Ladies Room

Mark here... Laurel and I have sat down to a night of Mad Men and some pasta and garlic bread.  The pasta dish is Mario Batalli's Farfalle Abruzzese with Veal, Porcini and Spinach...although I couldn't find ground veal, so it's ground beef.  Laurel made some garlic bread to accompany.

This episode was fascinating in it's depiction of the times.  First, we see the design firm and the way the women working in the office have to navigate. Essentially, because the are unmarried, they are all considered "prey" to the men working there.  Meanwhile, Don Draper's wife is having issues which lead her doctor to suggest she see a psychiatrist.  Of course her husband is unhappy with this, because his stay-at-home wife has the perfect life and to see a psychiatrist would imply otherwise.  Finally, he accepts it, but the implication is that women can see psychiatrists because they are somehow weaker. This is underlined at the end of the episode when the psychiatrist CALLS HIM to discuss what his wife talked about!  Breaking any sort of doctor-patient confidentiality...  Separately, we see new girl in the office Peggy being treated like new meat essentially...

Laurel here...This episode was super interesting in terms of the treatment of women at the time.  Joan encourages Peggy to go out to lunch with a bunch of asshole account execs and copywriters.  I got the impression that she was trying to show her how women could get a free lunch around this place, but the dudes were such assholes that it didn't seem to me like a free lunch , it seemed to me like a lunch that you pay for with self respect.  All of that aside, I think Joan is actually the first "feminist" that we see on the show because she is clearly trying to take advantage of the power dynamic between men and women in this situation, and a free lunch is the least you should get for putting up with all of the bullshit you get from the dudes in this place just by virtue of the fact that you work there.

Also this episode dips it's toes into the pool of mental health issues.  Betty (don's wife) ends up going to see a psychiatrist like mark said because she is having physical manifestations of a mental health issue.  Roger tells Don not to worry, that psychiatry is just the hot new accessory among wives, like a fur coat or string of pearls.  This lead Mark and me into a discussion of our family history, we both have women in our family (grandmothers) that were slightly mentally ill at the time but since there was no treatment or help for anyone who wasn't batshit crazy walked the line of managing things for themselves.  At the time there was no option outside of locking them up in a mental institution.  Anyway I think that is shows progress from a mental health point of view to show a woman who is unhappy being able to visit a mental health professional vs 20 years before this point (1960 i think?) where visiting a mental health professional was the step before being locked up or getting a lobotomy.