10 most feminist moments in Mad Men’s 1960s sea of misogyny

“Farewell to Mad Men” still, image via AMC

Betty Draper confronts Don about his infidelity

One of the saddest aspects of this time in history is that, at least according to this show, unfaithful husbands were the rule, not the exception. Betty and Don Draper were such a married couple. In the first episode we see Don carrying on with an illustrator in the city and then later going home to the suburbs to his sleeping wife and children. From the outset, it seemed like we were going to watch him get away with this behavior over and over again. But thanks to Betty’s strength and obstinacy, that wasn’t the case for long.

In my opinion, Betty represents a different and oft-silenced facet of the feminist movement—the doting wife and mother who will go to any length to defend her integrity. Granted, it wasn’t easy for her to stand up for herself. Even though she told Don that she doubted his faithfulness to her, she still also expressed that she wanted to make their relationship work. She wanted to hold their family unit together. But between Don’s lies and errant gossip, she finally decided to tell him not to come home one fateful night.

For a long time, I didn’t give Betty a whole lot of credit. Her rigid personality and soft-spoken voice seemed one-dimensional to me. I chalked these choices up to bad acting. As the years went by and Betty evolved through the seasons, it became clear that I was so wrong about her. She has many flaws as a person, but she comes into her own sense of sovereignty as a person by the end of the show’s run.