Goodbye, Good Little Girl Syndrome

The decades of the ad men weren’t pretty and it’s time women stopped trying to be “good little girls” in the office.

Children, especially girls, have been raised by parents to believe in and practice what I’ve christened “The Good Little Girl Syndrome.” The name says it all and I dare think that I need to explain, but I will do that. We are, in fact, probably witnessing the death of that syndrome and we can find one sign of it in the #MeToo hashtag that is so prevalent on Twitter.

The history of the demise of this syndrome may be unclear as many believe it sprung up like a mushroom in the night and, suddenly, was fully formed in the minds of millions of women. That is not so. From my perspective, it actually was instigated, perhaps unwittingly, by the writers of the “Mad Men” TV shows.

Too many writers have waxed philosophical on this era, one in which they were never immersed. But the era of the Mad Men is one with which I am fully acquainted, having witnessed it firsthand as a naïve young girl in the world of New York City’s publishing and related fields.

Three martini lunches, after work dalliances with married men who had to catch their trains to their families in Greenwich, Connecticut, and pathetic young women who began their day with a glass of vodka prior to getting on the subway to go to work.