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Women had it that bad ??? Was this just in the middle class, and upper class ? ? Was the lower class this way as well ? ?
Lower class women working didn't have the same sort of stigma as it did for upper/middle class women. Plenty of women worked as secretaries, cooks, housekeepers, seamstresses, sales clerks, etc. Their options were still limited, but they needed to work out of necessity.
Women had it that bad ??? Was this just in the middle class, and upper class ? ? Was the lower class this way as well ? ?
It was not like that for every woman and family. It wasn't for my family. We were upper class though. I was born in 1963. My mother and father were highly educated. They both were very progressive. They never tried to oppress me and my sisters. Quite the opposite---they encouraged us to think for ourselves, rebel against injustice, not follow norms, etc.
My mother held views that were totally the opposite of the times. She was Catholic but she was pro choice, pro birth control, etc. When we lived in North Carolina for a year, people would give her dirty looks when she merely talked to a black person on the sidewalk. That didn't stop her. She jstrongly instilled in her children that all people are equal. She didn't let society pressure her to have bad morals and ethics, and she made sure we didn't either.
My mother couldn't have possibly ruined my father's career. She wasn't big on entertaining aquaintences or people from my father's work. I don't recall anyone but friends of the family coming to our house for dinner. That sure didn't hold my father back. He climbed right up to the top of the corporate ladder of a fortune 500 at warp speed. The worse thing my mother could have done was refuse to relocate the family in the early years of my father's career. However, the same applies today because people don't get promoted as quickly if they aren't willing to relocate if necessary, regardless of who is causing the employee to not relocate.
There is a big difference in someone born in 1946 and someone born in 1963. Society was very different in this time period.
Remember that this all goes back to WWII as Mark so well stated. After the war was over Rosie Riveter lost her job to all the men coming home from the war. She had no place to work and wasn't even expected to work. She was expected to be a helpmate to her husband and devote herself to her family. Sure, some did work but again mainly in teaching, nursing, secretaries. And women, especially single women who worked were subjected to horrors only hinted at in the show. I never had a job were I wasn't harassed. I was young, attractive and certainly not looking for a husband. I was sent to college to get my MRS which was why most of us girls were sent to college. How bitterly disappointed my father was when I came home without that MRS. I mother begged me not to tell him how active I was in NOW and the Women's Movement. She said it would break his heart. After college I wanted to join the State Department and travel some more like I did as an Army Brat. My father's response was that any woman who worked for the State Department was considered a Stateside Reject. he was coming from his perspective as a career Army Officer and a man who was born in 1915. As my mother grew older she became as much a feminist as I was. She lived that oppression-she too was harassed at work during her few years as a working single woman. We had some great talks, she discouraged me from getting married young and was supportive when I kept my own name when I did get married at age 30 in 1976. She also encouraged me to keep my finances separate from my husband. Very progressive for a woman her age.
I grew up in the 60's and I think the movie depicts pretty well how women were treated at work. Although I wasn't working yet, my mother worked for the phone company, was a single mom and had several things happen to her back then in the work place that would get you fired now. The only thing I don't remember is EVERYONE smoking. I know you could smoke anywhere but I highly doubt that many people smoked. At least I never saw it and maybe because no one in my family smoked.
Peggy representing women in Mad Men is a bit heavy handed, with her
Spoiler
abortion out of wedlock
and her career path. But it does show that she was a trailblazer, in contrast with the other women in the show.
I think the show in general touches on a lot of key points and has a lot of different characters to make those points but since I wasn't there I'd take most of it with a grain of salt.
It can be heavy handed at times, the littering of the picnic, everyone smoking everywhere, everyone drinking everywhere, the sexual harassment, the drug experementation but Mad Men seems like it is getting it right. Just talking to people (like my grandparents) and hearing stories about them seems like a lot of it matches up.
You might want to read "From Those Wonderful People Who Brought You Pearl Harbor," by Jerry Della Famina, published in 1969. It's essentially the text that inspired the creation of "Mad Men".
If you were thinking of going into advertising in the 70s, it was the must-read as Della Famina was one of the first non-WASPs to strike it big on Madison Avenue. And yes, the book presents a cultural picture that's even shallower than the TV series.
Some things I also remember from Mad Men which had me thinking. Remember the rape scene on the floor at the advertising agency? Even though it was her fiance, and he was a doctor, it was still rape but of course she wasn't about to say a word. There was no such thing as Date Rape. if a woman got raped it was usually thought she had it coming, by the way she dressed, her past experiences, if she was drinking, etc. A woman's past could and was held against her even if she was raped by a complete stranger in a dark alley. That is why it was not very much reported. The woman was raped again on the stand. It was truly criminal.
Girdles were worn all the time. My poor MIL wore one well into her 60's because she did not want to appear unladylike. I was 5'10" and weighed 119 and even I had to wear a girdle! They were torture!
Slacks and jeans were not allowed at school even on college campuses. Even if there was 10 ft of snow on the ground you had to wear a skirt. Ridiculous. And barelegs without panty hose?????forget it. That is something relatively new. I went to a wedding about 4 years ago and I dared to go barelegged while my friend thought I was a hussy for doing so!
Regarding abortions. Even though they were illegal, believe me they were always available if you had the money. Doctors have been providing abortions to affluent women since forever. Not a very well kept secret. It is the poor women who took their lives into their hands to get a backalley abortion. And that is what would happen today if abortion is made illegal again. Money speaks and always has.
Peggy representing women in Mad Men is a bit heavy handed, with her
Spoiler
abortion out of wedlock
and her career path. But it does show that she was a trailblazer, in contrast with the other women in the show.
I think the show in general touches on a lot of key points and has a lot of different characters to make those points but since I wasn't there I'd take most of it with a grain of salt.
It can be heavy handed at times, the littering of the picnic, everyone smoking everywhere, everyone drinking everywhere, the sexual harassment, the drug experementation but Mad Men seems like it is getting it right. Just talking to people (like my grandparents) and hearing stories about them seems like a lot of it matches up.
I was there and believe me I think the show portrays the time spot on. My mother was a chain smoker and i stayed sick with respiratory illnesses half my life and nobody made the connection. i remember when the first No littering signs went up. a fine???OMG just for throwing a piece of paper out the window?!
I never knew a young woman who didn't suffer from sexual harassment in the workplace. I was not into the drug scene but a lot of my friends definitely were and I lost a few to OD. Remember the show takes place in NYC which was not like the rest of the country but similar enough to many places around the country.
The comment about the MRS degree reminded me of a freshman mixer I attended in the fall of 1965, my freshman year in college. My roommate came back to the door and said that the first girl he danced with told him that 92% of St. Theresa students married St. Mary's students. Pretty scary thing to hear at age 18 and away from home for the first time.
To me the most striking thing about Mad Men is the treatment of the African Americans in the show. Major characters in the show are racist including the "oppressed" Caucasian women who you'd think would know better since they should know what it feels like to have limits put on you based on something you have no control over. I've always heard that the women's lib movement was about liberating white women only..but the show definitely drives that point home. Where does someone like Betty Draper's maid Carla fit into the women's rights movement? Or Dawn the secretary who was hired as the result of a joke?How is their experience of the time in any way relatable to Peggy's or Betty's? I see no common ground.
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