Ironically, the most sexually liberated of the women on the show who uses her femininity as a blunt instrument -- the sensuously curvy office manager Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) – eventually became hindered by her sex appeal as that became the only thing the men saw, blinding them to her intellect and talents. “Joan is the story of a generation,” Weiner told New York Magazine. “Our moms had friends like her – very confident and sexy and they got punished for it. She has the confidence of a man and that’s really hurt her.”

When Joan was given the chance to read through TV scripts and offer advertisers sage advice on what spots to buy, on what shows and when, she flourished, until the men in charge of the Sterling Cooper advertising agency realized they did indeed need someone to do the job on full-time basis. So they hired a man for the post, without giving Joan a fleeting thought and sending her back where she belonged, to supervise the secretarial pool. To make matters worse, Joan’s doctor fiancé didn’t like to see her so into her career because work distracted her from taking care of him, as well as spending time cooking and looking for a house. “You should be watching the shows, not reading them,” he gently chastised her before asking her for a second time to leave the dinner table and fetch him his drink. When her finance detected a tremor of sexual chemistry between Joan and Roger Sterling (John Slattery), one of the two principals of the firm with whom she’d previously had an affair, her fiancé later raped her in the office, retribution for Joan possessing more sexual experience than him and firmly establishing who was in charge in the relationship. Even Joan’s legendary sexual power that had translated into clout at Sterling Cooper began to diminish after Roger countermanded Joan’s authority and rehired a secretary whom Joan had fired. To rub salt into the wound, Roger soon decided to leave his wife and propose to the 20-year-old secretary, Jane Siegel (Peyton List), something he never did for Joan during their year-plus relationship.

I like to think that the fact that the Mad Men second season DVD set contained a two-part documentary entitled, “Birth of an Independent Woman” – about how a woman’s power had been derived from her husband’s social and business status, her maternity, her home and her appearance – is an indicator that the largely female writing staff will bring these strong female characters to interesting and, hopefully, empowering yet realistic places in the third season because I’m simply mad about these women.