Betty Draper

"Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slip-cover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night 0 she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question - "Is this all?" - Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (1963)

Betty Draper, portrayed by actress January Jones, has grown to become not only my favorite character on Mad Men, but also one of my favorite television characters of all time. I've always been drawn to strong female characters in the shows I watch. Betty started out as a weak woman enslaved by her home and family. She evolved into an independent woman with her own inner strength separate from her husband and children. Many critics and viewers criticize Betty for her actions and often proclaim that she is an awful character. She is not perfect. But no one on the show is. In fact, compared to the show's lead character and her husband, Don, she is practically a Saint. She's a terrible mother and often acts like a child, but her flaws make her interesting and much more entertaining to watch.

She begins the series married to Don, a advertising executive who spends most of his time with work or other woman and only uses his wife as an accessory. She's suffered the loss of both of her parents, lived through an unfaithful marriage, and gone through a divorce. Her husband even lied to her about his true identity through the entirety of their marriage. She smokes, drinks, and treats her children horribly, but she represents many of the ideals and practices of the 1960s. During the first three seasons, when she is married to Don, she spends most of her time in the house. It is her prison. She cooks, cleans, and cares for the children, but she even has a housekeeper to help with most of the work (which brings in issues of race and class as well). In one of her strongest scenes from the first season, she rubs against a washing machine while having sexual thoughts about a man other than her husband. This image vividly depicts her connection to the home; when she is feeling disconnected from Don, even the household appliances aid her sexually. Another iconic moment from the first season is Betty shooting birds in her backyard with a shotgun. It represents her strength and ferocity with which she protects her home and family. Her husband appears to have most of the power in their marriage, but over time she grows a voice and confronts him about his infidelity and lies. This is when they eventually divorce, and unfortunately she instantly moves onto another marriage. She may have developed a great strength, but the expectations of the time period and the ideals engraved into her mind control her.

Quotes from "'A Mother Like You': Pregnancy, the Maternal, and Nostalgia," Diana Davidson, Analysing Mad Men: Critical Essays on the Television Series, Scott F. Stoddart:

"...representations of motherhood in Mad Men are as much about a contemporary audience's ambivalence around motherhood as they are about representing an authentic 1960s American identity." (pg. 137)

"As a wife and mother, Betty has become a product of her time, the prosperous post-war/pre-feminist era, where a middle-class woman's worth was in her ability to produce children, raise children, keep house, and entertain. Betty starts to challenge this identity and her role within her marriage to Don." (pg. 138)

"Betty is intertwined with the objects of the house and the car throughout the series' first two seasons... Throughout Mad Men, the Drapers' house becomes synonymous and entwined with Betty: the domestic realm is where Betty is both safe and entrapped... Betty's identity is determined by the boundaries of the domestic space." (pg. 138)

"Betty is wife, mother, house, car, and garage all in one; she is seen as a role and as property - not as an individual person." (pg. 138)

"Betty's associations with the house and the car come to symbolize her resistance to her role of wife-and-mother that begins at the end of Season One and dominates Season Two: she takes control of the house and car and, in doing so, changes the boundaries of her identity." (pg. 139)

"Mad Men shows us that Betty Draper is unhappy for many reasons: she feels entrapped in her role of wife and mother, she desires to know her secretive husband on a deeper level, she suspects (and then has confirmation of) her husband's infidelity, and because she has just lost her own mother when Season one begins." (pg. 141)