In a recent episode we watched, the closing scence of the episode shows three women--Peggy, Joan, and Dr. Miller--walked into an elevator together to leave the office.
As we watched the scene, I said, "all the women!"
In contrast, my partner said, "all the powerful women."
And his comment got me thinking about the term "powerful women," about its meaning in the 50's and its meaning today (2012) in various contexts that I'm a part of.
Based on the show's storyline, Peggy is a self-made woman who becomes a female copy-writer in the 50's, Joan is a powerful head of the secretaries who "actually runs" the advertising firms (in addition/contrast to the men who have their "names" on the firm), and Dr. Faye Miller is a female psychologist who does field research in order to help develop advertising strategies. Both Peggy and Dr. Miller are single, Joan is married, but all three of them have a job that is self-sustaining. They are all powerful, in its most direct sense.
To return to the question regarding the meaning of "powerful women,"
I thought about the three types of power women have found themselves to be a part of in the 50's within the context of the Mad Man show.
Let's start with Peggy as the first type. She is witty, full of intrinsic feminist ideas, and she knows when to take a chance. But she is not the most stereotypical "feminine" type that fits any of "men's fantasy of a woman" (In plain language, she was not portrayed as a pretty one. Let's face it, femininity does not itself means anything until we [society as a whole] decide on what it is.) So the question is, how does she become a powerful woman? It is in fact with a mixture of wit, ambition, resilience, and some luck that she made it to where she was.
Why luck? Although many of the workplaces in the 50's were still filled with sexist jokes without consequences, Peggy was lucky enough that her boss (Dan Draper, if you watch the show, you'd know he's the main guy, he also promoted Peggy to her copy-writer position) did not care about the gender of his subordinates (he is deeper than that, ha!). Also, because Peggy was not pretty enough like many of the other secretaries--these women worked for Draper, somehow finding themselves sleeping with him, then being abandoned by him (primarily because of Draper's psychological issues, in my opinion), and finally finding it too embarrassing to work for him anymore. There we have the first type of powerful women: witty, ambitious, not too pretty, knows when to cash on her good luck.
The second type is a more stereotypical women archetype, but she stills gets power. This is Joanie, the head of the secretaries. She is beautiful (as in, fully embracing her [socially defined] femininity, imagine Marilyn Monroe), organized, very wise, and extremely resilient. She had a relationship with one of the powerful married-men in the firm, never broke up anyone's family, and eventually married to a doctor (who turns out to be a weasel, and not very good at what he does.)
How does Joan become powerful given her feminine role in the 50's? In my view, it's due to a combination of her wisdom and resilience. She is very wise--she has an ability to transform what she has (i.e. beauty and intelligent) in a given structural context (an sexist advertising firm in an implicitly sexist society) into the best case scenario for herself. She did not ask for legitimate power (i.e. a formal title) like Peggy did, she aims at the real power: having the "actual" say in the management of the office arena, among most of the ladies and often times gentlemen as well. She serves as a HR manager in the 50's while satisfying every single demand of the men (many of whom have no ideas where what thing is and how what-thing runs, etc.--Joanie solves it.)
The last type is closer to a modern type--Dr. Miller. She is much more well-educated (i.e. she has a PhD, obviously), chose not to get married or have children, good at taking care of herself and her job (e.g. she is pretty and very careful about her personal and work relationships). At this point, the character of Dr. Miller is not very well-developed, but one of Dr. Miller's weaknesses was shown in this recent episode we watched: her lack of confidence when facing children. In my view, Dr. Miller's weakness represents precisely the clash between the first and second wave feminism.
The first wave calls out: we want equality, we can do what men do, and we don't have to what men don't do.
In contrast, the second wave calls out: we are women, there are certain things that we don't want to give up to be equal to men. Education and career prospect are as important as my commitments to family and my joy while baking my favorite chocolate-moose cake.
Dr. Miller in the Mad Man show, the third type of women who succeeded, somehow won the first wave and lost the second wave feminist's ideal competition, hence her vulnerability when having been forced to face Draper's daughter.
So, what's so interesting (or important) about discussing the three types of women who seemingly exerts power in the 50's (as the MM show aims to portray)? There are a couple things that I discovered, and perhaps if you are one of my readers (or fans of the show, a feminist supporter or antagonizer), you might have more to share. What I discovered, is the high price that all of the three represented powerful women had to pay for their rise to power (hence their resilience, as shown in two of the more developed characters).
Peggy has to resolve her complex regarding her look, Joan never really gets credits for what she does and her marriage remains a chaos (sigh, life is not a fairy-tale), and Dr. Miller will forever be guilted by her inability to work with children (as if she was not "feminine" enough). In all three cases, regardless of their success in work, none of them "succeeded" as a woman based on the role they were put in within the societal constraints. Despite their attempt to go around it (e.g. Peggy), play with it by the rules (e.g. Joan), or transcend it (e.g. Dr. Miller), they are still women, and that their inability to completely becomes one (according to societal rule), contributed to their misery.
To return to my earlier question, what's the meaning of "powerful women" in the society in various contexts I've gotten acquainted with? Sadly, I must say, first and foremost, it has not changed much since the 50's. I grew up from a non-North-American context, and many of my female role-models in my family played very traditional feminine role when I was a child. They played by the rules--the cooked, cleaned, and served--but they are also powerful. They know many thing about the family or the company the family runs. They know the people, the relationship, the angle, and the right things to do at the right time. They are like the Joans in the world. When I was a child, I thought they were powerful!
When I was a teenager, I got to know some female role-models of mine, who were not the elected as a beauty queen growing up, but they were quite well-off themselves. Many of them occupied a great position in a rising industry, are witty and decent at their jobs, and they often had pretty good luck with work (not so much with romance). Those were the Peggies in the world (many of them alive today), and at that time, I thought that having some power and being able to support myself would be a great life!
Now that I'm older than a teenager and have gotten myself much more educated, I started to meet many Dr. Millers in the world. These are successful women with great career prospect. Many of them aren't married, if they are, they often question if they were not good-enough mother for their children (see a recent great article on Why Women Still Can't Have It All).
So what's the conclusion? It seems to me that the meaning of the term "powerful women" is so bizarre that there "has" to be something wrong with the combination of the two. It was in the 50's, it is today in American, and it is today in a non-Western social context.
Perhaps we shall return to the introductory context I gave that embarked on this whole text.
I have been watching the Mad Man show with my partner.
In a recent episode we watched, the closing scence of the episode shows three women--Peggy, Joan, and Dr. Miller--walking into an elevator together to leave the office.
As we watched the scene, I said, "all the women!"
In contrast, my partner (male) said, "all the powerful women."
Even though I agreed with him, I can't help but wonder,
why can't the three beautiful female characters just be women?
Men made sacrifices to become powerful men, and so do women. But why can't the three women just be women, and had to be "powerful women"?
Why can't women just be women, powerful or not?
Perhaps this will shed some lights on some of the questions I encountered, brought out, ruminated, and written done.
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