Peggy Olson: 'My Name Is On the Door'

2 years ago

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Woman Up Editor

Mary, I am so with you on rooting for a lot more consideration to come Carla's way at the Draper household, but in the history of the era, 1963 was still a segregated world. Appallingly, even the queen of soul didn't get much R-E-S-P-E-C-T until 1967.

In "Mad Men's" version of 1963 on AMC this season, however, white women are starting to throw off their subservient, male-dominated social and professional roles (mighty Joan Holloway's accordion-playing command performance in the current episode notwithstanding), and at least Peggy Olson is having epiphanies on women's equality.

I loved the moment when her copywriter colleague, the unctuous Paul Kinsey, and his drug-dealing Princeton '55 classmate, showed off their Ivy League a cappella Tigertone chops and viewers saw the Miss Deaver's Secretarial School graduate (and only female ad man in the office) quietly recognize, "Hmm, they may have fancy diplomas, but I can write ad copy rings around them."

When Peggy told her own administrative assistant, Olive, a veteran of a previous generation of secretaries, she was going to be fine, I could see her believing it.

Filed Under: Woman Up

Tagged: mad men, MadMen

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