So the fourth series of 'Mad Men' finished on BBC Four last night. Not a catastrophic event per se, you might be thinking, but 'Mad Men' is my favourite programme and in these snow-covered times of ours surely we need all the pleasures we can get? (and while I'm on the subject, why does it feel like the snow has made all time stop?) But seriously...
'Mad Men', for me, is really all about the women, and how confused the role of a modern woman is in the late Fifties/early Sixties; in particular in the world of the workplace which was then (and largely now) dominated by men. It's understandable in lots of ways, even in these more enlightened times. Women are the people who give birth and for the most part want to care for their children after they're born. But it's also in our own attitudes that we tend not to dominate in the world of men; our natural urge to be nice and not to rock the boat; our need to be caring and to be seen as attractive (yes, I understand that this is a generalisation, but it's also a true reflection of the scenes I've seen in the many places I've worked over the years).
The need for women to be seen as attractive is arguably, together with the physical act of carrying a baby and giving birth, the only real source of almost tangible power we have over men. And we learn this from an early age. I've often wondered how the lives of little girls would be shaped if they weren't bombarded by seemingly harmless fairytales from birth, in which the beautiful girl always marries the prince, and the ugly people have characters to match. (Enid Blyton's 'golliwog' characters were banned from her books because they seemingly associated blackness with being evil; no comparison has been made with, say, 'Beauty and the Beast' for its connotations of physical unattractiveness being evil too, though to me this seems just as damaging).
I hate the fact that my twenties were characterised by my envy of the beauty of various friends and family members. That is one of the reasons I wouldn't go back to my twenties. Too many insecurities. These days I still get pangs of envy, but it's healthy envy now because I feel more confident in myself. But there's the rub: I have given large presentations, trained people in skills, held difficult conversations in which I was empathetic and caring, but still, the thing that has made me feel the most powerful is the fact that I've made men walk into doors (not often, but still - I have). And it's probably that kind of thing that I'll look back on with fondness as an old woman, even if I ever manage to get a book published.
