Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown Book

I had never heard of Helen Gurley Brown before and as someone who came of age in the 1990s, I had spent very little time thinking about feminism or the role of women in the US other than to occasionally feel grateful that it was never an issue for me. This book inspired me to really examine some of my views of the past and present. The basic question is whether Helen Gurley Brown (author of Sex and the Single Girl and editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan for 32 years) is truly a feminist or not.

She was definitely in favor of women being independent, empowered, fulfilled and she was a strong supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment and woman's right to abortion. One example of where controversy arises is because while the original feminists wanted to redefine the meaning of feminine attractiveness and replace high heels, makeup, dyed hair, mini skirts, etc with more "natural" feminine attributes, Helen Gurley Brown embraced the old definition of beauty and wanted to help women look the "best" they could.

I was very torn on how I felt Helen Gurley Brown and I am still a bit on the fence. She had some traits that I found very admirable (her emphasis on empowerment and avoiding thinking like a victim, her pioneering career, her insistence that being feminist didn't have to mean hating men or becoming asexual, her open-mindedness towards differences in race and sexual orientation) and others where I think she is way off (her belief that avoiding motherhood is the best way to liberation, her assertions that women should always be flattered by sexual advances, her liberal attitude towards affairs (except when she was the wife when suddenly they were off-limits), her quest to remain ageless through whatever means necessary - cosmetic surgery, near anorexic behavior, etc).

Overall I found her story complex and interesting and I'm glad I read the book. It's a book that I think I will continue to ponder for quite some time.