Stephanie Coontz writes in The Washington Post: “‘Mad Men’s’ authentic portrait of women’s lives in the early 1960s makes it hard for some women to watch. . . . We should be glad that the writers are resisting the temptation to transform their female characters into contemporary heroines. They’re not, and they cannot be. That is the brilliance of the show’s script. ‘Mad Men’s’ writers are not sexist. The time period was.”