As the rumblings of the embryonic women’s movement began to be heard in 1970, some women in the workplace began quietly grumbling too.
Even as working women began taking baby steps in their Enna Jenkins pumps, their male colleagues still felt entitled to leer lasciviously under their Bobbie Brooks skirts as they slowly climbed the corporate ladder.
Sexism was still flourishing in 1970 as the recent scene in Mad Men demonstrated. In a cringe worthy scene where Peggy and Joan struggled to be taken seriously while pitching new ideas for a pantyhose account, they were subjected to lewd, lecherous comments at the all male business meeting.
As Joan simmered with a slow burn, Peggy tried to plow her way through the double entendres and frat boy humor with smiling professionalism. Later, fuming in the elevator feeling frustrated and humiliated, the girls wanted “to burn the place down.”
A few blocks away on Madison Avenue another group of fed up with business as usual business women took action; if they didn’t burn the place down, they went one step better they filed a landmark lawsuit.
In March, a mere month before the Mad Men’s girls humiliating business meeting, 46 females with the help of attorney Eleanor Holmes Norton sued Newsweek Magazine for sex discrimination.charging it was a segregated system of journalism that divided the work solely on the basis of gender .
At the offices of Newsweek magazine at the time there were 2 categories of employees who sat at their typewriters – men who were the writers and the women who were the researchers, sorting mail, collecting newspaper clippings. Despite their equal qualifications, the women’s jobs came with lesser status and lower pay scale
Vintage ad Pitney Bowes 1958
The magazine’s well educated highly qualified women were no longer satisfied answering phones and checking facts for its male staff of writers and editors.
Meeting secretly, a group of women that would eventually grow to 46 female employees, teamed up with a women’s rights lawyer challenging the sex segregation jobs, becoming the first group of media professionals to sue for employment discrimination based on gender under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
Media savvy, they called a press conference, filing the suit on March 16, 1970 the same day their magazine Newsweek ran an issue whose cover story ironically enough was entitled “Women in Revolt.”
Take My Secretary, Please!
“And I was so afraid that working for a giant corporation would be an impersonal, cold, inhuman relationship.” Vintage Playboy cartoon 1962 by Sokol
It’s hard to imagine that Peggy or Joan were unaware of this highly publicized incident, but at the time sexism and sexual harassment at the office was sometimes invisible because it was so darn normal the leering eyes suggestive remarks and creepiness of male workers sexual harassment was a near daily ordeal faced by women in Mad Men workplace.
In fact it was the stuff of great humor.
The world of sexist jobs, businessmen men objectifying and infantilizing women, lascivious philandering and wild office parties was fodder for comics and cartoonists alike.
Misogyny was easily laughed off as office antics.
Not a one of these cartoons would pass HR today
Vintage Sexist Office Cartoons
“Take an Indecent proposal!” Vintage Playboy cartoon 1966 by Interlandi
“You’re hired Miss Olson and may I escort you to our annual office picnic tomorrow?” Vintage cartoon Esquire Magazine 1951
Bosses Portrait Vintage 1966 Playboy cartoon by Interlandi
A take on IBM’s classic slogan, advising the boss to think as he chases her around the desk. Vintage cartoon Esquire
Many of these cartoons were never meant to be glimpsed by the girls, appearing in male magazines like Playboy and Esquire, to be read at men’s clubs or the Barber shop where an earlier generation ogled the Police Gazette.
“You certainly have a one track mind, Me. Bree!” Vintage Playboy cartoon 1962
“Guess what Mom. I’m Miss Magic Lift of 1958!” Vintage Playboy cartoon 1958
Christmas Parties
“Looks as though the Entertainment Committee has come up with some fresh ideas for this years Xmas party!” Vintage Playboy cartoon 1967 by R. Taylor
“Last year we gave him an electric shaver.” Vintage Playboy cartoon
“Miss Beverly, I want an option on you for the Christmas party.” Vintage Playboy cartoon
The fear that computers would end up replacing office antics would be proven wrong. Vintage Playboy cartoon 1962
Mad Men may have offered us a front row seat to the world of mid-century misogyny but it has hopefully opened the dialogue to recognizing that sexism still exists today despite its subtlety.
And it is no joke.
Copyright (©) 2015 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved
Stay Tuned : In 1970 Newsweek was ground zero for a movement that was supposed to break at least one glass ceiling. The story Next
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