Relation: "Whose Counting?"
Commentary: For generations, a woman's place has been the home. With a few exceptions, she is expected to stay at home and care for her children, family, cook and clean, and be happy to do it. For some women, this is truly enough and is what they love to do. Even if this is their passion, however, we somehow look down on them. They are still seen as "unemployed" and do not contribute to to the GDP. Recent media has idealized this life with such shows like "Mad Men". The glamorous life of the sixties housewife whose sole joy is pleasing her family. While this is a dramatic show and of course, there is drama and problems that disrupt the daily pleasantries, for the most part the women stays at home and the man goes to work in the city. At work, the men smoke and drink and only occasionally do real work, such as go to dinner with clients. The women care for the children all day and most importantly, have dinner on the table when the men get home. For most Americans, this is a glamorous life! We would love to be the perfect sixties family. Men feel the need to provide and women love to be provided for. We see this example but yet Don (the main character of the show) admits that without his wife (Betty), he would be nothing. Betty supports Don emotionally just as much as he supports her financially. Even though this recognition takes place verbally, there is no social reward. American society to this day holds mens' work outside the home as superior to a woman's work in the home.
Cast of "Man Men" illustrating the separation of the genders.
And to end, a quote from the show itself! Don is trying to figure out how to advertise to women while his college Roger Sterling gets drunk at the bar...
Don Draper: Let me ask you something, what do woman want?
Roger Sterling: Who cares?
Think about it...
