Helen Gurley Brown’s pernicious legacy
Working girl who worked the system
Helen Gurley Brown, former editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, passed away this week, but her toxic legacy for the American woman lives on.
To put it kindly, she lived a life focused on getting what she wanted by working the system. She was the embodiment of the worst female stereotype as a master manipulator. Her whole life was a stunning example of how the “me” generation flourished. Everything that Gurley Brown wrote in her extraordinarily prolific career as a celebrity author, glamorous New York personality and three-decade editor of Cosmopolitan promoted the idea that women have to look out for themselves, make their own rules and work the system in order to get ahead.
And work the system she did.
To put it kindly, she lived a life focused on getting what she wanted by working the system. She was the embodiment of the worst female stereotype as a master manipulator. Her whole life was a stunning example of how the “me” generation flourished. Everything that Gurley Brown wrote in her extraordinarily prolific career as a celebrity author, glamorous New York personality and three-decade editor of Cosmopolitan promoted the idea that women have to look out for themselves, make their own rules and work the system in order to get ahead.
And work the system she did.
