'Whenever a man takes you to lunch around here': Tracing post-feminist sensibility in Mad Men

This article argues that a post-feminist spirit underlies the representation of the successful television series Mad Men (AMC 2007-). Set in the flourishing New York advertising industry during the early 1960s, Mad Men depicts the rapid changes experienced in gender identities and cross-gender relationships in both the public and private spheres. This article contends that a post-feminist sensibility - a term proposed by Rosalind Gill - can be felt at different levels as the fiction develops. First, it permits self-indulgence in the viewer: the time set justifies the depiction of blatant sexism and at the same time imposes a lapse so wide that feminist awakening can be simultaneously viewed as urgent in the 1960s and as a victory already achieved. Second, it inspires nostalgia and venerates pre-feminist glamour and straightforwardness. Finally, a post-feminist spirit imbues the representation of female characters but, most notably, plays a crucial role in the depiction of men, particularly the protagonist Donald Draper.