"As the director of the “I Love
New York” campaign and winner of “Advertising Woman of the Year,” it’s fair to
say that Jane Maas knows her stuff. Maas was a copywriter and then creative
director at Ogilvy, a prestigious advertisement agency on Madison Avenue during
the later third of the 20th century and has written Adventures of an
Advertising Woman and How to Advertise (ie the advertiser's bible).
These two texts are revered worldwide for their insight on the craft that is
advertisement, and she, along with Ken Roman are renown for their genius. They
were among the best of the best. In her latest publication Mad Women: The
Other Side of Madison Avenue in the '60s and Beyond, however, Maas removes
her hat as Advertiser Extraordinaire and gives us the inside scoop on the Mad
World as a Working Woman.
Quick fact: According to Jane,
high-powered women never took their hats off in the office. Ever. It
conveyed status. “It’s one of the rare bits of costuming that Mad Men
gets wrong” (Maas 128). Just saying.
In short, all of our guesses about
the frequency of sex, drinking, smoking, belittlement, infidelity, and strife
in the lives of the Mad Men are true.
In a chapter entitled “Sex in the
Office,” Jane says that most women of the time agree that there was more sex
than on the show. More! She also begins with a humorous, little anecdote about
a brilliant female advertiser who resided in Connecticut with a three-year-old
child. Jane asks her about the sex in her office building, and the woman tells
her that she most definitely engaged. Her name? Joan. Coincidence? Probably
not.
As depicted on the show, people were
rather nonchalant about sex because the Pill was brand new and freely
prescribed. In addition, “sexual harassment” wasn’t an issue, as the
climbing-the-corporate-ladder perk of an office rendezvous was all too tempting
to copywriters and secretaries, and the idea of Human Resources, a place one
would go to report an incident today, hardly existed.
Maas also goes into much detail
about substance abuse. Mad Men does a fairly good job of replicating the
prevalence of alcohol, but she cannot remember a time when anyone partook in
morning shots. Also, Draper and Sterling keep bottles on their desks, but Maas
describes a highly utilized executive dining room that carried “every liquor
imaginable” (Maas 111). For free. But even though employees had easy access,
she can only recall one person with a severe problem with alcoholism. He
happened to be a wonderful and successful creative director. Is this not reminiscent
of big shots Don’s and Roger’s excessive drinking habits?
In her “A Day on Madison Avenue,
1967” chapter, Maas recounts her average day. It consisted of many, many
cigarettes. Of course the daily grand total fluctuated, but she lit at least
three before 8:15. A lesser “advertised” form of smoking was with marijuana,
but it was absolutely present in the office and at home among the younger
folk.
Lastly, and by far most
interestingly, Jane Maas bares her soul in this book. In truth, I can imagine
many a Mad Woman fervently nodding their heads in agreement or even shaking
their fists in fury from remembering the lifestyle as they read “Have You
Really Come Such a Long Way, Baby,” the final chapter in Maas’ book. She admits
that her career came before her husband which came before her daughters. She
never really worried about housekeeping or cooking because she had a maid. (One
she loved and considers part of the family--a second mother to her children, if
you will--but a maid just the same).
Maas reveals that both the
stay-at-home and working mother lived unsatisfied lives.
Jane calls stay-at-home moms
“trapped...because they graduated from Bryn Mawr and Radcliffe and Vassar and
Smith, got married and ...vanished. They had no identity apart of being somebody’s
wife and somebody’s mother. So as they hung their laundry on the line in their
suburban backyards, they gnashed their teeth” (Maas 215). For those of you who
loathe Betty and the other housewives, consider this.
And as a working mother, she talks about
the pure anger. “Almost every woman...especially working mothers told me how
angry she felt about being torn part, and how much she reproached herself for
underperforming in all her roles” (217). She also argues that it’s very, very
possible that times haven’t changed, hence the chapter title. She proves this
through her chronicle through the ages and the different kinds of mothering
method each decade brought. Her analysis is poignant; surprisingly modern with
mentions of Tina Fey’s mothering experiences, the helicopter mom, and
dependence of an iPad; and finally, rather tragic. She concludes, how
“shocking” she finds it that successful career women in their prime are
quitting their jobs to stay at home, leaving their lives for rearing children
and the money making to their husband; thus, there is no happy medium. Maybe
being a family woman and a professional one is mutually exclusive. Her
disheartening and baffling (I thought this balance was what being a modern
woman was all about!) conclusion is so, so profound. I firmly believe it will
resonate with every current or future wife, husband, daughter, son, employee,
and employer. (Read: This means everyone).
Now, a moment of honesty from me: I
may have mislead you in the beginning of this post. I told you she took a step
back from her advertising ways, but as we see in Don Draper, an advertiser
never leaves his or her work in the office. Maas’ struggle is evident and
should be shared, her capitalization of our beloved AMC hit series’ success is
certainly an example of this constant desire to sell and profit. But
nonetheless, Mad Women is special. While this certainly does not apply
to any of us Maddicts, this book would appeal to those who have little
to no knowledge of the series. Currently it stands among few as a publication
devoted to Mad Men, but what really makes Mad Women an essential
read is Maas’ thoughtful, humorous, and honest take on the never-ending
conflict of being a woman of any time period: balancing a life, a family, and a
career--and not necessarily in that order.
Sources:
Maas, Jane. Mad Women: The Other Side of Madison Avenue in the 60s and Beyond. New York: Thomas Dunnes Books, 2012. Print.
(Picture from Macmillan)
