The Women of Sterling Cooper

The women of Sterling Cooper are definitely no sissies, but were they really breaking glass ceilings back then? What do others think about keeping true to the portrayal of working women in 1960?

Question about Don and Pete

During the episode where Pete is blackmailing Don and threatens to disclose Don's real identity, Bertram Cooper, after hearing Pete's conversation, told Don that he could fire Pete if he liked. On a later episode, Bertram is making sure Pete stays on with the firm because Pete's family is very influential. Was this a change in the story line or was it just changed for some other reason?

Masters of Their Universe

Watching Sunday night's episode of Mad Men, I was struck by Don's interactions with the West Village beatniks.

Throughout the series we're given a glimpse into these men who are self-styled"masters of their own universe," to borrow a phrase from Tom Wolfe. Nothing can touch them, and more importantly, nothing and nobody can beat them: Sure I can chase my secretary around the office trying to get a look at her panties, who is going to tell me otherwise?

It's a disturbing social trend we see these characters exhibit, and yet it never occurs to us that this was perhaps not the "norm" for everyone in the 60s. The beatniks certainly don't share in any of Don's sensibilities, and for the first time I think he feels rather small in their presence -- as though he and his sensibilities were the butt of a joke.

I'm curious if anyone else got that impression. I'm also curious, for people who lived through the sixties, if these Mad ways of living were truly the norms for that era, or if we're just looking at a bunch of self-involved narcissists and the rest of the world behaved more or less, shall we say, appropriately. What do you all think?