Mad Men Is Really About Women

First time I heard about this show, my initial thought was “bunch of party boys, Gordon Gekko types in advertising world”, but Mad Men is actually more focused on the social changes women go through, and men in relation to what happens to them.

The culture code for women’s beauty in US is MEN’S SALVATION; In US finding the right woman is how a man “saves” himself, becomes his mission life. Said code is also the basis of countless of romance movies, novels, shows, that are in my view, more harmful to society than any violence, horror, or gangster movies put together.

Let’s pay attention to how changes in society effect women in Mad Men. Housewife Betty does not tolerate her husband’s affair, leaves him. Successful youngster Peggy struggles to define herself. Uber secretary in the office seems to be the only one with her head screwed-in straight, but is with an absentee husband – the “system” took him away and placed him into a war that is soon to blow up in the world’s face: Vietnam. In Mad Men, society is going through massive shifts (due to technology, since 1956, obviously) women are torn, and so are the men who pine after them in order to “save” themselves.

Don Draper is our witness throughout this ordeal – he is crafted, placed to be precisely that: middle aged, old enough to have a family, be succesful enough at this career, and young enough to date any attractive women on the show: So through him we can see up and down the hierarchy in his workplace, and get to see the lives of women btw ages 20-40. Each shot seems to be planned to reveal something (right now, 60s), Draper walks by a telephone booth listening to a conversation where a young woman is visibly unhappy with her boyfriend – she is unhappy, and demanding – this is meant to reveal the attitudes of woman to relationships are changing.

50s stay-home mom is no more. Industrial-age nuclear family is starting to crack.