NOT PRETTY ENOUGH - HELEN GURLY BROWN - MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

Readers of COSMOPOLITAN magazine, those who remember Helen Gurley Brown as the ultimate career-woman who was editor for many years and those who don't, will be interested in this biography which isn't the one Helen herself would have written.  Helen Gurley Brown (married to David Brown, a film producer), came up the hard way, had a sister and mother to support, and made it to Los Angeles at a time when most women were not career oriented.  Most women of her generation who worked quit when they got married, or when they were married with children.
HGB wrote more than one book in her lifetime.  "Sex and the Single Girl," came before her editorship, and was almost an expose on the fact that yes single women had sex.  It was full of girl-friendly advice. Because of it she was linked with Hugh Hefner and his Playboy Magazine empire in pop culture and overall was not considered a feminist.  (There was but one nude male centerfold in her years at Cosmo and that was of actor Burt Reynolds with his belly button near the staples airbrushed.)  HGB also wrote a couple of fun memoirs of sorts with confessionals such as that she bit her toenails.  No one could accuse this extremely hard working woman, who did marry "late" and never had children, of not having a sense of fun or humor.


According to author Hirshy, HGB often used real life examples in her own books, taking the experiences she had with one man and turning him into a variety of characters for instance, and what makes reading her books and then the "reality," more difficult is that HGB often had many simultaneous sexual relationships going on.  Some of her best women friends found that concerning.


HGB publically acknowledged in interviews that married men have affairs, how dumb could you be to not know that!  She was pro-Choice.  She had been hired and fired or quit dozens of secretarial jobs that included sex before she finally got that editorship when she was near forty years old and her husband helped her get it.


But why the title "Not Pretty Enough?"  On the cover of the book we see a photo of a happy HGB who is wearing fashionable clothing and cosmetics and has big hair to be envied.  Perhaps it's because HGB often referred to herself and women like her as "Mouseburgers."
She /they were not handed any advantages.  They had to self-improve.  This she did. She self improved not only with cosmetics and fashion, but exercise and diet.  She improved her apartment locations and her interiors.  She also improved on her friendships.  Never one to forget poverty or prioritizing her mother and sister, Helen could pinch a penny and was seen taking public buses.  She saved for years to buy her own auto.
What my readers here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot will find most interesting about this book is Helen's affairs.  I'm not going to ruin all that by telling it all.
So get yourself comfortable and crack open the book!


C 2018 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.