The exploited women in Boardwalk Empire

Though I am kind of enjoying "Boardwalk Empire," we will most likely abandon Season 1 at this point, after 8 episodes - M. very frustrated and annoyed by the demeaning treatment of women throughout the season, and, though I can more easily accept that there's some verisimilitude in that no doubt this is how the mobsters of the era did treat women, there's also a sense that the series itself exploits the women characters in that they are props, lurid little toys that get to play in a lot of sex scenes and cat fights; the women characters include whore-with-a-heart-of-gold and serious drug addiction, sex crazed show dancer with major oedipal issues, uptight suffragettes, sickly and barren wife left behind by self-righteous federal agent and who seems like Ethan Frome's hapless spouse, nasty dress-shop owner, pea-brained concubines, and so on; the main female character, Marguerite Schroeder, is by far the most sympathetic, smart and bold and very sweet - but she's also, incomprehensibly, an incredible fool, naively agreeing to live as the main mobster's kept woman without, seemingly, realizing how deeply he's into corruption, gambling, and rum-running. Perhaps, on "discovering" his criminal behavior, she will turn against him - but really, is that probable? possible? She's either far too smart to get involved with him in the first place or far too selfish to care how he treats her and how he gets his money - she can't really be both.