The Indelible Bonobo Experience

Why do so many women seem to hate Megan?! Well, let’s hear this rationalization from mixologycertification:

I’ll admit that some of my problems are just faulty writing. Megan in Season 4’sTomorrowlandseemed like a perfect stepparent. While in Season 5 she’s just a  bystander. I know some of the guise was to impress Draper and now that they’re hitched, there’s no need to be Mommy Dearest 110% percent of the time, but it gives a little more weight to the comment Megan’s friend made: “She’s a perfect actress.”Granted, we’ve only seen a slice of Draper life so far, but I sense something’s going on with Sally and that she could definitely use someone to confide in.

Don and Megan showed up late to the meeting at work and they’re not even commuting. Megan was game to be promoted to junior copywriter and a) isn’t taking the position seriously or b) is willing to let Don make her look like she isn’t.

Her response when Peggy told her gently, “Men don’t like surprise parties.”People don’t like them in theory, but everyone’s always glad!Anything you have to look at when it’s over and say,Well, I didn’t like it, but I’m glad(it’s over). That’s probably not something we should do. Also,everyone goes home from my parties and has sex. It’s like she’s supposed to be emblematic of the 60s sexuality, and the writers are as a subtle as Harry Crane’s outfits.

I won’t say anything of Zsu Bisou Bisou because it speaks for itself. But I did note the direct parallel of Roger/Jane in season 3, when Don was disgusted by Roger making such a fuss over his younger bride. Well, Don and Megan Draper, look at the unhappy couple, that’s your future.

I’m very confused by Megan’s insistent “Nobody loves Dick Whitman.” line. It seemed vindictive at worst, dense at best. And Meganpoutingthat Don was embarrassed by the party? Give me a break. Not that Betty’s bottling it up was any better, but…I’ll take a good tense silence over passive aggressive pouting any day.

What bothers me the most is how she attacked Peggy for apologizing re: Peggy’s work faux pas. Peggy has to deal with Megan daily. Peggy was embarrassed that she misspoke. It seemed petulant and just damn awful that Megan would call Peggy insincere, and judge her, her coworkers, and her friends.

Finally, I’m not judging Don and Megan for their fetishes. Whatever works. But I think back to Betty, and how Don was pretty impotent with her and treated her poorly when she attempted to take charge of her sexuality. I mean, remember the yellow bikini incident? Had Betty only said,“You can’t have this! You can only watch, dirty old man!”and she would’ve gotten her needs met-he wasn’t honest about the fact that he wanted that - is just sad. Then again, I’m one of those people who thinks a good bit of Betty’s implied crazy is because she’s made to feel bad for being a sexual person. Whereas Megan is praised for it.

I’m sorry this turned into an essay about Mad Men in general. (via)

I could respond to each point, but I’d much rather remember that old HR study. Basically, the study shows that when an attractive woman dressed provocatively enters a lobby where a few other women are waiting for a job interview, their body language shows strong disapproval. If the same woman is dressed conservatively, the effect is neutral. Unfortunately, I can’t find a link to that study, but found a link to another one (hbr):

Human resources departments, in the West at least, are staffed predominantly by women, many of whom are young and single. In a study of responses to CV photos, Ze’ev Shtudiner of Ariel University Center and I found a strong bias among these screeners against attractive women. (The study was conducted in Israel, where CV pictures are optional.) 

In companies that advertised job openings, good-looking females (as judged by a panel we assembled) received 6% fewer callbacks than plain-looking females and 23% fewer than women without pictures. The beauty “penalty” was much smaller and less significant when it came to employment agencies, perhaps because the women screening CVs wouldn’t have had to work side-by-side with the candidates.

In both the hiring companies and the agencies, screeners reacted favorably to pictures of attractive-looking men, giving these candidates significantly more callbacks than plain-looking men and males who didn’t attach photos. This male beauty premium did not come as a surprise in light of the large body of psychological research showing that attractive people are generally viewed positively along numerous dimensions. They’re believed to be happier, healthier, more intelligent, luckier in marriage, and so on. Thus the responses to the CV photos of attractive women really stand out and tell us a lot about the screeners’ biases.

When you’re trying to decide whether to attach that photo, another point to consider is that if you’re a woman in a country where CV pictures are rare, you face a bigger penalty for being the nonconformist. Across both hiring companies and employment agencies in Israel, where just 15% to 20% of applicants typically include photos, 43% of respondents in a post-experiment telephone survey expressed positive associations with males who included photos, while only 16% reacted negatively. But we saw the opposite effect with women’s photos: Only 12% of the respondents reacted positively, and 34% expressed negative sentiments. Women who include their pictures are seen as trying too hard to market themselves, or are considered to be less serious than other candidates.

Who said that women are not competitive?! :)