Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown, the Woman Behind Cosmopolitan Magazine

by Jennifer Scanlon

The biography of the revolutionary magazine editor who created the “Cosmo Girl” before Sex and the City ’s Carrie Bradshaw was even born

As the author of the iconic Sex and the Single Girl (1962) and the editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine for over three decades, Helen Gurley Brown (1922–2012) changed how women thought about sex, money, and their bodies in a way that resonates in our culture today. In Jennifer Scanlon's widely acclaimed biography, the award-winning scholar reveals Brown’s incredible life story from her escape from her humble beginnings in the Ozarks to her eyebrow-raising exploits as a young woman in New York City, and her late-blooming career as the world's first "lipstick feminist." A mesmerizing tribute to a legend, Bad Girls Go Everywhere will appeal to everyone from Sex and the City and Mad Men fans to students of women's history and media studies.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Feminism, Fashion, Book Club, Biography Memoir, Womens

312 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been poaching a lot of books from The Hairpin's recommendations and this piqued my interest immediately. I suppose it was the title. But the book should really be called What We Talk About When We Talk About Why Helen Gurley Brown Is A Feminist. Cause damn, that is all we talked about. Some chapters read like term papers when what I wanted was the sizzle I used to associate with Cosmo pages.

Don't get me wrong -- I appreciated the argument that HGB played a large, often unnoticed or undocumented role, in the second wave of feminism, but there was no need to be beat over the head with it. It is a point of view I had never considered and I am guilty of this brand of feminism myself (ie. i am fully aware that it was my low-cut, short skirted dress -- not my inability to parallel park -- that totally got me my drivers license). But that unwavering insistence to hammer that point home left the book dry and difficult to wade through in parts. And it left much of the real gristle of the story unexamined, like HGB's body issues -- which were clearly connected to her need for control and her relationship with her mother/sister, are correlated to her insistence women use their sexuality to gain leverage in a male dominated world, and led to the use of models with impossible to obtain images on the cover of her magazine who now impact much younger girls than her original target audience. There's a mere mention of the conflict between her personal beliefs and those she sold, particularly about marriage, but I feel as if the why behind that was never analyzed in favor of beating a dead horse.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Mary McCoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're a fan of Mad Men, this is the perfect book to read before the new season starts. Author of Sex and the Single Girl (1962), and longtime editor of Cosmo, HGB comes out a cross between Joan and Peggy. She's part the adventurous sexpot who manages to negotiate affairs in the workplace, manipulate the boys' game to suit herself, and still come out looking professional. And she's part the driven, hard-working, creative career girl, hoping to get to the corner office by virtue of her brains.

Interestingly, HGB worked as a secretary in an advertising agency for a few years before working her way up to copywriter. And then, when it became clear that no promotion was in store, quit and went on to better things.

Despite the controversy surrounding HGB's ideas about female sexuality (she DID turn Cosmo from a little-read literary rag into...well, what it is today), Scanlon takes a well-considered approach in portraying Gurley Brown as a different sort of second wave feminist.

A good, juicy read.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those of us that spent high school/college in the 70's and 80's, this book is a must read about a fascinating woman at the forefront of the "woman's lib" movement. Love her or hate her (I love her) it's an interesting view of the times and what made her so successful. It does read a bit too much like a doctoral thesis for me, but so fun to revisit the issues and see how far we've come (or not, as the case may be). She stood up to rabid feminists, (who still deny they set the movement back with their ridiculous anti-male stance) showed it was OK to work, support yourself, choose not to have children, and still want to look good and have men in your life. Unfortunately, her views on sexual harassment and AIDS have been her downfall, but it's about time her contributions were lauded. On balance this is one fantastic woman that I would love to know, and feel as if I do.

[Carol Littlejohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helen Gurley Brown is the "inventor" of the Cosmo Girl from Cosmopolitan magazine and author of 1962's book "Sex and the Single Girl." Practically everyone knows that, but what you might not know is that Helen Gurley Brown had a great deal to do with the rise of feminism. The author contrasts her life with Betty Friedan (writer of "The Feminine Mystique") since they both are contemporaries. Brown represented the single (and underpaid) uneducated woman; Friedan represented the well-educated housewife. Together they both spread feminism in their pioneering trails. Actually, the author thinks that Helen Gurley Brown achieved more converts than did Friedan. After reading this book, I agree with the author.

[Niki Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I ran across Jennifer Scanlon’s Bad Girls Go Everywhere, I thought I knew Helen Gurley Brown. The magazine and the woman at it’s helm had attained mythical status. The powerful, yet sexually charged cover photos by Francesco Scavullo, the provocative titles, and it’s small dark, helmet-haired editor-in-chief were such a part of my personal female history that I couldn’t imagine there was anything I didn’t already know. I was delightfully proven wrong. This is not only a great biography about an interesting woman, but a great history lesson in the feminist movement. Jennifer Scanlon gives a well-rounded picture of Helen the woman and the doors she opened.

For full Review: http://prettypageturner.com/bad-girls...

[Lambeam · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is an academic treatise mysteriously packaged as a best seller. We have 200 pages of endless minutia on the life of HGB plus 40 pages of footnotes. We learn what clubs she joined in high school, about her acne, her weight and told (twice) that she was a thrifty while her husband was a big tipper. Far too much information. While the author makes a case that HGB was a feminist in a way - encouraging women to find self worth through work (along the lines of Betty Friedan)and - more than other feminists - refusing to see women as victims - it was worrisome her acceptance of what in modern terms could only be defined as sexual harrassment.

[Sonal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Helen Gurley Brown has had an amazing career and really impacted women's issues even before she was the editor of Cosmo. This book was written more like a thesis or research paper and it didn't do much to humanize a fascinating woman well ahead of her time. It was interesting to read how Helen's adolescence shaped who she became and the choices she makes but the book just came across as too clinical.

[Laine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dense (and poorly written) bio of a free thinker. What a woman!

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

really enjoyed, even if a few of the chapters read more like conference papers, and the subject came in and out of the picture. When she was there, she was very, very there.

[T Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting subject, and the book is very good at placing Brown within the context of the time and culture in which she lived. Anyone who followed COSMOPOLITAN religiously for a while (whether for tips on fashion and, cough, relationships or just as a window into how others might think) would find this portrait of its founder intriguing. At times it gets a little scholarly, but it's refreshing to see a scholarly eye applied to someone whose life is mostly associated with quick listicles and sex quizzes.

[Julia Foliano · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting looking into Helen Gurley Brown’s life but ultimately falls short on proving her to be a profound second wave feminist. Gurley Brown had some takes that were progressive but fails to recognize her complicit actions in serving the patriarchy. No intersectionality mentioned, as Gurley Brown’s feminism serves mostly white women. Although I do appreciate her unashamed attitude.

The book’s argument would’ve been better presented as something other than a biography.

[Yenta Knows · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was worth my time, but just barely. It's a frustrating read. First because Jennifer Scanlon is not much of a prose stylist. She hasn't quite gotten the concept of one thought per sentence so she'll pile several disparate concepts together before adding the period. Reading as marathon running. :(

She is also extremely repetitious. How often do we need to hear that Brown is by nature optimistic? Or that she's a hard worker? Or that her brand of feminism focuses on the individual rather than the culture? Be warned: you're going to read one of those assertions every few pages.

Meanwhile, Scanlon could be doing WAY more to elucidate the contradictions in Brown's life and lifestyle. Just a few:
She claims to come from poverty but her father was Arkansas's Secretary of State.

She makes $2 million a year but rides the bus to work. (Does she really? Why?)

She works very long hours but cooks most or all of her husband's meals. (When?)

I'm suspicious of all of the assertions above. Why isn't Scanlon? Why didn't she get independent confirmation?

Finally, and most disappointingly, Scanlon never addresses the difficult but crucial question. That is: if Gloria Steinem represents one pole of feminism ("political feminism")and Brown represents another ("individual feminism") then which flavor of feminism has influenced more women? Made more difference in women's every day lives? Done more to create a culture that's fair to all people?

Tough questions to analyze and answer. But it's not enough to just assert that Brown's flavor of individual feminism is unfairly devalued by those arrogant intellectuals, Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan. You gotta offer evidence to support your assertion.

[Kristen Northrup · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would be a great choice for an ambitious book club, because I spent a lot of time going "Yes, but..." and frustrated that there was no one around to actually discuss it with. I did read Sex and the Single Girl about a year ago. The academic defending-a-thesis tone isn't too heavy, although it leads to some distractingly odd (ivory tower?) statements (by the author, not by Brown) about things like why women dye their hair, what is a healthy daily calorie count, and what a grain elevator does. Lots of interesting cultural history and context, and I ILL'd several books from the bibliography. Love that she suggested a tv series set in an advertising agency and the studio said no one would be interested in that setting. Totally unsurprising that Cosmopolitan is most successful in Russia. Would have liked more explanation of why she thought college never would have worked for her. Impressive that she tried (if not very hard) to get positive pieces on abortion and homosexuality published way before their time and insisted on leaving in the career and finance columns even when reader polls said they didn't care. Useful discussions of how class privilege enables social protest, but it still seemed like Scanlon was too lenient with the whole courtesan thing, not to mention the infidelity angle. Scanlon was also surprisingly accepting of the 'universal' fear of the 'ravages of aging.' And what the heck was with the spoon bending?

Now to go read the Caitlin Flanagan review in The Atlantic.

[Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

I made it halfway but this book is due back at the library tomorrow and I decided that I just don't care enough to finish it. The writing isn't great: it's often repetitive, and some parts (indeed, whole chapters) don't add much to the story of Helen Gurley Brown (HGB)'s life. Also, the nickel-tour of second-wave feminism is what I'd expect from a high school student, not a scholar: I rolled my eyes a LOT. And you'd never know nonwhite feminists existed, except for a few throwaway lines and a couple (and I do mean A COUPLE) of citations in the footnotes. (Note that the nonwhite feminists, even in those throwaway lines, are NOT ACTUALLY NAMED. Check the footnotes for a name! Sweet fancy Moses.) Apparently the Holy Trinity of Second-Wave Feminism consists of Friedan, Gurley Brown, and Steinem. For a book this obsessed with positioning HGB as a feminist, a more realistic and rigorous look at feminist movements would have been in order.

One chapter of the book is a lengthy discussion of Friedan vs. Gurley Brown, and I'm still not sure why it exists. In addition to my complaints above re: the nickel-tour of feminism, this book is about the life of HGB, and I didn't learn ANYTHING about her life from that chapter--which, by the way, read like a first-draft Masters thesis (and no I do not mean that as a compliment). Scanlon clearly believes HGB was a feminist and she wants to advance the argument, but quite frankly that's a project for a different book: here it's just a tangent, that out-of-place Masters thesis, and not a well-executed one at that.

tl;dr I just don't care enough to slog my way through the other half of this mess of a book. BACK TO THE LIBRARY IT GOES.

[Unwisely · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like many books I've been reading lately, this one came from a reading list I made several years back. So I didn't really know what I was getting into. Short version: it's sort of a biography, and sort of a book about a book (which I've never read) Sex and The Single Girl. Which turned out to be really interesting.

I went to college just around the time third wave feminism was hitting, and while I'm vaguely familiar with major players in the second-wave - and of course I read Cosmo - I really had no idea about either Helen Gurley Brown or her influence on society in general.

A few of my major takeaways were more sympathy for "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" - when a man with a high school education could rise through the ranks but a woman with a master's degree couldn't be more than a secretary, it seems merely practical rather than callous. It really brought home how few options women had. And, of course, her thrifty, working-class background wasn't the upper middle class world that third wave feminists sometimes decry as comprising all of second wave thinking.

I haven't intended to concentrate on feminist history, but reading this so close to
The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women was an interesting juxtaposition.

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a straightforward biography, this was good, and it was amazing to see how Helen Gurley Brown came from nothing to become a writer and the editor of a major magazine. That being said, I found I wanted much more critical analysis of Helen Gurley Brown's feminism, but what I got was Scanlon quoting her (again and again and again) as Gurley Brown says, "no really, I'm a feminist, Cosmopolitan is a feminist magazine, seriously" which was not enough.

I also wanted to read more on Gurley Brown's impact on third-wave feminism, which is only touched upon here and there. Helen Gurley Brown is still alive; why was there not more about her thoughts on, say, the success of the 'Sex and the City' franchise?

The book seemed to really hit its stride when comparing/contrasting both Sex and The Single Girl with The Feminine Mystique along with the lives and attitudes of their respective authors. It seemed like a good setup for further analysis — and then suddenly the book ended, which left me a little sad.

[Kay · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found Scanlon's claims to be untenable at times, particularly in regards to arguments that Helen Gurley Brown was a founding member of the second wave feminist movement (she attempts to do so by pointing out that Brown's book "Sex & the Single Girl" came out a year before Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique"). I agree that Brown was a woman who was bending the rules, but it seems to me that she still generally kept within the confines of social norms. She wanted to bend the rules, not break them, something the author points out several [thousand] times.

That said, the book was more or less interesting. The writing was boring at times and it sometimes dragged, but overall Brown lead an interesting life. I can't say I'd read it again - once is enough for all those minute and often seemingly useless details - but it was all right the first time around. Could've probably been about 100 pages shorter.

If you're utterly enamored with (and blinded by said admiration) the person you're writing about, you shouldn't be a biographer - you should be a publicist.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I first started reading this book I mostly wanted to hear about how she became editor of Cosmo. However, as often happens, it what came before that turned out to be the most interesting. I had not realized how much her own experiences as a single woman, and becoming a champion for that generation, had shaped her into her iconic role. Nor did I know she had no formal training as an editor. The fact that she is mostly self-taught and became such a success through hard work, determination and old-fashioned chutzpah, is a much better story.

Despite the subject matter, this read too much like a textbook and I found myself skimming over sections to get to the next chapter. I admit when I first requested this book from the library I failed to notice it was about her, but not written BY her. I had come across the title in another great book about working women during the Mad Men era, aptly titled Mad Women. I now have requested a copy of Helen's own memoirs which I look forward to reading soon.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Helen Gurley Brown is more interesting than the book itself. The book's thesis is encapsulated in this sentence: "Helen Gurley Brown...invited in to feminism another important but often invisible group, working-class women, largely but by no means exclusively white, whose goals included financial independence, the freedom to engage in sexual activity outside of marriage, and the enjoyment of, rather than a rejection of, the fruits of capitalism. Interesting thesis, and one which Scanlon proves repeatedly. But she seems so intent on fitting her subject into the confines of this thesis that she sacrifices the texture of any good written consideration of a literary "life": the texture of the times in which the subject lives. In addition, Scanlon doesn't ground events in actual dates much of the time, which seemed sloppy to me.

[Marisa Bowe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This woman did a lot of research about the wonderful Helen Gurley Brown, and contributes greatly to understanding why she was great and important. But boy, does this book ever cry out for an editor, as well as a copy editor. I agree with the criticisms other readers have made, that it reads like a thesis and beats its points into your skull over and over and over. I've also never read a published book with so many repetitions. However, as I've always adored HGB's books (never could get into Cosmo, though) and thought she never got her due as a feminist, I enjoyed the book a lot despite these major flaws. I learned a great deal about her and respect her way more than I even did before, thanks to this book.

[Mereke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whether you find HGB inspiring or uninspiring, and I'm not sure which camp I'm in myself, this book reads like a college thesis that no one bothered to edit. The author, a clear fan of HGB, includes every mundane detail of HBG's life (never once calling her anything other than her complete and full name "Helen Gurley Brown") and then just repeats and repeats and repeats her thesis until you're so sick of it, you can barely soldier on to the next paragraph. I suspect it will make for interesting book group conversation regardless, but I can't say I enjoyed reading it at all.

[judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hate to admit it but Scanlon's take on Gurley Brown as a feminist pioneer rings true. At the time I didn't think of her as a sister but after reading Scanlon I see that I was hung up on feminist orthodoxy. Gurley Brown does deserve recognition and I'm delighted that she is getting it while she is still alive (84?). The positive and negative here is that the author is an academic. Her analysis is superb but, sadly, the book isn't fun. As hard as Gurley Brown worked (and still does) she is the original Carrie Bradshaw et al.

[Gail · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book should have been a long Vanity Fair article. Once you know she was for some, a feminist ahead of her time or in the eyes of others, retrograde and damaging to the women's movement, that's it.
no juicy gossip here, as it's a biography and not an autobiography and she hasn't really interviewed the author, but gone over her personal papers on file at smith college. I wouldn't recommend it, but some interesting discussion of the history of the feminist movement, and the differences between the differnt protagonists of the era.

[Eva]

An interesting biography of an interesting, talented and spirited woman: longtime Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown. I found the dialogue around feminism thought-provoking, particularly Helen's identification of herself as a feminist, and Cosmo as a feminist magazine, despite some strong views to the contrary from other feminists. She is an interesting character, and her story is instructive. A piece of history.

[Witchyrichy · Rating 3 out of 5]

After providing details about Brown's childhood and early work history, the book headed into more sociological territory, marking Brown as a founder of the second wave of feminism. There were general comments about how she guided Cosmopolitan but no real details. For instance, I was very interested in how they came to the decision to do the centerfold! The last chapter seemed thrown together, focusing more on her weight than on her continued accomplishments.

[Alanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I avoid "fashion magazines," but gained a lot of respect for Helen Gurley Brown, best known as long time editor of Cosmopolitan magazine. The author crafted an excellent biography, especially given it wasn't a project commissioned by the subject herself. At times it felt like a university paper defending Helen Gurley Brown's identity as a feminist more than a biography, which made me look deeper into what feminism is, for me. This is one of the better biographies I've read.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that Jennifer Scanlon successfully makes the argument that HGB was a feminist, although I continue to believe that she was a capitalist above all. Still, this book is a fascinating look at the life of a very fascinating lady. I enjoyed reading it with Sex and the Single Girl and would suggest doing the same.

[Kaitlyn Wb]

I liked what I read of this one pretty well, although it was VERY clear that it was written by an academic, who kept hounding the point that HGB was a feminist even if she was ignored by other 2nd wave feminists and liked sex. I did not finish this one before I had to bring it back to the library.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think Helen Gurley Brown is absolutely fascinating. Only in the U.S., can someone grow up in "hillbilly" Arkansas, move to LA, work hard, become a trailblazing author, and then an enormously successful magazine editor.