1968 is often used as shorthand for the counterculture, recalling images of massive societal change and hair of the “shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen” variety. Although Mad Men is clearly celebrating the latter with a preponderance of beards, sideburns, and mustaches, season six is mostly covering ground already trampled to death by the Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Price brigade. Mortality! Mommy issues! And guilt, so much guilt! But the new season features one notable, and rather prescient, sign of the changing times. The women of Mad Men are leaning in.
While everyone’s favorite domestic sociopath, Betty Francis, continues to represent the “problem with no name,” it’s difficult to feel a great deal of sympathy for a woman who uses adolescent rape fantasies as pillow talk. So the writers are instead focusing on the female characters whose drama occurs outside the home—and doesn’t involve ball gags. Workplace sexism has long been a Mad Men staple, but the show is now highlighting the problems faced by women who not only want to work but who also want the proverbial seat at the table–and the power that comes with it. Continue reading “Good Girls Revolt”
