mAD WOMEN

During the Mad Men hiatus I use cable on demand for episodes I missed or want to see again.  A recent one showed a secretary being hit on and verbally swatted by a group of tipsy account guys.  She walked away with personal dignity; but how did she come back day after day to face the same people and the potential of the same humiliating treatment?  Remember that this TV show takes place in the early ‘60s before there were any sexual harassment laws, before there was any consciousness of the corrosive effect on women’s careers.

Not only was a woman personally degraded by sexual harassment but her career was also degraded.  Who can rise in an organization, who can become a leader if she is seen as a victim, as a potential plaything instead of any type of professional?

These days things are quite different in most workplaces thanks to activists and feminists of the recent past.  However for many men and for some organizations treating women fairly is not done out of a raised conscience but only because of the raised cost of violating new legal standards.

Many organizations continue to diminish women even if they keep to the letter of harassment and equal opportunity laws.  Let’s look at the largest and most influential groups in the world—the Catholic Church.  Women cannot take any post of meaningful leadership, as they are not able to be priests.  And why is this?  Certainly there is no commandment from God or proclamation by Jesus on this subject.  It is simply that the men of the church do not want to share the power and the riches.  And sadly there is no legal, moral or societal pressure to make them share it.  Which not only keeps women out of that workplace, it fosters that attitude of women as “less than” and second class.  And directly results in policies that are contrary to the best interests of so many women.  Birth control except for the unreliable rhythm method is still completely prohibited for anyone for any reason.  As is abortion.

Of course, Mad Men hasn’t got into ecclesiastical gender politics; but it clearly and powerfully shows the historical position of women in the corporate workplace.   And it makes me  feel really good about all the positive changes.  And makes me a raving mad woman about all the organizations, people, attitudes that are still wallowing in the patriarchies of the past.