The Portrayal of Gender and Gender Relations in Mad Men
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Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies North-American Culture Studies Bc. Jaromír Soukup The Portrayal of Gender and Gender Relations in Mad Men Master’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Ph.D. 2019 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Bc. Jaromír Soukup 2 Acknowledgment: I would like to thank my supervisor doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Ph.D. for his kind help and guidance during the writing process of this thesis. 3 Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..p. 5 The Analysis of Non-Fiction Literature – Historical Books and Critiques…….........p. 19 A Case Study of the Character Types in The TV Show Mad Men………………….p. 42 1) The Unhappy or Even Desperate Wife – Betty Draper………………...……..…p. 43 2) The Employed Young Woman Interested in Counter-Culture – Peggy Olson.....p. 51 3) The Woman Unsure about The New Ways of Thinking in Society – Joan Harris…………………………………………………………………………….p. 59 4) The Traditional Man of the 1960s – Don Draper………………………………..p. 63 5) The Young Independent Man, Interested in Counter-culture – Abe Drexler……p. 74 6) The Man between The Old and New Ways of Thinking – Henry Francis…..…..p. 80 Findings and Conclusion……………………………………………………...……..p. 86 List of Works Cited…………………………………………………………...……..p. 96 Summary……………………………………………………………………..……..p. 100 Resumé (Czech)…………………………………………………………...……..…p. 101 4 Chapter 1 – Introduction “It wouldn’t be a sin for us to see your legs. If you pull your waist a little bit, you might look like a woman” (Weiner S01E01 17.31-17.42). This strictly offensive citation comes from a scene in AMC’s TV show Mad Men, which is set in the United States of America in the era of 1960s. It portrays the mistreatment of a female in the company by her male colleague. As such, it raises a question of what gender issues and relations were present and typical for the given era. Yet, as there is not any way how this era could be physically entered and studied, it cannot be simply answered. The only way how to get accustomed to the Sixties is by indirect, mediated sources, e.g. mass culture products – TV shows, movies, novels, etc., or non-fiction literature, e.g. historical books or critical voices of the day. Yet, thanks to their mediated nature, these are only able to provide the audience with the data collected and processed by the authors, which can raise a different question. This question is going to be the core of the analysis for this master’s diploma thesis. This thesis is going to deal with the question of how the portrayal of gender issues and relations in the first four seasons of the American TV show Mad Men corresponds to the non-fiction sources, discussing the same issues and relations from an informative, detached point of view. The historical perspective of the 1960s in the United States of America, identified in various sources, will be reflected in the leading characters of the TV show on which this question will be judged. To be able to perform an analysis, it is, first, necessary to state basic definitions of terms that will be used. The essential term to discuss is gender itself. According to lexico.com, Oxford’s online dictionary, gender as a term is, contrary to strictly biological sex, defined as, “[e]ither of the two sexes (male and female), 5 especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. The term is also used more broadly to denote a range of identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female” (“Gender”). Even though evident notions of it were obvious already in the 1920s to 1930s in America (Des Jardins), gender started to be discussed more openly and with connection to women specifically later in the century, namely in the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s, as it was connected to the rise of the contemporary feminist movement (Dayton & Levenstein 795). Moreover, historians, who have added more scientific value to the term, have only started to study the term in the 1980s (Des Jardins). This means that the term itself does not represent an old concept. On the other hand, the notions of feminism, to which the concept of gender is connected, is significantly older. Kristin Kalsem and Verna L. Williams state that the first major feminist movement in the twentieth century took place in the 1920s, although it was preceded by a century of women’s activism in the field of political equality. It was connected to the nineteenth amendment of the US Constitution, granting women the right to vote. Having achieved the goal, the strive for the Equal Rights Amendment began in the year 1923. Its point was to ensure the equal chances of women and men in general. It must be pointed out that these women were not united in the strategy that was taken since one group fought for equal treatment between the two genders and the other only for the gender-equal workplace because they believed that full equality would lead to the need to fulfill male standards in terms of physical effectivity. This could not be achieved in some professions, such as mining or lumberjacking. Respectively, it could be achieved but, due to the physical construction of women, it would be more-energy-demanding, which would undermine the notion of equality. The fact is that these attempts have been 6 diminished by the end of WWII, after which the general public opinion stated, that women should be married and have children, as that is their purpose (141-143). The second wave of feminist movements peaked at the end of the 1960s, together with other social movements (Dayton & Levenstein 795). These women “were active in the civil rights, student, antiwar and feminist movements. … In this highly politicized environment, race and class differences among women were frequently discussed” (Dayton & Levenstein 795). Obviously, this time, women no longer solved basic political issues of equality. Instead, they discussed the inborn racial or economic differences. For example, African American feminists and Chicana feminists started to take part in the fight for a more liberal society in the years 1968 and 1969 (Kalsem & Williams 146). The problem was that these differences divided them internally and diverted them from the shared objective. Nonetheless, as the whole society was indeed rebellious against the traditional values of many sorts, including race and origin, class or sexual orientation (Zinn 526), it is only logical that some of these notions influenced the others and certain sub-groups of shared intentions rose. One of the most significant differences between the first and second wave of feminism is that in the first one, women focused mostly on the political inequality, while in the second, it was the problem of oppression and gender discrimination, connected to the disagreement with the traditional role of a woman in a family. One of the most prominent people in the second wave of the movement was Betty Friedan. She defined these problems in her book Feminine Mystique. By publishing this book, she opened the topic nationwide and enabled women to recognize the problems that they suffered from but not expressed openly before. Consequently, she helped them start taking actions (“Counterculture”). 7 Having started at the end of the 1960s, the feminist activities as well as activities of women, in general, continued to the 1970s and further. Even today, at the end of the 2010s, the fight is not over, and women still strive to gain equality, nowadays in, for example, the problematic of different salaries. In the year 2017, the median women’s income equaled 80% of men’s income (Vagins). This phenomenon is called a Gender Pay Gap (Vagins), and it is still, 50 years later, a clear example of persisting problems in the equality, that feminists started to fight against decades ago. Other examples are gender discrimination in terms of sexual harassment in a workplace, and the undignified treatment of the employers towards women-mothers, which, also, still prevail. Moreover, coming back to the concept of gender, today, it is discussed very strongly in society, thanks to new goals in the field of civil equality. The sources suggest that in the Sixties, the term gender was merely limited to males and females, while today, there is a whole set of new genders, rising from the liberating ideas that are questioning the traditional values of society. In fact, there are, now, approximately 81 gender combinations, that vary according to one’s physical state – physical appearance in the view of the traditional standard in the culture, personality – one’s behavior with regards to the traditional culture, and preference – emotional or sexual attraction in the view of the cultural norm (“63 Genders…Now 81 Genders”). This number of combinations of self-identification represents exponential growth or potentially even an explosion of newly risen genders striving for recognition. This is in strong opposition to the end of the 1960s and the 1970s, in which only women in general fought for equal rights. It also causes serious questions in the political life of society, dividing it into groups of protagonists of such notions and their opponents. For example, some states in the USA have started to recognize a non-binary – not male nor female – gender, such as Washington D.C., California or New York, but it is not yet valid federally (Tritt). 8 Obviously, the concept that originated at the end of the 1960s, with the second wave of the feminist movement, has now grown into a phenomenon of a completely different scale.