Redefining Feminism to Include Cosmo Icon Helen Gurley

Jennifer Scanlon. Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. xv + 270 pp. $27.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-534205-5. Reviewed by Kim Voss Published on Jhistory (November, 2009) Commissioned by Donna Harrington-Lueker (Salve Regina University) The women of reality television dating shows The fght for women’s liberation was a war could use a copy of Helen Gurley Brown’s 1962 fought on several fronts. The leaders of some of bestseller Sex and the Single Girl. The book’s mes‐ these battles are well known, such as Steinem, sage of self worth and the rejection of marriage as Friedan, and Martha Griffiths. Less prominent as the only ideal for women continues to resonate-- a feminist icon is Gurley Brown, best known to‐ particularly for The Bachelor contestants who re‐ day as the longtime editor of Cosmopolitan maga‐ ject dignity in exchange for an engagement ring. zine. She was an advocate for women outside of Gurley Brown’s message still feels timely and is the middle class and forthose who saw no need testimony to her progressiveness in her day. As for marriage. She encouraged earning a good pay book author, magazine editor, and social critic, check and promoted self-reliance. She just hap‐ Gurley Brown sent a message in support of wom‐ pened to do so while fashionably dressed and en’s changing roles. Yet, her name is typically left wearing good lipstick. It’s these women who are out of the history of those who championed wom‐ not recognized as feminists often enough--who en. As demonstrated in Jennifer Scanlon’s Bad did not ft easily into the media-defined feminist Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley categories. Brown, the iconic former Cosmo editor's name be‐ The story of the largely overlooked feminist--a longs alongside those of Betty Friedan and Gloria term she embraced--is told in Scanlon’s book. It Steinem. That is Scanlon’s thesis, and she proves it relies heavily on Gurley Brown’s extensive papers well. As she writes, Gurley Brown “sought to liber‐ at the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College in ate not the married woman but the single woman, Northampton, Massachusetts, and provides im‐ not the suburban but the urban dweller, not the pressive primary-source documents--including college-educated victim but the working-class sur‐ early drafts of her writing. These materials pro‐ vivor” (pp. 94-95). vide new insight into a woman who has created H-Net Reviews her own media image. Scanlon, a professor of much. After all, the reality television program The gender and women’s studies at Bowdoin College, Bachelorette was not entitled The Spinster for a has a background in the scholarship on women’s reason.) Of course, many women have long magazines. Her previous work includes Inarticu‐ thrived without marriage, as is noted by Betty Is‐ late Longings: The Ladies' Home Journal, Gender rael in her book chronicling one hundred years of and Promises of Consumer Culture (1995). Bachelor Girl (2002). This was especially true by Scanlon’s biography of Gurley Brown covers the 1960s when young women saw a (usually tra‐ the more recognizable accomplishments of the ditional female) career and an apartment as an Cosmo editor and, most impressively, her behind- option. Israel noted, “marriage as a national idea, the-scenes struggles. For example, Gurley Brown’s an enforceable teenaged daydream, had lost some papers reveal her male editor’s censorship of sec‐ of its hypnotic force.”[1] It was in this changing tions of the initial drafts of Sex and the Single Girl societal view that Gurley Brown saw her opening. and her exclusion from the Hearst (male-only) ed‐ Women of the time could have a career--but if itorial community when Gurley Brown headed they wanted to go beyond the secretarial pool, Cosmo. Scanlon also reveals Gurley Brown's less‐ they had to create their own way. er-known activities such as her pitches for televi‐ While Friedan would reach out to college-ed‐ sion programs that were ahead of their time. It ucated, middle-aged women in the early 1960s, should be noted that while she was well known this was not the community Gurley Brown related for her message about “singlehood,” Gurley to. Born to poor circumstances and left fatherless Brown could also be a fan of marriage, as this at a young age, Gurley Brown watched her moth‐ book demonstrates. The real issue was fnding a er struggle to raise her two children. (Her mother man who saw his wife as an equal. The author sacrificed her frst love and her career for her gives appropriate credit to Gurley Brown’s hus‐ family--a sad rather than noble experience that band, successful movie producer David Brown, was not lost on her daughter. Later, Gurley Brown and the partnership they created. (He was a force would see the roots of the need for women’s liber‐ in the entertainment industry in his own right, ation in her mother’s life.) Not an attractive child, and his marketing plans were a good match for she was encouraged to rely on her intellect for his wife’s talents.) her success. This is not to reinforce Gurley While Helen Gurley Brown deserves her Brown’s self-described role as an average “mouse‐ place in the literature on the women’s liberation burger.” Her own high school photos and letters movement, her role was complicated. Her promo‐ reveal that Brown was a cute, popular young tion of sexualized images and make-your-man- woman. One of the highlights of the book is what happy copy irked many feminists. (And her views the fifty boxes of archival materials reveal in com‐ on sexual harassment could be updated.) Yet she parison to the persona that Gurley Brown has also championed many of the issues central to the crafted. (The main criticism of the book is that movement--such as women’s employment rights this analysis is not taken further.) and abortion access. But her real embrace of femi‐ After a semester of college, Gurley Brown at‐ nism would come later. In early years, she was tended secretarial school. A career was not mere‐ simply trying to make her way and hoped to share ly an option--it was an economic necessity. And her story with others. Her voice was a unique one. those careers were limited. It was in this low-pay‐ Being an outspoken single woman carried a stig‐ ing role as a secretary that her education in gen‐ ma of being a spinster destined to a lonely exis‐ der politics began. She learned that women had tence. (And this has not necessarily changed inferior positions in the workforce but they man‐ 2 H-Net Reviews aged to glean what they could from them, like In essence, she wanted a message that en‐ padded expense accounts and leftovers from busi‐ couraged women to both be individuals and part‐ ness lunches. As Scanlon notes, “For women of ners for men. This was not a simple message at a Gurley’s generation, ambitious or not, gender con‐ time of social change. Despite Gurley Brown’s lib‐ tinued to dictate when and where career paths erated views, the discussion of sex and male at‐ might open up” (p. 27). She was also a closeted traction fed the perception that Cosmo encour‐ writer, recording her views on unapologetic sin‐ aged women to be subservient to men. Her use of glehood in her private time while later developing revealingly clad women on the cover of her maga‐ her professional voice as an advertising copywrit‐ zine (cleavage was purposely featured every three er. issues), led to accusations of sexual objectifica‐ Her marriage to David Brown and those mus‐ tion. Her regular response was: “There is nothing ings on the single life led to the book that would wrong with being a sex object. He is your sex ob‐ change the course of her life and lead to her own ject. It goes both ways” (p. 109). Some of these brand of feminism: Sex and the Single Girl. The ti‐ messages were questioned by feminists. The criti‐ tle was outrageous for the time and her thoughts cism was unwarranted, according to Gurley were also radical--promoting a single woman’s Brown. She explained Cosmo in an interview with sexual satisfaction, career rather than mother‐ Gloria Steinem: “I’ve used their magazine. I didn’t hood, and money of her own. It should be remem‐ put up a penny. I’ve got this instrument in which I bered that these messages were seen as a direct say what I want to” (p. 166). affront to the traditional role of women. A 1956 And much of what she had to say was about report that ran in Life magazine about single sex. Readers may have received scientific and women who worked and delayed marriage paint‐ medical messages about sex from the Kinsey Re‐ ed a poor picture: “chances are that she will suffer port, but Gurley Brown offered a different discus‐ psychological damage. Should she marry and re‐ sion. Marriage was not a precursor to sex and, produce, her husband and children will be pro‐ furthermore, sex should be enjoyed. As Scanlon foundly unhappy” (p. 77). As Gurley Brown would writes of female sexuality, “In the end, Friedan later prove, the right husband could make all the saw danger where Brown saw fun” (p. 109). The difference. magazine editor did not shy away from the topic The publication of her book (which came out at a time when it was not just frowned upon, but after she had married) made Gurley Brown a star not discussed at all.

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