Helen Gurley Brown

Subject: Helen Gurley Brown Mon Aug 13, 2012 3:27 pm

I'm going to let the experts talk about this lost icon. She was a profound influence on an entire generation of women(mine) - whether they were aware of it or not.

CNN:

Quote :: Former Cosmo editor Gurley Brown dead at 90

"Helen was one of the world's most recognized magazine editors and book authors, and a true pioneer for women in journalism -- and beyond," Hearst Chief Executive Frank Bennack said.
It was Gurley Brown who invented today's notion of a modern woman -- one who could have both a successful career and an exciting, satisfying sex life, said Bonnie Fuller, the influential magazine editor who took over at Cosmopolitan when Gurley Brown stepped down in 1997.
"Young women today don't realize the legacy that they owe her," Fuller said in an interview with CNN.

from her Wiki article:

Quote :: In 1962, when she was 40, her bestselling book Sex and the Single Girl was published.[13] In 1965, she became editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan and reversed the fortunes of the failing magazine. During the decade of the 1960s she was an outspoken advocate of women's sexual freedom and sought to provide them with role-models and a guide in her magazine. She claimed that women could have it all, "love, sex, and money", a view that even preceding feminists such as Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer did not support at all and has been met with notable opposition by advocates of grass-roots devotion of women to family and marriage.[14] Due to her advocacy, glamorous, fashion-focused women were sometimes called "Cosmo Girls". Her work played a part in what is often called the sexual revolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Gurley_Brown

Ann

Subject: Re: Helen Gurley Brown Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:31 pm

I am no expert, but in my opinion, long life was wasted on her. She sounds like a married woman's nightmare. She went after her co-workers and boss for sex. She was anorexic and I have zero admiration for her.

It is too bad she was so influential.
Thank Heavens, until now I never heard of her.

Subject: Re: Helen Gurley Brown Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:43 pm

Alice, not all of us were as lucky as you were to have your David. We needed to know we were not the problem, that we were OK even though our marriages didn't work, and that we still had the right to love and live full lives.

Just me.

Ann

Subject: Re: Helen Gurley Brown Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:49 pm

Ann You were not a problem. She was. While telling you how wonderful you were she was sleeping with your husband and who ever else''she could nab.
Think about it.

Mighty thoughtful of her to tell you your life could go on after she stole your spouse.

Subject: Re: Helen Gurley Brown Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:57 pm

No, Alice, not in my case. She was telling me that the woman who was sleeping with my husband was not any more desirable and/or proficient than I was, and that when I found a man who supported me and my own special "femininity," I did not have to feel guilty about the relationship that developed out of those circumstances.

Or that the fact that one of those men was ten years younger than I was needed to be a concern - he did not have to become the stepfather of my children for it to be OK.

I am an old lady now, but I have some great memories - and I do not feel guilty about any of them.

Ann

Subject: Re: Helen Gurley Brown Mon Aug 13, 2012 6:09 pm

I am glad she helped you.

Subject: Re: Helen Gurley Brown Mon Aug 13, 2012 6:16 pm

'We all have different perspectives on life, and on how it "ought" to be, based on our own experiences

Every one brings their own viewpoint into a discussion.

Love ya, friend.

Ann

Subject: Re: Helen Gurley Brown Mon Aug 13, 2012 7:24 pm

As usual you are so right--love ya back:)

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