Gender Roles In Mad Men

2109 Words5 Pages

The dynamic of gender roles within 1960s society is the most prominent issue within Mad Men. The show does not shy away from the conformity of the time. Behind the pristine hair and perfectly stylised clothes - the men are in control and the women are ultimately suppressed of any power.
The Man
Don Draper, the protagonist of the show, is emotionally isolated yet narcissistic, trapped in a suffocation of his own ego. Yet he seems to be the most liberal when it comes to serious female contribution in the workplace, although continues to sexualise those who haven’t proved their worthy capabilities to him. He is able to view Peggy and Joan as women who have alternative purposes than to please his sexual desires. Despite this modernist ‘transition’ of observing woman in a new light, he is still the one who gets to make the decision of what use each female character is to him. The male characters expectantly possess the dominating role within the show, as they did in 1960s society. In Mad Men, everyone chain-smokes, every executive starts drinking before lunch, every man is a chauvinistic pig, every male employee viciously competitive and jealous of his colleagues, with the endless succession of leering junior execs and crude jokes and abusive behaviour. (Mendelsohn, 2011, 5) The men are consumed within the competitive environment of the advertisement agency, adultery, drinking and smoking just accessories to the life-style of the alpha male. The female characters are ultimately more complex because they have less freedom.
The Woman
The 1960s provided a reality time of suppressed females and overindulgent males within the society spectrum. Yet the nostalgia aspect of this manifests in the idea of the perfect housewife and the graci...

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...he same time the show is providing sensualist appearances of it's female characters outside the help of it's derogatory comments of it's male characters, which almost insinuates that they 'cant help' but sexualise them, as they always look so great in their perfectly fitted dresses. As exampled in the episode Hands on Knees (4:10) we meet the Playboy Bunny in her satin ‘bunny suit’ with collar and bow tie, cuffs and cufflinks, satin bunny ears, black fishnet stockings and her name on a rosette attached ton one hip. Such scenes position the sixties as seductive in ways, yet another triumph of the image happily congruent with nostalgia.” (Black & Driscoll, 2012, 196) The show can at times counteract it's own message, as it is trying to tell us how bad 'the old days' actually where, sometimes it full-fills the nostalgia it is trying so hard to deny to it's audience.

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