Skinny Minded

Body image, especially in the realm of women, has long been a subject of many debates and controversies. The overwhelming desire to be thin is something that is no stranger to American women. Women have turned to crash diets and gimmicks for ages to maintain a skinnier figure, but when did this obsession with the perfect body come into play?

Throughout Season 1 of Mad Men, body image has played an integral role in terms of the female characters. Betty Draper dapples in a modeling career during Season 1, and shows a personal worry of gaining weight when alluding to her mother, who told her that she would end up “stout” if she kept eating hot dogs. There’s no doubt that the women of the show appear very thin for the most part. However, their lack of exercise or physical activity due to domestic or clerical confinement doesn’t seem to contribute to their slim figures. Why were they so thin?

Marilyn Monroe, an iconic actress and sex symbol, was an ideal woman to idolize during the 1950’s. Her size 14 frame, though, wouldn’t necessarily categorize her as petite once the era of the 1960’s rolled around. A British supermodel, Twiggy Lawson, appeared as the iconic woman during this time period. Her bony frame became the new desire, which overturned the want for a more curvaceous or voluptuous body type. As women began to progress away from the housewife status, less traditional styles were beginning to emerge. Women subsequently began to crave a modelesque figure, something that they viewed as being very chic and something which coincided with the more mod styles of fashion that were being introduced.

Just like in the series of Mad Men, advertising became a very crucial part in promoting the idea that a woman should strive to be thinner. Many massage type products, similar to Peggy’s “Relaxerciser”, promised a modelesque frame with minimal exercise. The idea of ‘diet’ soft drinks and artificial sweeteners alike created a frenzy in the advertising industry as well. Products like Diet Pepsi and Sweet’ N Low were introduced and took off quickly. The effectiveness of such ad campaigns are clear…as they are still very popular products by today’s standards! The 1960’s introduction of a more independent and chic woman, achieved by the means of being slim, has had a great deal of influence on female body image. To this day, the obsession of being thin is still reflected in the media. A very high spike in eating disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia, has become evident among not just women, but very young girls. Such issues provoke the question of just what is a healthy body image. The 1960’s thin craze was surely fueled by advertising, and has left us women with the longstanding idea that skinny does sell!

Links referenced:

http://www.loti.com/sixties_fashion/The_thin_craze_of_the_1960s.htm

http://www.fitsugar.com/1960s-Diet-Exercise-Fads-9139395?slide=3&_nz=5

http://www.d.umn.edu/~jvaleri/dissatisfaction%20with%20bodies.htm

 

The Blame Game: Parenting Edition

After watching a few episodes of Mad Men, it’s clear that Betty Draper isn’t going to win “Mother of the Year” anytime soon. Betty is never seen taking her kids to the park or over to a friend’s house; instead, the only activities she suggests are to “go to bed”, “go watch TV”, “go upstairs”, or even to “go bang your head against the wall”.  The defining of Betty’s parenting is a scene I’m sure none of us will forget: Sally wearing the dry cleaning bag. Clearly not worried that Sally might suffocate, Betty simply says, “If the clothes from that dry cleaning bag are on the floor of my closet, you’re going to be a very sorry young lady.” While the audience is staring at the television screen with its jaw on the floor, Betty continues to smoke a cigarette and gossip with her friend Francine leaving Sally to play with the plastic bag. 

Image credit: http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lbkxka9hIs1qa1xnko1_500.gif

Betty’s parenting techniques have not gone unnoticed. New York magazine took note of Betty’s questionable parenting skills, putting together a compilation of Betty Draper’s best parenting moments. Watch the video below and be thankful for your mother’s superior parenting:

This video forces us to question Betty’s child rearing: why is she so harsh when it comes to parenting? Recently, Dr. Stephanie Newman released a book entitled Mad Men on the Couch: Analyzing the Minds of The Men And Women of The Hit TV Show, which gives the audience insight on why Betty is so cold when it comes to being a mother. From the New York magazine video, it’s clear that Betty’s missing some sort of an emotional component when it comes to parenting; when Sally or Bobby do something wrong Betty doesn’t ask why, but merely seeks an apology. Newman points out that many mothers fail in the empathy department. In Newman’s book, she mentions a study done by psychoanalyst Harry Harlow about rhesus monkeys, which have tendencies similar to humans, to examine the workings of maternal love. Harlow ultimately concluded that nurturing a child is crucial in the first months of the infant’s life; if the child is neglected emotionally, then he will have problems connecting with others. As a result, babies who were neglected by their parents exhibit the same behavior once they become parents. 

Image credit: http://cbswzgc.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/draper-family1-e1287578367351.jpg?w=385

When looking back at season one, it seems that Betty had a similar upbringing to her own kids. Betty shares with friends that she used to be overweight as a child and how difficult that is for a child to go through but Betty constantly remarks about how Sally looks fat in pictures. When in bed with Don, Betty shares how her mother’s appearance was very important and Betty adopted similar habits, always trying to fit into the mold of the ideal housewife.

What Newman is telling us is that it’s not Betty’s fault that she isn’t a great mother; it’s her parent’s. So the next time you see Bobby reprimanded for touching the record player or hear an insolent comment about Sally’s weight, think about how Betty was treated as a kid. Newman implies that parenting is a skill that’s partly intuitive but mostly a skill indirectly taught by one’s parents. So this serves as a message to everyone who has ever considered having kids: learn from your parent’s mistakes and adjust. I’m sure you’ll be thankful in the years to come.

Sources:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/apologies-freud/201203/why-is-mad-mens-betty-draper-frances-such-cold-mother 

http://video.vulture.com/video/A-Montage-of-Betty-Drapers-Pa-2

Newman, Stephanie. Mad Men on the Couch: Analyzing the Minds of the Men and Women of the Hit TV Show. New York: Thomas Dunne, 2012. Print.

 

Mad Women: The Other Side of Madison Avenue in the '60s and Beyond

"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)

The History of Women Smokers on the Pages of Vogue, 1920s-1960s

In 2007, Cheryl Kransnick Warsh and Penny Tinkler wrote a historical article for Canadian bulletin of medical history, titled “In Vogue: North American and British Representations of Women Smokers in Vogue, 1920s-1960s.” This article studies “the image of a cigarette in a women’s hand” in the content of North American and British editions of Vogue from the 1920s-1960s and observes the smoking culture of women in response to “social, economic, and political changes, as well as the initiatives and fortunes of the tobacco industry.”

After the Great War, the alignment of smoking with “Parisian haute couture” established the equation of smoking and feminine elitism. However, the “powerful connection between smoking and sophistication” gradually shifted since 1930s. Most notably in 1950s America during Cold War, the highlife of fashionable elites was increasingly domesticated. Along with the disappearance of women smokers from the pages of Vogue, the confidence, which was the symbol for women smokers, was increasingly confined within a restrictive heterosexual framework. 

As Mad Men recreates the society in 1960s New York, the audience observes the roles of women in this era. Especially, the smoking culture of women in Mad Men is comparable to the historical context from the journal, written by Warsh and Tinkler. Betty Draper (January Jones), as a housewife character, represents the transition of smoking culture from the sophisticated highlife to domesticated, middle-class life. While, Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks)’s habit of smoking characterizes her as a typical representation of independent and confidant female workers in 1960s New York.

The article traces the historical context of women smokers and explains the roles of women observed through smoking culture on the pages of Vogue. Mad Men depicts smoking of different female characters, representing the diversified status of women, which is one of the big themes in Mad Men season 1. Even though the journal is not directly related to Mad Men, it helps the audience to understand the implication of female characters smoking in 1960s society, reconstructed in Mad Men.

References:

Warsh, Cheryl Krasnick C. K., and Penny P. Tinkler. "In Vogue: North American and British Representations of Women Smokers in Vogue, 1920s-1960s." Canadian bulletin of medical history = Bulletin canadien d'histoire de la médecine 24.1 (2007): 9-47. ProQuest Natural Science Collection. Web. 4 Oct. 2012.

The Typical Housewife: From Seamless to Psychotic

“Beep! You-‘beep’ ing piece of trash!’ You are nothing but a lying ‘beep’ ing whore!” Embarrassingly enough, this type of “lingo” represents the social norm of what we see in relationships between housewives in the modern times. AMC TV certainly didn’t have to “beep” technique for housewife profanity the way Bravo T.V. does. This represents only a small example of how the development of women over the last five decades has shown a drastic cultural transformation of women not only in personality emergence but also in workforce dominance and social independence.

The female position in the working society has taken a reverse turn in the emergence of the 21^st century. As seen in Mad Men, the “female inside the home” image has been completely broken over the last fifty years. The role of Betty Draper in Mad Men is certainly not the same as that of Bethenny Frankel in “The Real Housewives of New York City.” While Betty is folding clothes and waiting on her husband, Bethenny Frankel is launching her “Skinny Girl Margarita” business, which might as well be the Sterling Cooper of the 21^st century. Let’s not forget that Bethenny is not the only housewife successfully running a business. There are T.V. show hosts, singers, actresses and more businesswomen who have identified themselves on public television as “housewives” as well. The only character in Mad Men who provides a small preview towards the transformation of the roles of women is Rachel Menken. In the 1950’s, she being the head of her own business represented the progressiveness in the culture. Today, she would be one of many making millions. 

Image credit: http://www.primermagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/DraperSuit/Draper_SterlingCooper.jpg

Image credit: http://www.shefinds.com/files/2011/08/bethenny-frankel-skinnygirl-margarita-475x316.jpeg

 

The level of character and temperament of women throughout the last five decades has been nearly revolutionary. In Mad Men, the husband is always the dominant force in the family: they make all the decisions, set all the rules and always expect to be obeyed. Women such as Betty are lifeless, and almost brainless. They have no temper and do as told with no questions asked. However, in today’s society, personalities of housewives are much more vibrant to say the very least. Would anyone expect to see Betty Draper flipping over a restaurant dinner table out of pure anger the way Theresa Giudice from “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” can? One could argue that what we see on Bravo T.V. these days are not housewives, but animals! No wonder the editors have to use the profanity beeper so much. 

As referenced in the blog “Suburban Housewives,” there has shown to be a new social dominance in housewives due to the decrease in a husband’s authority. As shown in Mad Men, it in unheard of for a woman to let another man who is not her husband, into the house while she’s alone. In Episode 11, “Indian Summer” of the first season, Don immediately becomes livid when Betty has confessed to her allowing the air-conditioning salesman into their house. Today, women have no restrictions on what types of relationships they have with the opposite sex. They are so detached from their husbands that instead of constantly basing their lives on waiting for their husbands to come home at night, they adopt new ones! Take Jill Zarin, from “The Real Housewives of New York City:” if her husband doesn’t want to accompany her to whatever fashion show is going on in town, she doesn’t mope, but rather calls up her “gay husband” Brad, to be her escort to the event! It is a completely backwards situation.

Between becoming millionaires, flipping tables and obtaining gay husbands, there has certainly proved to be a cultural transformation and fresh new debut of housewives in society. The perfect image of Betty Draper ceases to exist these days and no matter what the city, “The Real Housewives” series have shown that in many aspects, the American housewife is nearly the polar opposite of what she used to be. 

Image credit: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uLYnvvmNiVk/TSgZTSDynSI/AAAAAAAAAJI/YRMxxJ8p7og/s1600/househus1.jpg

If You Got It, Flaunt It

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Helen Gurley Brown, the author of Sex and the Single Girl and former editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine, recently died at the age of 90, leaving behind a long legacy of emboldening “a generation of women with her controversial views about female sexuality, and laid the groundwork for today’s sexualized fashion and celebrity culture.” In August 2012, Booth Moore wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times entitled “Helen Gurley Brown Leaves Behind Lusty,Busty Legacy." In this article, Brown is portrayed as a feminist trailblazer and the inspiration for characters like Carrie Bradshaw and of course, Mad Men’s Joan Holloway.

Moore briefly elaborates on Brown’s early professional life as an executive assistant at the Los Angeles based advertising agency Foote, Cone & Belding, where she eventually became a copywriter (similar to the future career path of Joan). No information is given on how she became the editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine, but Moore does describe how Brown adamantly supported the use of scantily clad women on the cover of Cosmo to both bolster sales and promote the concept that women should own their sexuality.  

Quotes from Brown’s peers make up the majority of the article, and while these quotes further illuminate Brown’s modern views on sexuality, Moore does not connect them to the social implications of Brown’s actions. Moore does mention in passing that the new Cosmo covers sparked an interest in “Miracle bras”, but what about the reception of the covers. A more in depth analysis on Moore’s part would shed light on the various social implications of a woman embracing her body. This in turn would strengthen his argument about the connection between Brown and Joan by demonstrating how they let go of society’s traditional views surrounding women and endured society’s critiques in the pursuit of independence. Moore’s article fails at portraying how difficult it was for women to define themselves and not let a man’s perception of her define her.

Moore’s article is effective in that it adds more depth to a seemingly one-dimensional character by equating Joan to an early champion of women’s rights. In Season One of Mad Men, Joan is portrayed as the femme fatale of the office. Feminist is the last thing that comes to mind while we watch her purposefully ignite the passions of the men prying for her attention at Sterling Cooper (remember the Belle Jolie scene?). Moore’s article casts Joan in a different light. Suddenly her flirtatious smile and curve hugging dresses are not things for women viewers to envy, but something we should all be proud of, a woman in control of her sexuality.