Status Updates From What She Ate

Helen Gurley Brown was all about money and fame and branding. When her husband tried to expand her career, their ideas-recounted in detail-were both preposterous and demeaning to women.

Regarding the food ideas that she proposed? Laughable, to me. Also truly grotesque.

Crassly, Helen used food, just as she used everyone and everything else.

Laura intended, I assume, to portray Helen Gurley Brown as insufferable. In which case, Laura definitely succeeded with me.

The lack of personal integrity was stunning.

Equally awful, from my perspective as a feminist, was Helen's persona as an old-fashioned wife. Somebody who "enjoyed being a girl."

Fascinating and also repulsive, all in one chapter!

Barbara Pym won my affection, thanks to the sympathetic food writing she did, as reported by intrepid Laura.