'Mad Men's' Hidden Tip for Online Dating

Bonnie Goldstein

Woman Up Editor

Posted:

09/11/09

The WomanUp women are lining up for and against "Mad Men," with quite a few wondering what the fuss is over. Jill is both distraught and compelled by the 1960's sexism, and Mary, Donna and I are happy to recreate each achingly slow, mid-century nuance of never actually having to say the truth, at least not directly.

For example, in Season 3, Episode 4, Sal unwittingly came out to Kitty, his horrified wife; Peggy used her executive (but no doubt still-less-than-her-male-contemporaries') paycheck to buy her disapproving mother a new TV set; and Betty was so repressed she couldn't allow her father his own mortality.

Maybe it's generational, but the character shaping up as the one to whom I most relate is Don and Betty Draper's oldest child, Sally, who is roughly the age I was in 1963 when this season takes place. Sally can't understand why the grownups are all such hypocrites, nor does she realize it will be years before she figures out honest observations are valued and expressing genuine feelings is healthy.

I'm convinced one legacy of the era exists in the odd way social and sexual dynamics play out in today's wired world. Hoping to fully embrace becoming one of "those girls," (though not doing anything so bold as to advertise for a boyfriend as women -- and men, sorry, Sal -- commonly do today), Peggy Olson, in the most recent episode sought a friend and roommate with whom she could share an apartment in Manhattan. She posted a notice on a bulletin board describing her best feature as "clean." Her co-worker, the more sexually liberated Joan Holloway, suggests she repackage herself as "fun," bringing Peggy the response she is hoping for.
In the 2009 version of making a connection, woman friends, like our Emily, advise one another on completing the application for eHarmony.