Season Three, Episode Two

Mad Men continued to show us last night that while some things have changed since 1963, many things, especially in advertising, have stayed the same. Burt Cooper’s line, “We’re an advertising agency. If I had to come down here every time we lost an account I’d wear out the carpet.” So the client/agency relationship was just as precarious then. Good to know.

Then there’s Peggy, illustrating the realities of being the only woman in a male-dominated business. She’s the story of my life. And when she expresses to the boys in the conference room her confusion at the way they are targeting a diet drink to women—with a sexy model who speaks to men—it feels like an argument I’ve tried to make countless times. And Don’s answer is also one I’ve heard before. “Men want her, but women want to be her. In that way, it speaks to women.” And then he whispers some advice in her ear, something about keeping some tools in her drawer. Which is just another way of saying, “pick your battles.” Which is another way of saying, “You’re a woman. You will never convince us that you know more than we do about anything. Find an argument you can actually win.”

I’m perched on the edge of my seat waiting to see her prove them all wrong.

Peggy then performs an unfortunate interpretation of Don’s advice by pulling out the tool women tend to fall back on when they can’t control anything else: sex. When she can’t gain control in the boardroom, she tries to find it by propping her pointed bra on the nearest bar, batting her eyelashes at the first boy to notice her. He is inferior to her in both maturity and sophistication, but that doesn’t stop her from going home with him to show him the tools in her entire tool shed. It was sad to see her stoop below herself like that, and sad to see her get desperate with the desire to gain the respect of the men around her.

We also see her struggle to find her identity as a strong woman in a world where women are not yet expected to be so. We see her try to emulate Don. Then we see her look admirably at Joan as she shakes her ass through the office, knocking down every man in her wake. Who does Peggy want to be? Does Peggy even know?

I told you, I could go on for days about Peggy and as it turns out, I have.

My only other insights into this week's Mad Men is that Roger Sterling is always late for meetings but seems too naïve to notice and too powerful to care, epitomizing most creative directors in this business.

And that I continue to love this show for letting me live in an era, if for only an hour, when women got to smoke and drink while they were pregnant and never felt guilty about letting their children sit in front of the TV all day.