that era as they live through them in their everyday lives.’ (…) ‘Their feelings are captured in the midst of historical change: ‘All the characters seem to be
screaming in silence under their suits and skirts. On the inside, underneath their sleek appearance, they feel frustrated about the social restrictions they have to cope with.’39 Furthermore, the course of history turns out to be a narrative stimulant because the ‘overall motivation for its continuous storylines can be found in the question of how the characters respond to the historical context.’ So as Miggelbrink states, characters build up biographies throughout the series and these are influenced by the time they live in. Characters are therefore two folded; they are stereotypical depictions of that era, but their struggles with
37 Ibid.
38 Matthew Weiner, “Matthew Weiner, creator of Mad Men,” Online interview for World Screen, March 22,
2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us3m0Vtm5gQ.
the restrictions of that time can be seen as an implicit commentary of the show.40 The analysis in the fourth chapter will show how this personification of history and abstract, political context is constructed.
So what becomes clear from Miggelbrink’s valuable article is that Mad Men does not relay on concrete historical events, but creates its historical context through characterization and the biographies and developments of its characters through time. Mad Men does refer to specific historical events. A famous scene from Mad Men shows how the characters learn about the JFK assassination and we see how they respond to the announcement that Walter Cronkite had to make on television (‘The Grown Ups,’ 3.12). But Mad Men is not about this event, but rather deals with the emotional atmosphere and how people function in a changing society.
It is clear by now that Mad Men is a contemporary television production that can be considered to be a ‘Quality TV’ production, according to several media scholars. The
‘quality’ in Mad Men is that it contains complex narration. That is to say that the show has the ability to play with narrative conventions, but more interestingly, it provides space for
character development and this is a very important part of the show, because it contributes to the historical atmosphere of it since the characters are ‘historical agents of the 1960s.’ In the following chapter, I will look at the historical context of Mad Men in terms of gender, femininity and feminism.
3. Mad Men in a historical context: Analysis of female Mad Men-characters:
Betty, Peggy and Joan
In this chapter, I will analyze the three main female characters on Mad Men and I will look at what type of woman they are. How do these characters relate to Mad Men’s historical
context? I will take a closer look at feminism that includes the Second Feminist Wave, discuss the depiction of the ‘woman’ in images and relate this eventually to the main female characters on Mad Men. Which historical representation is portrayed on the show and which problems do the characters face as females from the ‘60s?
3.1 Femininity as a concept
In order to get a good understanding of the representation of female characters on Mad Men, it is useful to look at the image of the American woman in the 1960s and the associated roles that she had to fulfill. In academic work, and more specifically within Cultural Studies, gender is a concept that has been researched and discussed by many researchers. One of the most influential researchers on this topic is the American philosopher Judith Butler. She is the Hannah Arendt Professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee in Switzerland and is known for her innovative work on gender. She published well-known books as Gender Trouble (1990) and Bodies that Matter (1993) in which she discusses the meaning of gender and the consequences of gender related ideologies. One of her main arguments is that sex (male or female) causes gender (masculine or feminine) that eventually leads to the desire towards the opposite gender.41
In addition to the concept of gender, Butler comes up with her theory of
‘performativity.’ This theory sees a gender identity as ‘multiple, fluid and changing.’ Gender is in fact an act that is performed and this act has been rehearsed over and over again: ‘Gender ought not to be constructed as a stable identity…rather gender is an identity tenuously
constructed through time, instituted in an exterior space through a stylized repetition of acts.’42
41 “Biography Judith Butler,” The European Graduate School, online biography, accessed October 28, 2013,
http://www.egs.edu/faculty/judith-butler/biography.
42 Ruth Jeanes, “I’m into high heels and make up but I still love football: exploring gender identity and football
and football participation with preadolescent girls,” Soccer & Society 12, No. 3, (2011), 405; Judith Butler,
‘Performativity’ thus refers to men and women who behave according to their gender, according to what society expects what is male and female behavior. This may result in behavior (active men or passive women), their looks (a suit or a dress) or their roles within society (the working man or the housewife). What is important for this notion of
‘performativity’ is that these acts are continually being scripted through hegemonic social conventions and ideologies. Gender is therefore not natural but socially constructed under the influence of dominant ideologies that have been established as ‘natural and normal.’ Butler recognizes, however, that there is potential to challenge these discourses through alternative performative acts. Scholar Ruth Jeanes quotes the American sociologist Messner about gender performances: ‘The idea of gender as performative analytically foregrounds agency of
individuals in the construction of gender, thus highlighting the situational fluidity of gender: here, conservative and reproductive, there, transgressive and disruptive.’43
Although Messner refers to agency of individuals, the ideas of Butler make clear that this agency is also set within existing power regimes and that alternative performances are not that free from dominant ideologies. This is the point where Butler speaks about a
‘heterosexual matrix,’ because the possibility for individuals to act multiple performances within different contexts remains within dominant ideologies. That is to say that within this ‘heterosexual matrix,’ dominant notions of what is femininity and masculinity are still the ‘expected norm.’ It is therefore a risk to perform gender acts outside the matrix because one may be called ‘not a real woman’ or ‘not normal.’ That is why, as Butler sees it, females feel forced to confirm the norms, so that they will remain ‘a viable subject.’ If one performs a so-called ‘alternative counter-femininity’ and transgresses the norms for gender, which is possible, it is seen as ‘difficult and sometimes unadvisable.’ In Butler’s view, these
expressions of femininity are regulated and controlled through a power structure and gender constructions exist in a space of acceptability.44
Jeanes underlines the importance and relevance of the ‘performativity’ concept for her study of girls who play football (soccer). It is also of relevance for the understanding of the dynamics of gender in Mad Men because, as Jeanes puts it, it provides an understanding of how women can perform several femininities (within a specific context) while they are confronted with restrictions that dominant norms put on the performances. Furthermore, the
43 Jeanes, “I’m into high heels and make up but I still love football,” 405. 44 Ibid.; Butler, Bodies that matter, 232.
space for individual agency can be useful to understand how ‘non-feminine’ activities contribute to a change of gender norms and how they give space for ‘counter-femininities.’45 So summarizing, gender is a cultural performance in which someone has to fulfill the cultural and time-bound expectations, so he or she fits within the heterosexual matrix. It provides some space to ‘perform’ another act, but when someone does this, it might lead to a lack of acceptance or other forms of negative judgment. In the context of Mad Men, it is necessary to look at the status of the female gender and how this is constructed so that I can eventually determine what this concept means in the Mad Men-era and how it is represented.
3.2 Analysis of Mad Men
The Mad Men-era from season 1 to season 5 runs from the beginning of 1960 to
approximately 1967. The three characters that are analyzed in this research, are Betty Draper, Joan Holloway and Peggy Olson, three women in their twenties and thirties.
3.2.1 Betty Draper/Francis (January Jones)
Betty Draper (born as Betty Hofstadt, became Betty Draper and later Betty Francis), is one of
Mad Men’s main character. As of the beginning of the series until the third season, she was
married to Donald ‘Don’ Draper, a creative director of advertisement agency Sterling Cooper, but they separated and Betty later remarried political advisor Henry Francis. Betty has three children with Don and lives in Ossining, a place close to New York City. She is an educated woman, who spends her days as a housewife, wife and mother.
The American society of 1960 had some very specific thoughts on men, women and their roles, that had its origins in previous decades. A meaningful indication of the 1950s would be the McCall’s magazine’s invention of the term ‘togetherness,’ which celebrates the ideal couple in society: ‘the man and woman who centered their lives on home and children.’
46 The demographical statistics show that Americans would wed at an earlier age than their
parents and became earlier parents than the previous generation. During the 1950s, the average age for men to get married fell to 22 and for women to 20, ratings that were lower
45 Jeanes, “I’m into high heels and make up but I still love football,” 406.
46 Paul S. Boyer et al., The Enduring Vision. A History of the American People. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin
than during the years before the war.47 Due to medical inventions such as new antibiotics, diseases as polio or whooping cough were under control and helped to decline childhood mortality and to raise the life expectancy. Between 1946 and 1964, so many babies were born that this so-called baby boom led to a reinforcement of the idea that the woman’s place was at home. Motherhood became an increasingly demanding task and mothers had to create an environment full of love and care for their children. This was also emphasized and reinforced by Dr. Benjamin Spock, who wrote Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care in 1946 and urged women to stay at home to create this atmosphere that children need for their process in becoming an adult.48 These kinds of publications indicate expectations about gendered roles, expectations confirmed by interviews that Jessica Weiss had with men and women from the 1950s and 1960s:
Wives expected good housekeeping of themselves and struggled to maintain their standards and their husbands’ too. Role expectations for husbands revolved around breadwinning and authority in the home, although husbands also ran up against their wives’ demands for sharing household duties.49 (…) These women worked valiantly to keep house and fill the
proper feminine role. 50
Media like The Tender Trap, Life, and Housekeeping Monthly underlined the woman’s task to be a full-time mother for her children and to be supportive for her husband, so the popular press portrayed the woman as one with a task in the domestic space. The Housekeeping
Monthly published an article ‘The Good Wife’s Guide’ (1955) to point out some rules to
follow, in order to be a good woman. The article points out that:
· Catering to his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction · Don’t complain if he is home late for dinner or stays out all night
· Don’t ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment · A good wife always knows her place
Furthermore, the role of women outside her home remained limited compared to men and they followed a stereotypical gendered pattern. In the case of education, girls were taught
47 Jessica Weiss, To Have and To Hold: Marriage, the Baby Boom, and Social Change, (Chicago: The
University Press, 2000) 17.
48 Boyer et al., The Enduring Vision, 845. 49 Weiss, To Have and To Hold, 31-32. 50 Ibid., 32.
cooking and typing while boys learned carpentry and coursers that focused on a professional career. If girls wanted to attend college to get a degree, they were ‘warned’ by guidance counselors that ‘men were not interested in a college degree but in the warmth and humanness of the girls they marry.’ In terms of college participation, there were more men than women who actually went to college and only a third of these women completed a degree. In terms of jobs, a significant change took place during the 1950s. In 1952, there were 2 million more women who worked outside the homes than during World War II and as of 1960, a third of the workers were female, of which 60% was married and added her income to her family income. However, these women were forced back to fill low-paid and gender segregated jobs in which they could not develop themselves or show their personal ambition. 51 Sociologist Mirra Komarovsky underlined the situation and stated that people were living in a time ‘when marriage in the urban middle class is already strained by the fact that husband and wife live in two separate worlds’ and feared that differentiation between men and women had (negative) consequences for marriage.52
For this research of gender on Mad Men, where the main characters focus on advertising for mass media, it is interesting to mention the introduction of television in American society because television has the ability to define, repeat or reinforce values. Television became really popular in the 1950s and by 1960s; nine out of ten American families had a television. What is very important to note here, is that American television has ever since been a
commercial medium, unlike its Dutch counterpart: in the Netherlands commercial television was not introduced until the end of the 1980s. As for American television, the three big radio networks ABC, CBS and NBC included almost every TV station and gained enormous profit by selling broadcast time to advertisers who wanted to reach as many people as possible. One of the consequences of the commercial nature of the medium and the fact that many women were at home, is that consumerism through advertising was strongly encouraged. Television was the medium that could convince its middle-class suburban audience that consumerism was the basis for the good life. There were many productions on television that included a ‘suburban, consumer-oriented, upper-middle class family’ and they portrayed ‘perfectly coiffed moms who loved to vacuum in high heels, frisky yet ultimately obedient kids, and all-knowing dads who never lost their tempers.’53 In the 1950s, television
51 Ibid.
52 Weiss, To Have and to Hold, 19. 53 Ibid., 847.
mainly functioned as conservator of existing values and institutions. The medium had the ability to reinforce the dream of being included in current American society, rather than change it. And so showing toys or products for house holding spread the message of
consumerism, which made Americans more and more name brand conscious.54 Since men had the role of breadwinner, women took on the role of consumer:
The middle-class ideal included the notion that wives are not supposed to work for wages. Raising children and managing a household was a mark of leisure-class status. With their husbands at work, women were the center of life, but with a new imperative: to become modern housewives – that is, the new consumers. 55
Together with advertisements for magazines, television commercials have a time-reflective ability because they have to respond to the norms and values of their audience. As for gender, Anthony Cortese points out how advertising has a lot to do with gender because it uses visual images of men and women to get attention. It shows images of how we think men and women should behave and not necessarily how they actually behave. In this process, advertising images give us culturally determined ideal types of masculinity and femininity, which lead to images of femininity as ‘dependent, superficial beauty, focus on family and nurturance and fear of technology.56
Because the idea of domesticity was so strong in the post-war era, many
advertisements responded to this and addressed housewives with their products because these products could make them a better housewife and mother, and therefore a better woman. These advertisements, which might labeled ‘sexist’ in contemporary society, depict women and their femininity in a very specific way. It not unusual to depict them in a domestic setting, including an apron, kitchen and children around her, and she has this specific product that makes her life easier. She may serve dinner or prepare breakfast, or just enjoys her family life. As an interview with a housewife of that time makes clear, women were aware of this media image:
54 Ibid., 848.
55 Rosalyn Baxandall and Elizabeth Ewen, Picture Windows: How the Suburbs Happened (New York: Basic
Books, 2000), 148.
56 Anthony Joseph Paul Cortese, Provocateur: Images of Women and Minorities in Advertising (Lanham:
To say that media doesn’t affect our lives is to say radiation has no harmful affects. Both change us, but we don’t feel it’s happening. I remember watching those TV commercials with those women so overly concerned with how the kitchen floor shined, and of course I never pictured myself that way, but I tell you, if a relative or friend stopped by
unannounced and my house wasn’t in order, I almost felt like a failure. There was this pressure to be the perfect housekeeper. I mean now that I had this home I ‘had’ to be Donna Reed. These messages were so subtle, but they had obvious effects. 57
The blog ‘American Memory of the 1950s Housewife’ quotes William Young and Nancy Young from their book The 1950s, who stated that American advertisements ‘exhibited rampant stereotyping and gender bias throughout the 1950s, and the idea that a woman should live for her husband and family became a dominant image. (…) They portrayed American women as possibly the best-dressed housekeepers ever seen. They wore elegant dresses, high heels, jewelry (the pearl necklace seems almost de rigueur), and smile as they dust and vacuum.’58 Some interesting examples of the portrayal of women and their femininity would
be the following ads from the 1950s:
59 60 61
57 Baxandall and Ewen, Picture Windows, 150.
58 “Stereotypes”, American Memory of the 1950s Housewife, accessed November 6, 2013,
http://americanmemoryofthe1950shousewif.bgsu.wikispaces.net/Stereotypes.
59 “35 Extremely Sexist Ads That You Should See”, NeatDesigns, accessed November 6, 2013,
http://neatdesigns.net/35-extremely-sexist-ads-that-you-should-see/.
60 “10 Most Sexist Print Ads from the 1950s – 7. Lysol,” Business Pundit, posted by ‘Julian’, December 10,
These really interesting ads are created for respectively Hoover, Lysol and Mornidine. The women on the left finds a Hoover vacuum cleaner on Christmas and the ad says that ‘she’ll be happier with a Hoover.’ It underlines her role in her home and the advertisement claims that she will be even happier when she has such a product, that this is what she dreams of as a housewife. Another layer in this print ad is the role of her husband: because she gets this vacuum cleaner as a present, the ad suggests that the husband buys it for her, a normal feature for the breadwinner of the family.
The middle advertisement is portraying Lysol, a preparation for ‘complete feminine hygiene.’ It states that without this product, the woman risks a failed marriage. Because ‘often a wife fails to realize that doubts due to one intimate neglect shut her out from happy married love.’ The ad continues by saying that:
A man marries a woman because he loves her. So instead of blaming him if married love begins to cool, she could question herself. Is she truly trying to keep her husband and herself eager, happy married lovers? One most effective way to safeguard her dainty feminine allure is by practicing complete feminine hygiene as provided by vaginal douches with a scientifically correct preparation like ‘Lysol.’ So easy a way to banish the
misgivings that often keep married lovers apart.62
What happens here is that the woman is more or less the one to blame when her marriage fails because she could have prevented it by using Lysol. Her femininity is directly addressed because this is a product that she needs to use in order to guarantee her ‘dainty feminine allure’; it also helps her in her efforts to keep her marriage healthy and good. Thanks to Lysol, she can unlock the door to her husband.
The last advertisement for Mornidine depicts a, of course, happy woman who is preparing breakfast for her family. Mornidine was a drug that was introduced to stop morning sickness and vomiting. The double role of the woman becomes perfectly clear because this ad shows the woman as someone who can and has to bear children, and as someone who needs to complete her tasks as a housewife. Pregnant women happen to feel sick in the morning, but thanks to Mornidine, she feels better and can ‘cook breakfast again…when you prescribe new
61 “10 Most Sexist Print Ads from the 1950s – 7. Mornidine,” Business Pundit, posted by ‘Julian’, December 10,
2012, http://businesspundit.com/10-most-sexist/print-ads-from-the-1950s/?img21460.
Mornidine.’ As a result, the depicted lady represents the perfect image because she is pregnant and she cooks.
These three advertisements show how consumerism can play an important role for the image of the woman. Women have a task to fulfill and by means of consuming and buying these products, they can make life easier. She has a family that needs to live a happily and she also has to follow the notions of femininity because that will make her life better (and
eventually save her marriage). It is also important to note that these advertisements address a specific public, namely the white, middle-class, suburban family who are able to consume. Women also appeared in another way in advertisements, namely in a role outside the home. This is not to say that women were portrayed in equal situations as men, but in the context of so-called ‘occupational stereotyping,’ such as nurses, glamorous singers or actresses et cetera.63 This was the case in, for example, cigarette advertisements in which famous American actresses underlined the pleasures of a cigarette, as depicted in the following ads:
64 65
The left advertisement shows how American mezzo-soprano singer Risë Stevens promotes Camel cigarettes by answering the question why she smokes cigarettes of this brand. She is the ‘lovely star of the Metropolitan Opera’ and is put in a glamorous setting, in front of the
63 Margaret R. Andrews and Mary M. Talbot, All the World and Her Husband. Women in the twentieth century
consumer culture, (London: Cassell, 2000), 178.
64 “Camel,” Vintage Ad Browser, accessed November 7, 2013,
http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/tobacco-ads-1950s.
65 “Chesterfield,” Vintage Ad Browser, accessed November 7, 2013,
Opera building, and wearing a beautiful dress and jewelry. She holds the cigarette in such a way that can be labeled as feminine and elegant. The advertisement on the right is promoting Chesterfield cigarettes and shows how women can also be put in a context of ‘labor,’ because she is at work. However, she in a position that Andrews and Talbot would call ‘occupational stereotyping’ because as a stewardess, she is functioning as a servant and more or less extending the idea of domesticity in the sense that she has to create a comfortable environment.
Advertisements can give away ideas about gender as these examples showed and stereotyping is a very important factor in this because people can relate to stereotyping. The stereotypical woman as depicted in advertisement is either a housewife, glamorous feminine star or has a gender-related job that suggests her caring tasks. However, these ideas about gender and expected roles were subject to change as feminists from the Second Feminist Movement began to demand awareness of their situation. I will return to that point later, but for now I will continue to look at Betty.
In the context of femininity and gender roles, Betty proves to be a very interesting character because she is a stereotypical, suburban housewife who has quite a few struggles that have to do with her married life. Betty could be seen as the perfect illustration of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (is it a coincidence that Mrs. Draper’s name is Betty?). She had education but spends her adult life as a housewife and provides a comfortable home so that her husband and children and herself have a good environment to live in. Although she is a housewife, she does not have to do the entire housekeeping by herself because as a member of an upper-class family she can afford to have a maid, the Afro-American Carla.
Betty is a classy woman. As an upper-class wife she gets to wear beautiful dresses, precious jewelry and pretty handbags and this turns out to be very useful in her function as ‘wife.’ After all, she is the wife of a successful salesman and this means that she has to be the lovely, supportive and charming partner of Don. Throughout the first three seasons, Betty regularly accompanies Don at dinners with business partners and because she cannot discuss the business affairs, she mainly functions as Don’s beautiful accessories and as evidence of Don’s family life. She knows what it takes to be a good housewife and in this sense, she could be one of the housewives depicted in advertisements because Betty is feminine in many aspects of the 1960s ideology. She is beautiful, wears feminine (but not too sexy) clothes, takes care of the children, supports her husband, and moves around in her domestic setting. Although Betty has Carla for the Draper house holding, Mad Men does show how Betty organizes her home for her family, but she also turns out to be a good hostess when the
Drapers are having parties or dinners. Connecting Butler’s idea of the ‘heterosexual matrix’ to
Mad Men’s historical context, we can safely say that Betty ‘performs’ her feminine role
according to the 50s-60s norms very well and she does not try to come up with alternative gender acts.
However, despite her good looks, healthy family, and material properties, Betty has a problematic mind and she shows inner complexities. The first episode of the first season, ‘Smoke gets in your Eyes’ (1.1), is the episode in which Betty appears for the first time and the audience meets her in her domestic surrounding. She is lying on bed while she waits for her husband to come home from work, an image that will regularly appear on the series. This episode does not go into detail concerning Betty’s life, but the second episode shows an interesting portrayal of what her life looks like. In the episode ‘Ladies Room’ (1.2), the series shows how Betty has some physical problems with her hands. Medicals do not bring to light a cause for this problem and Betty concludes somewhat disappointed that ‘there is physically nothing wrong’ with her. The doctor advises her to see a psychiatrist, but Betty has still some doubts about this. She discusses this with her husband Don and asks whether he thinks she should indeed go see a psychiatrist. Don replies:
Don: I always thought people saw a psychiatrist when they were unhappy, but when I look at you…and this (the home)...and them (the children)…and that (Betty’s pretty face). And I think, are you unhappy?
Betty: Of course, I am happy.
Don: That would be 35 dollars. You’re welcome. Betty: -smiles- Whatever you think is best. Don: Good. (‘Ladies Room,’ 1.2)
What happens here, is that Betty questions her need to go see a psychiatrist. But Don
convinces her that she only has to look around her to see what se has got, so that she realizes that she is happy. Why do you need to go see a psychiatrist when you have a lovely family? There is another interesting scene in this episode that allows the audience to enter into Betty’s mind and that reveals some of her mental struggles. Don comes home from work and got her a present. Betty happily receives it, but starts to talk about the car crash she had with her children. They remained unharmed, but Betty worries about the bruise on the face of her daughter Sally.
Betty: What if she had gotten a scar? Something permanent? Don: I don’t wanna play ‘what if’…
Betty: I’m just saying, if this would happen to Bobby it would have been okay because a boy with a scar is nothing, but a girl…so much worse…
Don: Nothing happened!
Betty: I keep…thinking…Not that I could have killed the kids, but…worse…Sally could have survived and got on living with this horrible scar in her face
and…some…long, lonely, miserable life…Don, what’s happening to me? Do I need to see someone?
Don: I don’t know. I guess so. Whatever you want -kisses Betty- (‘Ladies Room,’ 1.2)
Betty remains upset and does not seem to be able to specifically express her unhappy feelings and problems. She hesitates in her expressions and seems to unconsciously project her
feelings on her daughter Sally. Would Sally really have a long, lonely and miserable life when she has a scar on her face, or is it an expressions of worry because Betty does not want her daughter to feel how her mother feels?
It is still in the same episode that Betty sees a psychiatrist and tries to explain her feelings. She is lying on the couch and says:
Betty: I don’t know why I’m here. I mean, I do. I’m nervous I guess. Anxious. I don’t sleep that well. And my hands, well they’re fine now… It’s like when you’re having a problem with your car and you go to a mechanic and it’s not doing it anymore. Not that you are a mechanic…I guess a lot of people must come here worried about the bomb. Is that true? It’s a common nightmare people say…I read it in a magazine…My mother always told me it wasn’t polite to talk about yourself. She passed away recently. I guess I already said that…Can I smoke in here? (‘Ladies Room,’ 1.2)
After this session, it becomes clear that Don has personal contact with this psychiatrist and asks him about Betty, but her feelings remain not understood and Betty is not cured. Although it cannot be proved that Betty’s mental problems are caused by her life as a housewife, it is likely that her frustrations originate in her domestic life because she has no other life. She
feels nervous and frustrated, she finds out about her husband Don’s affairs with other women and has an affair on her own, she is disappointed when she finds out that Don has always been lying to her about his true identity, she has conflicts with her daughter every now and then, and eventually loses self-confidence as she gains weight and loses somewhat of her beauty. Betty’s psychological condition is a strong indication that Mad Men is inspired by Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, a feminist publication that had a large impact on women in American society. Mad Men takes place in an era in which the social structures were strongly related to gender; women were stimulated to stay at home and to take care of the house. Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963) became an important indication of an awareness of the women’s situation. She wrote her book in order to create awareness about a ‘problem that has no name.’ She criticized the traditional ideas about gender roles and domesticity, and clearly underlined a phenomenon in which women do not feel happy at all. Friedan portrays the suburban housewife as one who can no longer find satisfaction in her role, and (un) consciously asks herself whether this is all, even though society tells her otherwise:
For over fifteen years there was no word of this yearning in the millions of words written about women, for women, in all the columns, books and articles by experts telling women their role was to seek fulfillment as wives and mothers. Over and over women heard in voices of tradition and of Freudian sophistication that they could desire no greater destiny than to glory in their own femininity. 66
This relates to the advertisements that were discussed earlier in this chapter, because these ads also tell them to ‘glory in their femininity.’ Friedan also notes that truly feminine women ‘do not want careers, higher education, or political rights that the old-fashioned feminists fought for.’67 She refers to the idea of domesticity that kept women at home, and described in her book how the suburban wife is the dream image of every woman in the United States, exactly Betty Draper’s situation. If she was healthy, beautiful, educated and had only concerns about her family, she had found ‘true feminine fulfillment.’ This mystique of feminine fulfillment
66 Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1963), 15. 67 Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 16.
became the core of American society in the fifteen years after World War II and Friedan repeats the image of the woman who kisses her husband on his way to work goodbye and then cleans the bed sheets.68
When women felt that they had a problem, it was either her marriage or herself. This is the point where Friedan clearly described the problem of these women, as they got more and more an undefined feeling about their life. Women were afraid to talk about this certain dissatisfaction they had and if they did, their husbands did not understand them. Many women went to see a psychiatrist and had vague expressions about their feelings, like ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.’ However, the majority did not go to see a specialist and denied the problem for themselves (‘there isn’t any problem’).69 Betty shows the same expressions during the sessions with the psychiatrist and she has that same undefined feeling as Friedan described in The Feminine Mystique.
Friedan realized that many (suburban) American women, from New York to Memphis, shared ‘the problem that has no name.’ ‘The problem’ was expressed in several ways, like ‘I feel like as if I don’t exist,’ or ‘I feel empty somehow…incomplete.’70 As the new decade of the ‘60s started, the (media) image of the perfect housewife became the opposite of other reports that covered ‘the problem.’ Friedan mentions the 1960 Time article ‘The Suburban Wife, an American Phenomenon’ that dealt with women who were ‘having too good a time…to believe that they should be unhappy’ and summarizes how media started to report the unhappiness of the American housewife.71
In her chapter ‘The problem that has no name’ from The Feminine Mystique, Friedan makes clear that ‘it is no longer possible to ignore that voice’ and this ‘is not what being a woman means, no matter what experts say.’ She strongly rejects the arguments that women are happy because they live a luxurious life that other generations did not have: ‘Part of the strange newness of the problem is that it cannot be understood in terms of the age-old material problems of man: poverty, sickness, hunger, cold. The women who suffer this problem have a hunger that food cannot fill.’72 But women felt, although experts and media told them that
68 Ibid., 17-18. 69 Ibid., 19. 70 Ibid., 20. 71 Ibid., 22. 72 Ibid., 26.
being a housewife made them happy, that there were ‘more fulfilling activities in life than cooking meals, cleaning house, and chauffeuring children to school and lessons.’73 This was all said in a context in which Friedan portrays a society that limits women in mind and spirit, because it limits women with ‘chains that are made up of mistaken ideas and misinterpreted facts, of incomplete truths and unreal choices.’74 And so Friedan’s book turned out to be an important publication for the feminists in the 1960s. Friedan accomplished that many women started to realize their situation and that there was more than being a housewife. They had no life outside the home like their husbands had.75 This feeling of being trapped was not caused
by economic necessity, but by the desire to make a choice about their identity and self-development.76 Throughout the seasons, Mad Men does not let Betty be entirely happy and her life remains somewhat limited because her job is at home. Betty does go to horseback riding clubs, for example, but does not have a job in which she can develop herself. She misses therefore quite an interesting part of the 1960s gender dynamics that other female characters like Peggy and Joan face.
Friedan’s work proved to be a useful eye-opener for women in the United States. However, bell hooks provides an interesting criticism of Friedan and The Feminine Mystique. She acknowledges that Friedan’s work is important, but also states that Friedan exclusively focuses on ‘college-educated, middle- and upper-class, married white women – housewives bored with leisure, with the home, with children, with buying products, who wanted more out of life.’ Furthermore, she did not speak of ‘the needs of women without men, without
children, without homes. She ignored the existence of all non-white women and poor white women.’77 Brian Ward, professor at the University of Manchester, agrees:
Friedan’s own career, which combined journalism and motherhood, offered a reminder that some women did manage to escape, if only partially, the shackles of the cult of domesticity. Moreover, as a heterosexual middle-class white professional and a graduate of the
73 Daniel Horowitz, Betty Friedan and the Making of the Feminine Mystique: The American Left, the Cold War,
and Modern Feminism (Sheridan Books, 1998), 3.
74 Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 31.
75 Michael S. Kimmel, “The Birth of an Independent Woman Part 1,” documentary, interviews for bonus
features for the second season of Mad Men, (A-Film and Lionsgate, 2009).
76 Horowitz, Betty Friedan and the Making of the Feminine Mystique, 2.
