The Mad Men Effect‏

"On TV, Men are the New Women" bellowed a headline from The New York Times in 2003. The premise of the article was simple: the effect of feminism hadn't properly infiltrated onto television. Women were still squeezed into "demeaning caricatures" and the men occupied two categories: "cads or dads". Fast forward to today and it would seem (at least on some shows) that men are back where they belong thanks to the Emmy-award-winning show Mad Men. In case you've missed it, in the show women act and dress like women (gasp!); men are smooth-talking, chain-smoking, polyamorous misogynists (double gasp!) and it's all set against a spectacular drop of a 1960s advertising agency.
Most surprisingly though is the fact that most of it is styled, written and directed by a group of women ... a rarity by Hollywood's standards ...
While a show such as Mad Men could have reeked of anti-feminist sentiment by squeezing the characters into demeaning stereotypes, it has actually gone on to do quite the opposite.
Female empowerment is high on display, effectively seeping through all the male-dominated guff, while subjects that were taboo back then, such as female self-pleasuring, sexual freedom, the pill and abortion, all get their fair share of air time and are presented from a woman's point of view.
Popular culture has followed suit with everyone from Mattel - it has just created its very own range of Mad Men inspired Barbies - to Paris Fashion Week following the Mad Men fashion lead.
"Paris embraces curves!" shouted fashion critics as a more curvaceous Elle Macpherson (at least by current top model standards) waltzed down the latest Paris Fashion Week catwalk for Louis Vuitton in looks reminiscent of the Mad Men set.
And the public is taking note.
Bella, a 34-year-old single girl who changes her style more often than Charlie Sheen swaps his casual sex partners, says the Mad Men look is her new choice of attire. But, as I take in her tweed skirt, beige cardigan and string of pearls, I do wonder if it could be a turn-off for men.
While we were talking, we were standing in a newsagency and were surrounded by scantily clad models and a pouting Megan Fox looking seductively at us from every lad's mag cover (no pearls in sight). I did, indeed, wonder just how attractive to men were women who wore clothing that didn't show off everything from their navel to the decolletage.
It also reminded me of the time when I decided to experiment with my outfit by wearing a mini taffeta cut-out dress complete with exploding cleavage and ridiculously high hooker heels.
What transpired was the positive attentions from a guy I'd known for years but who'd never before glanced in my direction. "Are you coming to the next club with me?" he asked me that night with a wink. I politely declined, but secretly revelled in the power a little change of dress had over men, but I think that's a whole other column.
Anyway, back to Bella, who was still trying to convince me of her choice of pearls before noon and in a shopping centre.
"I think the '50s and '60s were a beautiful time when women had a clear role as women ... before women were trying to be men," she said. "Women dressed in a ladylike fashion to accentuate their curves, wore beautiful colours and fabrics - and were not trying to suppress their femininity. These days women worry about not being taken seriously if they are not wearing feminine clothes."
I remembered a time when Bella had swapped her flowy, sexy dresses for sharp suits and structured lines. It was when she had started her business many years ago and she was trying to be taken more seriously in the man's world she was about to enter.
"I did not want to come across like a child or a frivolous girl," she explained. "I do think that people perceive you in a different way according to the way you present yourself. Of course this is only the beginning - once you open your mouth, it's different. But I think, from a cosmetic point of view, people will take you on your appearance at first."
Nowadays, she says her sense of Mad Men style is attracting different sorts of men into her life. "It attracts a different type of man - an older man who is looking for a wife rather than a young guy who is looking for a fling."
And, however ridiculous she might look in her cream cardigans and pearls during a day out in a shopping mall, this sort of man might be exactly what she wants ...