Joan Holloway: Marilyn Who?
Joan is one of the more controversial characters on Mad Men just because of how she tends to portray herself. Even by looking at the picture above, the viewer gets the idea that Joan is someone who looks like she would sleep around, which is ultimately true in this case. However, although it does sound like an awful thing to do, in a sense, she channels most of the men in the show which makes her stand out amongst the other women.
From the first time we meet Joan, she tells Peggy to pay more attention to her looks. By saying this, Joan is proving the new girl with advice that unfortunately, helpful in this day and age. According to Katherine J. Lehman in the book, Lucky Strikes and a Three Martini Lunch, she's alluding to how sex appeal can be used to one's advantage. To further elaborate, there have been multiple examples of how Joan advances due to the help of her sex appeal. For example, in a letter episode titled "The Other Woman" [5. 11], Joan is asked to sleep with the sleazy CEO of Jaguar in order to score the account and become a partner of Sterling Cooper Draper Price. Interestingly enough, there was no visible promotion, and they didn't add her name to their company name either (Jones 2014).
Something to note about Joan that is mentioned in the book, Mad Men Mad World, is that although Joan is embracing a 1950s stereotype of how women should be viewed, she's doing it for herself and not for men (Goodlad 2013 p.174). You can use this to help explain why she decided to sleep with the Jaguar executive despite Don's pleas to do otherwise. She was able to score a position of authority for herself and her child. She did what she thought she needed to do to improve her family. She literally went against the advice of a man (Don Draper), and did it anyway. She consistently breaks patriarchal norms because she continues to do what isn't necessarily expected of her during that time. She doesn't marry, and she works full time as a partner at an advertising firm which was not common at the time.
In a video done by Funny or Die, the actress who plays Joan, Christina Hendricks, pokes fun at the logic of the 1960s while providing viewers with information about current gender inequality. In other fan observations on Joan's character, we see a general agreement about how Joan constantly defies gender norms of that time. For example, there is a period when Joan becomes engaged to a doctor, which is what all women of the sixties would want, correct? However, her engagement to Greg Harris ended in her being raped by him, and just not being a good situation for her ("The Mountain King" [2.12]). However, to much the viewers' surprise, she still follows through with the engagement to fulfill the expectations that society has in place for a women to obey her husband (Dill-Shackleford 2015, P. 104).
What surrounds Joan throughout the series, is a patriarchal dominance that does not allow her to advance in her life, or within her career in a traditional way. Joan is one of the more admirable characters because she continuously defies those patriarchal norms and comes out on top. Although someone who is watching the show for the first time may be appalled by Joan's actions, with a further in-depth look at her character, she was doing what women in that time had to do in order to succeed and more. Joan is a prime example of how women can overcome these boundaries with their own assets, and make the best of the situation they are in.
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