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Is the popularity of a show like AMC’s “Mad Men,” a series about a slick, high-powered, male-dominated advertising agency in the 1960s, pure nostalgia, or is it a sign of regression in terms of gender roles and equality?

It is just one of the questions author, professor, researcher and national speaker Stephanie Coontz has used as a basis for her writing and research, and it’s one of the questions she will explore during a Women’s History Month talk at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Thursday, March 15.

Coontz is the author of “A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s” (Basic Books, 2011) and the award-winning “Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage” (Viking Press, 2005). She will present “Mad Men & Desperate Housewives: How Far Have We Come since the 1960s?” at 5 p.m. in Reeve Memorial Union’s third-floor theater Thursday.

The event is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the UW Oshkosh Women’s Advocacy Council, the Women’s Studies Program, the History Department and the Women’s Center.

“People sometimes want to believe that progress toward gender equality is inevitable and is always moving forward, but that’s not really true,” said Susan Rensing, assistant professor of History and Women’s Studies. “Occupational sex segregation is not going away, for instance.  And the percentage of women in Congress has actually dropped in the last few years to around 15 percent, even though women make up over half of the population.”

Rensing, said Coontz talk won’t solely focus on American history or current, provocative media issues but, rather, “contemporary issues and the past,” including some modern analysis of Betty Friedan’s landmark “The Feminine Mystique” and the extensive interviews Coontz conducted with women & men “about their reactions to that book, and the massive shifts in gender roles in the 1960s.”

Rensing said bringing Coontz to campus gives students, faculty, staff and community members the opportunity to interact with a leading, national expert on contemporary families and marriages. That’s not to mention the valuable opportunity to hear a woman whose insight on popular media and gender roles has been featured in The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and the Washington Post as well as on CNN, all within the last year.

Coontz has also offered insight and interviews on The Colbert Report, the Oprah Winfrey Show and the O’Reilly Factor.

“To the extent to which our cultural fascination with the 1950s and 1960s is coated with nostalgia and seen through rose-colored glasses, I do think that it is dangerous and might lead to regression on the gender equality front,” Rensing said. “However, a show like ‘Mad Men’ really does show the 1960s in its unvarnished state — the blatant sexism, sexual harassment, sexual violence, etc. — in ways that I think are useful for us to be reminded of.”

According to her website biography, Coontz has also established an impressive academic resume that has been in factor in her earning several awards for her work: She has taught at Kobe University in Japan and the University of Hawaii at Hilo. “In 2004, she received the Council on Contemporary Families first-ever ‘Visionary Leadership’ Award,” her website, www.stephaniecoontz.com, states. “In 1995, she accepted the Dale Richmond Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics for her ‘outstanding contributions to the field of child development.’ She also received the 2001-02 “Friend of the Family” award from the Illinois Council on Family Relations.”

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