Mad Men

Working on a doctoral dissertation will make you do strange things-- such as watching all the seasons of Sex and the City when you've never, ever seen any of the episodes in real time (my prudish self learned to become immune to explicit sex scenes while at the same time I was shocked to see what my daughters had been watching all along), 4 seasons of NCIS episodes (I fell in love with Gibbs), and now 4 seasons of Mad Men (and yes, I lived through the sixties and it brought back memories). The sixties were a time in which divorce was a dirty word, and someone who was divorced was a shocking entity-- such as learning that one of my sixth grade friend's mom was a remarried divorcee. None of us knew how to call her by name. I started teaching in the seventies and it was a time of walking into the Teacher's Lounge, the male bastion of bad behavior filled with a grey haze of cigarette smoke, and being welcomed for my shapely legs rather than given a professional greeting. The male faculty were crude and intentionally talked and behaved in a manner so as to chase the female faculty away.

Surviving in this kind of atmosphere was always a struggle as it was still a male dominated world. It was a time when male teachers cheated on their wives, and sometimes with students who were seniors. Whispers abounded but consequences did not. Mad Men just brings it all back to me-- and I am so glad we live in a different time. As for Mad Men, I most admire the character Joan Holloway, who has learned to "work the system" and position herself in the best possible way for survival. Joan is understandable and forgiveable.