Trifecta

We have been watching Mad Men on netflix.  We are on Season 2 about half way through.  The show is set in the mid 60s and is about a small, yet up-and-coming advertising agency.  They all smoke in their offices.  Drink all day long in their offices and during meetings and then all night long.  Woman are secretaries not managers.  Its all very 1964.  I giggle when I see similarities to radio and the ad business as a whole that I can relate to from my own career.  Anyway.  Currently on the show, a young secretary has just been promoted to a Jr. Copy Writer among a wave of all male Copy Writers.  A really big deal back in those days.  I love seeing a woman getting a shot.  Love it.  I am not going to jump up on a feminist soap box, I just like to see women get ahead. 

Watching the show makes me remember one of the reasons I started working for a former radio group.  I choose to work there because there were 3 women in the top 3 management positions at the stations...a trifecta of women.  I thought this was a wonderful thing....at first.  Especially since when I started in radio I was one of only a few female Dept Heads in radio.  In fact, I once had an old male program director tell me that when he started in radio if there was a woman in the radio station...she wasn't an employee...she was a hooker.  I told him that he must have a really good attorney.  I digress.  As I sit here thinking about my experiences working with the trifecta, I am saddened to realize that the trifecta didn't look out for their female counterparts at all.  In fact, I feel that they are harder on woman in their office than the men.  I can think of several ....ok...MANY woman who were ousted out, demoted and/or fired by no real fault of their own by the trifecta.  And ironically there are MANY sub-par men in that building still to this day working under the trifecta whom are able to fly under the radar.  Why?  You would think that women would look out for other women.  Not this bunch.  They have no tolerance for women.  You should hear how the radio market talks about the trifecta.  It's not pretty folks. It"s down right sad.