Right on.

Personally, I found too many other characters neglected last season in order to paint a picture of suburban ennui. If the intention was to make the viewer feel Betty's boredom personally, I surely did. I hope we can see more of the others next season.

Yes, Poor Betty deserves my pity. But what about Carla, Joan & Peggy? Not to be classist, Mona & Trudy dealt with some real problems. Not to be sexist–what about Sal?

See–I made a post without casting aspersion on other posters. I wouldn't mind being Medieval, but my Middle English isn't very good. (I don't remember the Wife of Bath complaining much; maybe Betty's pilgrimage to Reno will open her eyes. Pray for a miracle!)

Of course Betty has no emotional vocabulary, of course she isn't going to be able to address the anger at her mother. She can't address any anger directly at its source until second season. Some people are repressed. 90% of the characters on the show, I'd argue.

It wasn't considered valuable for a beautiful woman to be intelligent then–still today it's best to let the man play smartest boy around. Don fell in love with her, made his choices, seemed fine with them. I don't think I heard him complain directly about the commute once in the series.

Betty made a decision to play the game, not knowing it was rigged against her. I'd say she still thought she could win consistently up until she found out about Bobbie, and occasionally entertained again after, as in Rome. But she's waking up.

Women who are against Betty–who want her to step off the screen, want her to stop having 'Very Special Problems'–are probably never going to identify these traits as anti-feminist. But to chalk Betty up as a dumb, sullen, cold blonde who couldn't have thoughts, if she has no one who cares about them, is definitely not supportive. Real women had kids they never should have, real women learned that a beautiful woman was prettier still with her mouth shut. And if it's not supportive of problems that real women faced in the early 60s…what is it?

It's not misogynistic to dislike a particular woman. In fact, I would say it is the opposite of that. "Misogynists" would lump ALL women into a category, and despise them not because of the kind of people they are as individuals, but because they are, simply, women. There is no one way for "how we should speak about women" if women are to be treated as individuals.

not-Bridget is responding to a very specific woman, Betty, and reacting to her based on everything we've seen over 3 seasons of MM. You can disagree with her take on Betty (lord knows we've had more vehement disagreements here at BoK about Betty than any other character on the show) but it's not "misogynistic" to not like her.

I mean, I don't hate women, and call them dull and simpering and spoiled when that's clearly not the case, but that's just me. C'est la vie, I suppose. Maybe you have a different view on how we should speak about women.

In general, stick to discussions of things related to the show, rather than things related to our blog, other blogs, or other Basketcases, and you won’t get into trouble. This isn’t a schoolyard. If you brawl, we’ll start by deleting comments, not commenters, but we make no promises about the shortness of our tempers. Play nice, share your toys, and don’t kick sand.

When the show began, Betty was having physical symptoms that led her to a shrink. He wasn't very good–but had the sense to finally ask if she was angry with her mother. Oh, no! She had loved her mother! Evil Don was preventing her from mourning the old bat. Then she found out he was violating her confidentiality & reporting the sessions to Don. Rather than firing the shrink & yelling at Don, she passively aggressively began using the sessions to get what she wanted out of him. And avoided the awkward question that might have gotten to the root of her hatred of the suburban life that Don had financed for her.

It's too bad that Sally was conceived so early. Perhaps Don & Betty could have grown up & grown together if they'd had a few years as a young couple in the city. Would Don have opened up about his background? Would they have discussed whether his talents might take them elsewhere? Hey, frozen Betty might even have begun to express some of those "Thoughts" she boasted of in her letter to Henry. Although she apparently got through four years at Bryn Mawr with the absolute minimum of intellectual effort. Then she got pregnant & fled to the suburbs; her parents were glad to get her out of that dump in the city. And Don kept working at a job he didn't love, with a long commute taking him to a big house filled with stodgy furniture & a Betty sinking into suburban numbness.

I look forward to seeing Don & his colleagues trying to make sense of the 60's next season. Learning, growing & working together.