The Women of Madmen

The Woman Of Madmen

In the first episode of madmen we are introduced to three crucial characters Peggy, Betty, and Joan all very different in their own ways.

Betty Draper the housewife is committed to creating the perfect image no matter how one dimensional it is. But this idea of hers is what ultimately makes her unhappy, she can't admit to herself that this perfect life isn't making her happy.  Betty is focused on her appearance as she is very pretty, she considered it one of her most important assets. This ideal comes from her own mother who passed it along to her and ever since she's been pursuing it. Betty tries to do the same for her own daughter, as she pushes sally's need for makeup and hairdos to make her "prettier" as to get a man. Betty doesn't change because the society around her treats her different for her beauty and she loves it. But the viewers don't really want anything to change because Don and Betty look so perfect together as bad as their relationship maybe we can't help but admire the superficial image that Betty has put up. So, we have trouble feeling any sympathy for her. But her own unhappiness grows as she doesn't change with the times as she never attempts to take control and change anything like the other girls so she causes it by herself. She lives in denial unable to question the ideas she grown up with. So, she continues to pretend like her life is perfect. As her unhappiness grows her mental dilemmas manifest physical causes her hands to become numb in the first season. When she sees other women in their own happiness instead of admitting she would like that kind of life she tells herself that they are just jealous of her. Even though eventually Betty divorces her cheating husband she then marries again trapping herself in the position of housewife again. But when Betty is diagnosed with lung cancer it's ironic because as she's left behind in the times, we see the future as somewhere unsympathetic to those who don't change with it. So, as we see Betty's early death it's a way of saying goodbye to old ideas and ways of thinking as Betty got stuck, she never really could catch up.

While Joan is pictured similar to a Marilyn minor, she's uses her own sexuality to excel at work. But she remains torn between the housewife or a business woman because society has always expected to her to be a housewife but when she does get married, she can't help but miss her office.This leads joan  Joan uses her body because she's been shaped by societal expectation, she now sees herself how others see her and she uses this to her advantage.soon she realizes though she doesn't want to be a housewife so instead of Betty she finds her way out of and away from her insecure husband so she can go back to the workplace. The way Peggy and Joan excel at their job is different while Peggy dislikes being sexualized by others while Joan enjoys the attention and where it can get her which can be seen in her decision to sleep with Herb, when herb promises her that she will win an account at work. But she soon learns and she works that often her quality of work doesn't matter to the people around her when she gets kicked out of a job she knows very well to a much less qualified man. The lass significance of Joan's characters is the fact she ends up alone at the end while the rest of the characters don't except Don who in some ways mirror Joan. But she's now a single mother who runs her own business something she would have never wanted near the beginning of the season

Peggy is a newcomer in this show she's just started her job as a secretary, we soon learn that she's smart and outgoing which makes us see that Peggy won’t be following Joan's or Betty's path she'll be making her own. So, without a role model in the women she sees she chooses the men instead acting as they do to try to mirror their success. But many of the people around Peggy are still unsure why she wants to work because it seems boring and useless for a woman. This can also be seen in her weight gain she doesn't want to be another Joan so she doesn't want to be sexualized by the men in her office but that could be because of  her pregnancy unknown to her. Peggy loves to prioritize work over other things it's what in the end brings her all this success after so long of trying so hard. Her relationship with don is seen as a mentor she puts him on a pedestal and begins to act like him to try to mirror him but she soon realizes that she become equals with if she wants to succeed because he doesn't respect her. Eventually Peggy succeeds Don as she controls herself, unlike him and so she is excelling him. She can be seen as an emblem for the future because the whole show is about the death of the mad men of the past and eventually their ideals become outdated too so we see people like Peggy rising to power over them because she did change with the times.

 In this show we see three very unique and different stereotypes of the era and while some are tragic, they show the progression of the future and who will succeed and who will not.