The Ad Biz Made Me a Mad Woman

A tale of the good, the bad, and the very, very ugly

There wasn’t a pointy bra or grey flannel suit in sight in 1980 when I stumbled into advertising. But, well past the Mad Men era, there still were relatively few women on staff other than secretaries, and whatever your status, some of the men could drive you mad, and not in a good way.

I’d worked in publishing, but when I heard that advertising paid better I invented a portfolio, answered an ad for a copywriter in the New York Times Help Wanted section (yes, that was a thing), and was hired by an ad agency so small that the cigar-chomping boss made me Copy Chief of myself.

By the time I made it to big agencies, a lot of Madison Avenue wasn’t on Madison Avenue anymore. The industry was drifting way downtown or to the west side, where I was working at a behemoth regarded as the last unapologetic boys’ club in the business.

Babes in adland

Copywriters and art directors work in teams. I was paired with a gifted (woman) art director on a big, fashion-related account, an outlier at an agency that was mostly about jet engines and soft drinks. We were henceforth referred to as “The Fashion Babes.” We may or may not have been babes in the boys’ eyes, and it wasn’t entirely a compliment, but we ran our own little fiefdom and also worked on other accounts.

Coming up with a concept for a campaign could be fun or anything but. The light bulb might switch on while you were together in the office, or alone in the shower, or — my specialty — tangled in my bed sheets, sleepless, concept-less, waiting for something to click. When inspiration struck we’d work up the idea, present it to the creative director, and he (always he) would decide if it lived or died.

If we got the go-ahead, golden confetti rained down America’s Got Talent-style and the crowd went nuts. Not really, but it always felt great to sell a campaign.

Disclaimer

I had some wonderful, supportive male friends at work. But then there were the others. I hope it’s now more MeToo than Mad Men where I worked, because here’s a hint of what I and so many women dealt with.

Bad to the boner

The scene opens at a packed conference table. All was going swimmingly until the client beckoned me to his side to “take a closer look at a storyboard.” Then the pot-bellied old fucker invited me to sit on his lap. I suppose I should have been grateful he at least asked.

I searched my colleagues’ faces. Not a peep from anyone. Afterward, I called the guy who’d run the meeting, the Director of Suits (head of the Account Group, the ones who schmooze the clients).

Me: “What the hell was that?”

DS: “What can I say? He liked your legs.”

Me: “I’d rather he respond to the merits of my work.”

DS: “Hey, I’d drop trou if a client asked me to.”

Me: “Maybe one day you’ll have the opportunity.”

That time I had the words. Often I did not.

Case in point: One of my creative directors had a thing for my butt. He made no secret of his unappreciated appreciation in public. In private one time, he went full perv.

Me: “Here’s the script you asked for.”

CD: “I wish I were your proctologist.”

For all I know he expected me to say, “Cool. Let’s play doctor.” I was as shocked as an electrocuted chicken. If I’d had the guts to offer up You sadistic motherfucking power-tripping bastard, I’m calling HR, the head of HR would have thrown some bucks my way to shut me up and shown me the door. It happened a lot. Meanwhile, my legend of a boss would be leaning back in his ergonomic-design executive chair, feet up on his desk, beckoning his next victim. I got my much-admired butt out of there.

If a major client was underwhelmed and wanted genius in three days, every team competed on the same project. This was known as a “gang bang.” Unlike the kind that happens in a dark alley, being chosen was the goal; everyone else was fucked. As women, the phrase “gang bang” was particularly offensive, but we also used it. Be one of the guys, or be a shrill bitch who can’t take a joke.

One year our annual, agency-wide shindig took place on a rented yacht. It was a beautiful night, the Statue of Liberty aglow, Jersey City disguised as a glittering fantasyland across the river. The C.E.O. of the agency led me to the dance floor. I was flattered until he pulled me in way too close. I felt like a butterfly pinned to a wall or rather, a 6'4", portly, churchy Ivy Leaguer who proclaimed:

“Oops. I’ve got a party in my pants.”

It never occurred to any of these guys to be embarrassed. That was my job.

This next episode was hideous on top of horrible. I brought a model’s casting tape to a Creative Director for his approval.

CD: “Is she fuckable?”

Me: “May I quote you on that?”

Mind you, this was post-Anita Hill, and we were casting a TV spot about breast cancer. Stay classy, asshole.

Some men will be boys, especially in packs. I was chatting with a few male colleagues in my office. One grabbed a paper maché doll from Mexico a friend gave me because Niña was written across its stiff painted dress and my name is Nina. He pulled the doll’s jointed legs apart until they were spread wide open and waved it around calling my name, while thirty-somethings laughed their asses off like lewd twelve-year-olds and I tried to rescue the doll. I told them to get the fuck out and slammed the door. The doll was never right again.

I was spared even worse harassment than some other women at the agency. Maybe not all the boys were ass-men. Maybe it helped that I eventually had a title and faked a tough veneer. More than likely I was simply too old; it was the 1990s by then, and I was forty.

Balls. An addendum

I often refer to my co-workers as boys because if you wandered the halls, you’d observe a lot of cute boyish behavior. Guys were always tossing balls at each other. Footballs. Golf balls they putt-putted into those practice-cup thingies. One man-boy had a basketball hoop in his office, a first back then. Assorted doors would bang shut and the boys would throw projectiles and talk trash about women.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get any more adorable, boys in backward baseball caps took to skateboarding in the halls, an occupational hazard of a different sort.

Why I stuck it out until I didn’t

The challenge of doing good work. The excitement of shooting in places like Paris. Friendships, including with men (the grownup kind). And, of course, the payday, although it could never make up for the lower-than-the-bottom-rung-of-a-limbo pole BS the guys got away with.

After years of giving in to the lure of more bucks and my neurotic need to prove myself, a health scare coaxed me over the brink. Why spend my last days on earth working for guys like the one who asked if models were fuckable, took aim at an underling’s head with a VHS case (Google those, whippersnappers), and tore his office apart after five-martini lunches.

And so I quit and went freelance, as in I am free to leave if you pull anything. When a former co-worker asked why I left, I told him I was training to be a female bodybuilder, but that’s another story (which to my delight, boomeranged back to me, nicely embroidered).

In a way, it was true.

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