Most Feminist Mad Men to Date – 3 examples:

1. Both Betty and Joanie take control of their lives and responsibility for themselves in very (traditionally) male ways. Betty arranges a meeting with a lawyer, kicks her brother out of the room and then, in a particularly masculine way (sitting behind a desk, lighting a cigarette, asking for complete confidentiality) finds out what she needs to know. Joanie calls up a former boss/mentor and asks him to help her find a job. Admittedly, it’s a boss with whom she has slept before, but notably, Joan does not seduce Roger and then ask him for a favor, she just asks him for a favor – because that’s what people who work together do.

1. Betty’s conversation with the lawyer reveals the predicament she is in – which then enables a kind of sympathy for the power she wields within that predicament. We are (perhaps) supposed to think it pathetic that all she should care about is whether her husband provides and whether she is scared of him (the 2 questions the lawyer asks), but the lawyer is right. If she were to divorce Don, she could not nearly approximate the life she and her children have now. With a divorce, she might get the house in Ossining, but she could never afford to keep it up (certainly no more Carla). More likely, a judge would find that she should live in the house she now owns in NJ and Don would be ordered to pay some child support and alimony. But delinquency in alimony and child support was rampant at that time and interstate enforcement was nonexistent. What Betty probably didn’t know consciously but did know unconsciously (and what was confirmed by the lawyer) was that leaving Don would leave her in her parents old house, having to find some kind of job like Joan’s (which, from her political work we know she could probably do, but, like Joan, she doesn’t want to do), and having to look desperately for a new husband who could – yes – provide for her and her children. Providing for her family by herself simply was not an option that was open to her.

1. The most sophisticated feminist theme, I think, came with the comparison of Don and Betty’s respective decisions to take the name Draper. (Don says “you did it too.”) The show rightly pointed out the most obvious distinction between the decisions: What Don did was illegal. But there are plenty of things that are illegal without being particularly immoral. Presumably, the army forbids taking someone else’s dog tags because the army has a compelling need to keep an accurate track of its members. There are non-military laws that forbid the taking of someone else’s identity because taking someone else’s identity facilitates fraud that will hurt others – usually by taking their money. But Don hasn’t stolen anything from anybody. The first Mrs. Draper was a widow no matter what. Now she’s a widow with a house that she otherwise wouldn’t have had but for Don. His taking the name Draper screwed up the army’s accounting procedures, but that’s about it for the actual harm that resulted from his actions.

Dick became Don in order to leave his past behind and start something new. How is that so different than what Betty did, or what the millions of other women who continue to take their husbands’ names do? One could argue that what most married women do is more problematic because, unlike Don, most of them don’t claim a horrific past from which they legitimately want to escape, they just want to be identified as something else. What’s more, if Don were to undo what he did and go back to being Dick Whitman, who would Betty then be? And what about Sally, Bobby and Gene. Don says this to her when he says “This is our house. Those are our kids.” (It is, as we all know the “Draper Residence.”) Betty is just as responsible for it being the Draper residence as Don is. So why is what Don did so bad?

I agree that this episode dealt with a lot of fundamental feminist issues, particularly those related to marriage. Nice post.

"How is that so different than what Betty did, or what the millions of other women who continue to take their husbands’ names do? One could argue that what most married women do is more problematic because, unlike Don, most of them don’t claim a horrific past from which they legitimately want to escape, they just want to be identified as something else."

One could argue that, but not effectively.

Don says "lots of people change their names...You did" Betty says "I took yours"

There's a difference. Don stole a dead man's identity. The real Don Draper didn't have a say in the matter. A husband willingly gives his wife his last name. The wife's past is immaterial.

I just don't see how a convention of marriage is the same thing as assuming a stolen identity. Don is perpetrating a fraud. As Betty says, "You've lied to me every.single.day". Are the women that take their husbands' names lieing every day? No, they've just changed their names.

That's the point. Don didn't 'just change his name'. He assumed something that belonged to another man. At the very least it's disrespecting the dead, at most fraud and theft, and desertion. He could have just as easily deserted and really just made up a new name and started over. That's not what he did, though. And Don knows there is a difference and he was just rationalizing it with his specious argument to Betty about women changing their names.

If Don went back to being Dick Whitman, his marriage would be void in the eyes of the law. Betty didn't marry Dick Whitman. She married a man she thought was legally Don Draper. One could even go so far as to say the original Mrs. Draper's divorce isn't valid, either, because "Don Draper" was not Don Draper. You couldn't get Dick on a charge of bigamy, however, because he was never legally married to her in the first place.

Anyway, the legal aspects of Don's deception are pretty important and can't be left out of the discussion. What he did was wrong on a number of levels. Understandable (maybe), but wrong. Betty suddenly has a lot of power over her husband, and it will be interesting to see how she uses it. She could divorce him and leave him totally destroyed right now, if she wanted. I don't think she'll do that, however.

Kent, you should write for The Onion. You are kidding, right?

Everything Don/Dick did was hurtful, illegal, fraudulent and self-centered.

1. Messing up Army Acounting? That's rich. He deserted through fraud. He assumed the identity of an Officer killed in action, so he could save his own hide.

2. He committed fraud when he accepted the pay and privledges that rightfully belonged to the widow of CPT Drapper. He probably also cashed in on the veterens benefits that he did not earn, as he did not complete his service. How do you believe he afforded night school.

3. He totally screwed over the real Mrs Drapper. She was left thinking her husband abandoned her, when he was in fact killed in action. Granted, in the fictional story, she forgives the DICK, but I can't imagine that happening in real like. Of course, the idea that he could have pulled off the switch-er-roo on the Army in the first place. Two privates, perhaps. But to believe no other Officer in Korea knew what the real Drapper looked like requires a huge suspension of disbelief.

4. He lies his ass off to his new wife, dragging her into his fraud. Everything about her life is built on a foundation of lies and deceit. Ditto for the kids.

5. Then he cheats on her every chance he gets, bringing his latest girlfriend practically to his front door. Oh, yes, he also hides marital assets from her as well.

Don is a first rate Dick. He lays his little tale of woe at her feet, and she pats him on the back. What a feminist.

When Don was "coming clean" to Bettz he continued to lie about how he became Don Draper. He said there was and accident and somehow he got mixed up with the real Don. But we know better from the scene in the first season. Dick Whitman consciously switched dog tags with Don Draper. That was not only fraud but desertion. Remember the army let Don out shortly afterwards because his time was about up; he had been in the army years longer than Dick Whitman. So Dick would have had to have stayed in the army except for the fact that he became Don. One wonders if he could or would still be prosecuted if the govt. found out about the fraud/deception/desertion in 1963.

Dick became Don in order to go home. he shortened his enlistment significantly. It was wrong.

Perhaps some will see it as a victimless offense. But it was still wrong.

Betty is like many women at that time. Unable to give up what they think is security for the risks of making it on their own.

I am not finding fault with staying put. My mother divorced a no good scum.. my father.. when I was 6 years old in 1965. She had 4 children and the support he was ordered to provide was never paid. A whopping 50 dollars a month for 4 childern.

Life was miserable for us... truly miserable. She put herself through secretarial school, worked as a teller for many years and somehow managed to keep a roof over us with the help of a kind landlord who rarely collected the rent.

Betty at least has her college degree and the knowledge that money is power. She can bide her time.. I hope she destroys him .. really I do. And I am not a huge fan of the ice queen.

The thing that MM missed an opportuinty to show was how devestating divorce could be to the women and children at that time. The merry neighborhood divorcee is a cliche, just minimally true. Betty's divorced neighbor would in most cases have had a much more difficult time. Let alone having a screwed up son, how about a hungry one. While her Ex was well to do, many men back then had no trouble, and they still do, just forgetting and abandoning their responsibilities.

Helen Windsor did have some advantages- a nice house and an ex who did occasionally come around. Though the fact that she held out on letting him into the house leaves us to wonder why she divorced him. My thought was that he was abusive and she was frightened.

But she was not the merry divorcee. She was a lonely woman, the object of suspicion (and fear) by the married women, and of unwanted advances by the married men. After the supermarket slap, Francine tells Betty that Helen will be ostracized.

But, marluna, you are right, Betty would have to think hard about divorcing a good provider who is not beating her, especially when she considers that he is quite capable of disappearing and becoming someone else.

If not the most feminist episode, nevertheless one that engages directly the rumblings of feminist politics in 1963. Consider Don’s (Dick’s?) identity theft against the looming feminist politics of the maiden name (http://www.slate.com/id/20972­31/) that are foreshadowed not only by the question of how deliberately Betty adopted the name Draper – did she do so as purposefully as Don did? - but also Roger’s recollection of Joan Holloway Harris. If Betty had more choices – if she had a choice not to marry or not to take her husband’s name – then Don wouldn’t be so wrong when he plaintively equates her name change and his. Still, Don and Betty aren’t entirely dissimilar strivers. Like (hobo) Dick’s own attraction to “Donald Draper,” Betty’s merging of her identity into Don’s is an attempt to transcend her family’s immigrant past by adopting a new, WASP-ish, generic American identity. Season 3’s focus on the name Hofstadt lets us know that Betty, despite her Yankee classism, isn’t really old stock. True, the Hofstadts aren’t exactly gypsies. But they're more Pennsylvania Dutch than Mayflower material. No wonder Gene, the veteran assimilationist, treated Don as inauthentic: he might’ve expected a bluer blooded marriage after sending his daughter to Bryn Mawr. We wonder how Betty could’ve fallen for Don, even as handsome as he is. A tinge of ethnic inferiority (a bit sharper if her maiden name is Hofstadt instead of Driscoll?) might explain her motivation to “respect” Don’s “privacy.” In some ways, Betty’s completely legal identity-revision via marriage is both less demanding and less honest than Don’s criminal identity theft. American women like Betty, whether honoring their fathers’ assimilationist projects or their own ambitions, only had to find a husband to revise their identity. When Don says to Betty that he changed his name just like she did, he seems almost jealous that Betty could become a Draper without having to supply any justification. Both these characters are on existentialist turf, confronted by the challenge to be honest about who they want to be. When Betty masks a part of herself beneath her husband's name, is she acting in bad faith? If she truly has no other choice, she is not guilty of any moral failing. But Don is the one who says in this scene that he felt that he had no choice but to take someone else’s name.

I have posted this thought about some legal perspective on Don's deception . . are any of the folks who have pontificated on the legal ramications of what Don did, um, laywers? I am a law school graduate. I am severely overeducated.

It is not illegal to use names other than your own. It is only illegal to use fake names to defraud.

Who has Don Draper defrauded? He would not have continued to receive an Amy salary upon discharge and his injury was not severe enough to entitle the 'real' Don Draper to some kind of veteran's benefits income.

Don did deprive Anna Draper of receiving a widow's pension, which I believe she would have been entitled to. But, in the same breath that he came clean to Anna, he said he had money and could take care of her. He did not steal her widow's pension. Something tells me Anna Draper is way, way better off financially than she ever would have been on a nineteen fities military widow's pension. I seriously doubt if she would own, free and clear, a house on the beach on a widow's pension. We know she onws it free and clear because otherwise the deed would not be in Don's desk, it would be held by the mortgagor.

For all we know, Don sends her money every month. Few people in the history of time have supported themselves entirely by teaching piano lessons to school kids. Anna might be self supporting now . . .but remember, she lives rent free.

A big curiosity: I wonder what kind of backstory Weiner imagined for Anna Draper? That line of thought fascinates me but it is beyond the scope of this conversation thread.

More on Don's legal situation: he deserted at least ten years ago . . he and Betty have been married nine years and they dated first. . .plus he had to move from used cars to furs in Manhattan. Now Don is rich and can afford a great lawyer. He might be embarassed and the scandal might cost him his job but he would serve very little prison time, if any, esp. if he got a good lawyer, which he can definitely afford to do. A good lawyer can spin the shit out of the 'mix up' in Korea. Remember, there is no proof that Don switched the tags. His lawyer could claim he woke up after being discharged, didn't know who he was but the military said he was Don Draper. . . we know this is a lie but a court of law doesn't know it's a lie and no one can prove it is a lie.

Dons marriage to BEtty would not be invalid. The person Dick/Don married Betty. Since he had no legal impediment to the marriage (because he divorced Anna), it isn't fraudulent. She could use it as leverage to pressure Don into a fat property settlement . . . this would never have to be brought into a courtroom. Betty can hire a great lawyer too and her divorce lawyer can leverage Don's secrets for money.

The divorce in the neighborhood has a pretty sweet set up. She owns a lovely home, probably one that is not as nice as the one she had when married. She works in a jewelry store, which sure as heck implies she is not earning enough to support herself and two kids. She must have had a fantastic divorce lawyer, scored a great settlement.

People make uninformed comments about women getting nothing in divorces.That's just not true, esp. in NY state back then. Until no-fault divorces came along, women used to get way better divorce settlements than they do now. Feminists pushed for no-fault but this is an example of cutting off your nose to spite your face. AFter the rise of no-fault (which still is not te law in NY state), women started getting royaly screwed in property settements . . but in 1963, most divorcing women benefited from . . the benefit of the doubt and pity. Women always got the kids, the house and money -- if they could track money down. Men hid it. Men still hide assets. So do women. But back then, Betty would have done okay ... true, she wouldn't have the life she has now . . . but she would be okay and she would remarry.

I am so frustrated reading many comments that misunderstand the consequences of using a false name. Don has not defrauded Betty of one goddamned thing. Neither has he defrauded SC. And he has not defrauded Anna or the military. He deserted. That's his only crime and the poor fellow has been scared shitless about that cowardice.

and desertion coud have legal consequence. . . but that is the only thing he has done wrong in a legal sense.

"and desertion coud have legal consequence. . . but that is the only thing he has done wrong in a legal sense."

Then he still has done something illegal. Period. As many posters have acknowledged there's the law...and then there's morality. I think it is morally wrong to assume another person's indentity, wether living or dead, without their permission. What gives Don either legal or moral superiority to live out the rest of the real Don Draper's life without his say so? Just because the guy's dead? Because his wife sort of gives him permission...she doesn't really have that right. Dick has Don's medals, that he also did not earn...that's fraudulent, too. I don't need a law degree to know that plenty of service people have been caught wearing medals they didn't earn, and it's not taken lightly.

How Dick/Don treats Don's widow is really immaterial. It doesn't change what he did/does.

He's disrespecting the dead...he even had a hand in accidentally killing the real Don Draper. He snuffs him out when he drops his lighter foolishly in some gasoline...and then just takes over his name.

Sorry, but he's morally guilty and legally guilty (at least of desertion, possibly fraud regarding accepting and wearing the medals, or whatever the military code of justice calls it). And he knows it.

"I have posted this thought about some legal perspective on Don's deception . . are any of the folks who have pontificated on the legal ramications of what Don did, um, laywers? I am a law school graduate. I am severely overeducated."

That's nice. Is your, um, specialty involving the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)? Unless it is, you're pontificating a little here, too, because it's a whole different world from civilian law.

Tizzie is looking at things from a 21st Century perspective. It might be true, that today what Dick/Don did might be "spinned" by a good lawyer, but in 1963, Dick/Don would be screwed. We had a young war hero in the White House, and America saw military service as a sacred obligation. If it were revealed that he switched idendity with a fallen officer, he would have been raked over the coals, legally and socially. Good luck spinning that to a jury that had just watched a John Wayne movie the weekend before. Keep in mind that this arrogant prick makes his living in public relations. That career would be flushed down the shitter.

Dick/Don had plenty to worry about. Of course, it is also a good bet that Betty would not reveal his secret, because she does not want to be caught up in that shit storm either. She would be much better off pursuing a divorce for adultery. With Dick/Don still earning, she would be a lot better off financially, and she could spare herself and her children the public scorn of being related to such a despicable coward, fraud, and deserter.

Also keep in mind that his crime would be ongoing, in that he is filing taxes every year under an SSAN of a dead man. Every time he applied/renewed his passport, or cashed a tax refund, went to night school on the GI bill, he was submitting false statements to the federal government.

A district attorney wanting to further thier career would have salivated over making this a very public case. The New York Daily News would have had a field day. Dick/Don would have gone from Madison Avenue big shot to prison bitch in no time.

Having been down this road with "The Sopranos," I feel that there isn't much percentage in trying to "figure out the future" on "Mad Men." For one thing, it may just involve all sorts of characters we haven't even met yet...that Matthew Weiner and company haven't even imagined, or decided to write yet.

Still, it sounds like Don Draper is sitting on a certain amount of painful legal liability for his desertion, if not his deceit, and "Mad Men" will have to be -- at least for some of its remaining run -- about whether or not he gets to keep that big secret or has to "face the music" for it in some public manner.

If he does "face that music," I'm wondering if jail time will be required. I suppose not, if past restititution(to Anna), some sort of fine and/or community service are involved. Moreover, if Don can hold onto his secret until, say, 1970, he'll be smack in a time of draft dodging and draft card burning...a "hero before his time."

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One "futuristic" thought I have about "Mad Men" is that it may well be about Don's fall...and the rise of some other secondary characters to greater success. Peggy's been marked for it, to be sure, and even the weaselly Pete seemed to been given a greater understanding of where the marketplace is going(if only he hadn't raped that au pair this season, he actually seemed on the way to a certain redemption.) Joan was quite the reactionary rotter in Season One, but a bet placed on her to "win" in the 70's wouldn't be too far off.

In any event, Don Draper seems to be a guy with a whole heap o' payback waiting for him someday. I don't see him coming out of "Mad Men" a winner.

Of course, that's what I thought about Tony Soprano....

Geez Louise, all this talk about a despicable deserter. To me Don was just a poor mistreated farm boy who joined the army to get away from home and ended up in an immoral and illegal "police action" by our government in Korea. He didn't hurt anybody when he switched dog tags. But I have a feeling he'll be paying big time in the coming episodes and seasons.