As a grad student, I find myself falling behind the times of
pop culture, with short school breaks being my only opportunity for brief
catch-ups. Recently I caught up on the AMC series Mad Men, and found myself fascinated with the world of
straightforward, overt sexism (and racism, and heterosexism, etc., etc.) and
how the women portrayed on the show dealt with it. When I first started
watching, I realized I became angry and frustrated throughout every episode.
These women were so oppressed! And yes, there has been improvement in American
society since then, but there is still so much more to overcome.
With Mad Men being
about advertising, I thought of commercials, billboards, and prints that are
advertised throughout American media. There are still blatant visions of
hyper-sexualized women, the “good moms,” and little girl “princesses” selling
their products. But even commercials that seem innocent upon first look still
have an oppressive message. For example,
I remember a commercial for tampons boasting that the brand now had quiet
wrappers. This allows women privacy in the bathroom, right? Or perhaps it
suggests that women’s menstruation is still hush-hush, so much so that products
for this naturally occurring phenomenon should be kept a secret.
Mad Men addressed
this issue through the character Sally Draper, Don and Betty’s daughter, who is
depicted as a more adventurous type – she smokes one of her mother’s
cigarettes, spends time with a neighborhood boy alone, and even takes the
initiative to kiss a boy. (For those of you who haven’t seen the show) It is
when she sneaks out to the American Museum of Natural History, with a boy that
her mother forbid her to see, that she gets her first period and runs home to
her mom. And it is this next moment that I appreciate so much on the show – Betty
comforts Sally with a positive message about her body, telling her that it
means when she’s ready she can one day have a baby, and getting her period is
just a sign that “everything is working.” How empowering! While it
stereotypically promotes childrearing as a woman’s duty, this mother was able
to show her child how to love something (menstruation) patriarchal society
deemed (and still deems) as shameful or dirty.
This inspired me; motivated me to look for the positivity,
strength, perseverance, resiliency, and power in women. And not just women, but
all underprivileged, oppressed, and disempowered people and communities. It has
become a fun game watching Mad Men to
find as many instances of empowerment within an episode.
And I take this to my everyday life – as a
therapist-in-training, I work to help my clients feel empowered to make a
change, not only for their own lives, but also for the neighborhoods,
communities, and society that they live in. It can be frustrating and seemingly
hopeless at times to find sources of strength within oppression. Which I
experience daily, but especially noticed during my Mad Men time. But challenging myself to seek out the good, the
messages of hope and power, the search for social justice has helped me see the
variety of ways people can fight for their human rights of respect, dignity,
worth, and love. It has helped me come to value and love my fellow humans more
– especially in our constant struggle against “mad men.”
Written by Elisabeth Knauer-Turner
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