I think that Betty doesn't even really know that this is what she wants (finding her own power etc) - she just knows that she had what she was supposed to want and it didn't make her happy. (And she gets to blame Don's infidelity on her unhappiness - which probably distracts her from the actual source.)

t writes furiously

As I see it, the reason Betty is an unsatisfying heroine to a modern audience is that we can identify with her dissatisfaction at home, but the things she wants instead are just as un-feminist as the traditional housewife role - she wants to be pampered arm candy, basically. She wants what Jane has - a rich husband, no kids, a swank apartment in the city.

Jessica,

given how much affection she has for baby Gene, I actually don't think she wants no kids. She isn't the best parent in the world, but I'm not sure she is aware of her limitations.

My question is: do you think she would have divorced Don if she hadn't found out his secrets?

Speaking as the mother of a two year old, there's a big difference between loving babies and loving parenting. Betty does not enjoy her older children.

Getting a divorce in NY is really hard (we're still the only state in the country without no-fault divorce), so I'd say no to your other question - without the box, she'd have no leverage against him.

I think though, that that what she thinks she wants. We've said before that her life with new creepy guy probably isn't going to satisfy her, either. Her dipping a toe into local politics seeming to satisfy her in a way that she can't quite figure out just now.

But I think she was taught that the way a woman picks her life is to pick her guy. So she thinks "Different guy, different life," Even though it's really the whole domestic goddess baggage that is the problem(and, really, that nobody else can really be "your life,") Although people still hate to hear mothers say that.

I agree with Jessica. Betty is frustrating because everything in her life points to a major feminist awakening, but she's been so warped in her expectations by her mother that she will never make that leap. Also, she sucks because she's an unempathetic narcissist. Just like, I suspect, her mother.

It might be useful, Aimee, to draw parallels to Joan and Peggy who have had a similar series of choices in front of them and branched off in different ways.

Joan wants the same things that Betty wants - the marriage, children, money. But she's actually happier in the work place, where her ultra-competentence is appreciated. And she's closer to learning that than Betty is.

Peggy was in a position to leverage a marriage to Pete (frightful thought!) when she was pregnant. But she didn't choose marriage and she didn't choose to be a single parent. She took the harder earlier choice but has the brighter immediate future.

Peggy was in a position to leverage a marriage to Pete (frightful thought!) when she was pregnant.

Pete was already married when she found out, wasn't he?