The Progressiveness in Television: Mad Men

Mad Men of AMC has done an excellent job throughout the series of highlighting the ego of men in a corporate setting of Madison Avenue in New York City. The series has consistently shown the glass ceiling for women in the corporate world through the story lines of former secretary Peggy Olson and agency partner Joan Holloway. The majority of shows on network television will give in to society's unfair gender roles assigned to women. Shows will show women to only take part in roles that include motherly duties or jobs that are submissive to men such as secretarial jobs. Mad Men takes a different route in the series by highlighting the unjust standards on women in the corporate world and having women overcome some standards while still struggling to overcome others.

Joan Holloway was the head secretary of Sterling Cooper advertising in Mad Men but eventually emerged as a partner of the company as the series advanced through the storyline. In the beginnings of the show Joan finds herself in the midst of an affair with head of the agency Roger Sterling. Joan then begins to develop into a woman who wants more than to just be a mistress of a wealthy man, she starts to look for a more permanent romantic relationship but becomes let down twice in this effort, once by a man who decides to join the Vietnam war and another who moves to Detroit for a promotion. Yet, in Joan's pursuit of this independence and family life, she finds out she is carrying Roger Sterling's baby and this hinders her efforts to find more meaning in life. In the corporate world Joan also strives to become a partner of Sterling Cooper. At first, the partnership was simply a handout given by the other partners simply because Joan is a near and dear friend of theirs but Joan isn't totally satisfied with this deal and goes out on her own to line up more clients for the agency but even with her partnership status at Sterling Cooper she still finds it difficult for clients to take her seriously without the presence of a man.

Peggy Olson was a former secretary at Sterling Cooper who accidentally was discovered by some of the Ad men of the agency of having a natural talent for coming up with catchy slogans and ads for clients. Early in the series Peggy gets pregnant with Peter Campbell's (an ad man at Sterling Cooper) child but puts it up for adoption in order to pursue a higher level in the company. Peggy faced a very tough decision that many women face in the corporate world. Women that desire families are at a disadvantage to men who desire families due to the fact that women have to physically carry children for nine months and take maternity leave. This causes women to miss out on time that could be used to work on their career and for Peggy, build up the respect of her male peers in the company so that she can eventually move past them.