Mad Men Bad Men

A woman who worked in New York in the Mad Men era saw my column last week and wrote to say how accurate the series really is. “I was there! Most of the men I worked with were married and commuted; most of the women were single, living in apartments in the city. Some of the men certainly were sleeping with their secretaries which was  especially noticeable when they went on business trips and took their secretaries along to ‘take notes’  or just took them off for long lunches. Many times the men had to stay overnight in the City because they had to ‘work late’ or ‘entertain a client.’  They all took long two-hour lunches where martinis were definitely consumed...”She went on to say how she herself steered clear of the carefully-baited traps but boy did this email bring back memories! I was 19 with a summer job in the city at the very final second of the Mad Men era.I remember a much older male relative taking me to lunch and ordering up those double-whiskey drinks for the both of us, even though I wasn't old enough to drink alcohol. But nobody asked for They never did in such circumstances. If you were with an older man you were his problem – his 'property'? - and what waiter (much less waitress) would dare question an "executive?"The next summer when I was 20, a creepy old guy asked me to attend some conference for pay as his ‘Girl Friday’. He had already taken me along on a business lunch with several other old guys and also to the office of a local college president though I did wonder what on earth I was doing at either place since the guy didn’t know Thing One about me except that I had shiny hair and a big smile. I guess he thought he’d look pretty good walking in to a place with a spring lamb like me at his side.Luckily I had met David the summer before who I would marry within the year. Though Dave was just 22 himself and hardly a man of the world, he saw right away what the guy’s real agenda was and clued me in so in the end I was spared.... But make no mistake you young ones: Those weren't the glamorous times with clinking glasses and tinkling female laughter. They were the bad times when women had no voice at all or voices they didn’t dare raise.You doubt me? Consider what Peggy endured in Season One and obviously suffers over still; just look at her face as she's lying next to the  fool she slept with last week. "I want to be your first," he had said by way of courting her.  Sorry but that sounds to me a lot like what the Conquistadors said to the indigenous people.