The Relationship of Katherine and Betty

Betty's marriage to Spencer can best be described as a "false positive" or "gilded." When she was preparing to get married to Spencer, Betty believed that she was making the best decision of her life. Everyone believed that she and Spencer were happy together, even herself. One of the main reasons she was so adamant about getting married was that her mother was very strict about the way she was supposed to grow up and live life. Betty's mother was extremely supportive of the roles that women had in society and had no intention for her daughter to be unique from anyone else. Nevertheless, when Betty started to live her life with Spencer, she realized how much unhappiness was creeping its way into her life. She was slowly feeling more alone, even though she was supposed to be supported by her husband. Betty begins to take her anger out on others and even yells at another student claiming that the student's life was full of emptiness because she was chasing a man who didn't love her back, which perfectly described Betty's life at the moment. In the end, it is Betty, who seemingly had no intention of being unique, becomes and outsider and divorces Spencer because he was cheating, effectively enraging her mother. Katherine Watson, on the other hand, was completely supportive of Betty's intent to become independent. Katherine herself was single as well, and was even described as subversive. Yet, the word subversive literally means someone who is trying to subvert or overcome an established system. Katherine was subversive to everyone else because she decided to live her life by her own rules and not by the expectations of others. Still, wouldn't the word subversive only be used to describe her if the person using it supported the current social system? I believe that Katherine did not appear subversive to herself because she refused to trouble herself with the current social standards, no matter the opinion of others. She wasn't trying to undermine the current system that society blindly followed as she decided to completely remove herself from the system herself. Katherine supported her students to find their own personality and to disregard what society expected them to do, even if they desired to be a part of the system. She was in a league of her own and had no intention of coming back to the current roles that were offered to her by society.