Tags
Cosmopolitan, Helen Gurley Brown, Jewish American Heritage Month, Kabbalah, Karen Berg, Madonna, Marissa Mayer, Sex And The Single Girl
Somehow I believed Helen Gurley Brown, the legendary editor of Cosmopolitan, was immortal.
In my twenties i was regularly reading all three editions of Cosmo i could get – US, UK and Italian one – and i did find there the answers i was looking for at the time.
I still know by heart good part of HGB’s best selling book “Sex and the Single Girl”.
I really couldn’t care less whether HGB is widely considered as having contributed to feminist movement and i am really sick and tired of this worn out discourse.
Firstly – please, define contemporary feminism for me, would you? Women’s rights is one thing, but now that we have them (bowing to all who contributed), isn’t it the time we left all this sickening paradigm behind?
I doubt anyone believes nowadays that working women “leave their husbands, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians”, but even if a lady chose to do so – Wicca is a recognized religion by now, capitalism ate itself anyway and US has just promoted its first female and openly gay general.
Honestly, i couldn’t care less what anyone thinks of me personally – as long as my rights are guaranteed – mind you, i am straight and an observant Jew.
Why bringing up Judaism? Well, recently a dear friend of mine posted links on facebook where a right wing Israeli Rabbi has a heated discussion with some Russian nationalist, it made me sick – both of them and the debate itself.
My friend who is an intellectual par exellance, listed several valid reasons for doing so – among them the fact that rabbi in question is one of the few respected by Russian nationalists… Listen, i can’t stand nationalist of any kind – and i don’t care at all what they think and whom they respect, as far as i am concerned, nationalist of all backgrounds are cheap demagogues and in my opinion are best kept in the basement, tied up, with clothes sucked up in chlorophyll pushed into their mouths – BUT, the latter would breach their right to free expression, so as long as they don’t cross the line of hate speech, whenever i hear them, depending on circumstances, i either walk out or simply turn off the tv.
Recently when Marissa Mayer became Yahoo CEO, upon her stating she wouldn’t call herself a feminist – there was a media outcry in the vein of GOODNESS, HOW IS SUCH HERESY POSSIBLE?!
Hear, she ain’t neither Secretary of State nor a spiritual leader, she is not paid to fight for someone’s rights – but to head a company; she proved that a ‘gal can do it, what else do you want? On what bases do you make your pretenses in the first place?
It’s really beyond my comprehension.
Same with Helen Gurley Brown of blessed memory.
I never asked myself was she a feminist – she was empowering women and that was good enough for me – more so, it won my eternal admiration for this small town girl who moved to the big city without having higher education or outstanding looks and who became one of the most influential women of 20th century.
HGB was restricting calories, believed that “Skinny is God”, worked out 90 minutes daily – even on the day of her mother’s funeral, she didn’t have children, she was not against single girls having sugar daddies – and she was brutally honest about it all, that’s the main objections most have about her; personally, i couldn’t care less about any of the above and it’s other ideas i picked up from her and find invaluable.
Don’t forget she wrote her book 50 years ago when sex was mostly unthinkable of before and outside of marriage, but even that doesn’t matter – what mattered to me was her work ethics and it’s there that i bow to her.
She was against intimisation with superiors, and so am i. She campaigned for women to invest into their knowledge and working skills and into making themselves irreplaceable in their careers, not in their lover’s beds – that’s my mantra too and it did wonders for me.
She was stressing all the time how important it is to have a good and supportive boss, one from whom a girl can learn and who will help her career. Fast forward 50 years – it’s still the most important thing, albeit now it doesn’t matter anymore whether the boss is male or female.
A proper superior is worth of gold – they become a role model and – from my personal experience – probably the most important influence in a girl’s life, after her parents’.
I worked both for men and women, and i was superior both to female and male interns – in my experience, the gender doesn’t matter anymore, but if you worked both for a psychopath and for a good guy/ gal – you’ll know exactly what i am talking about.
So these are the things where i agree 100% with HGB. Also, i agree on importance of protein intake (doesn’t have to be of animal origin – mushrooms, beans and tofu rock) and regular exercise as well; my mother being a certified and practicing nutritionist of old school – i know how evolutionary Ms Gurley’s views were at the time.
Where i disagree with my own mother – yet agree with HGB is the ‘natural looks’- my own mother always went for au naturel look, while i personally dislike gray hair and adore make up.
Don’t get me wrong at 75 my mother is – thanks goodness – still going strong, regularly having her facials, her hair, mani and pedi done, she loves accessories and dresses up – think of Hillary Clinton style as of recent – with glasses and sans make up, that’s my mother’s favorite look.
For myself – without imposing anything on anyone – i love meticulously maintained women, and i love being one, the class of (if speaking of role models from the past) Raquell Weltch who admits she needs three hours to get ready for going out.
Tastes vary, it’s as simple as that.
I am a big fan of Madonna Louise Ciccone and i adore her for all the age-defying thing that she does. Do i think she should sit at home so to get out of the way of the younger talents? Not at all – try dethroning her, if you can – and keep trying hard, as she raised the bar very high.
Not to forget the sheer horror Madonna’s own role model – kabbalist Karen Berg, author of “God Wears Lipstick” – causes among certain Orthodox Jews.
If you are interested in my scientific back up of the postmodern Kabbalah – look up among earlier posts here the notes from lecture “Everything you always wanted to know about Kabbalah” which i read in American Corner (cultural outpost of US State Department) in June this year within “Jewish American Heritage Month”, i won’t go into explaining it here.
I don’t label myself a feminist either, albeit i think by most i am considered such; the thing is that i simply don’t think in that terms.
My premise never was that i am a woman – i am a hard working, ambitious and goal oriented person, (spare couple of drunken hints by men to whom i was superior, which i dismissed as ephemeral stupidity) i was never sexually harassed at work and i never used cleavage or pouty lips to climb up; nevertheless i achieved the highest rank in a traditionally male job, wrote and published three books meanwhile, managed to pay off my own Mercedes-Benz at age of 35, i have my own place and am most happily unmarried at the age of 42 – in full honesty, i couldn’t possibly ask for more and it’s women like HGB, Madonna and Karen Berg i look up to.
R.I.P. Helen Gurley Brown, your contribution is immortal to me.
10 Best Tips From ‘Sex and the Single Girl’:
HGB, the Queen of Lipstick Feminism: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/helen-gurley-brown-the-queen-of-lipstick-feminism/article4479857/
An interview with Karen Berg: http://www.awarenessmag.com/janfeb6/jf6_kabbalah.html
Lena –
I was an ardent fan of HGB when I was younger. Not so much now, but i have lived a lot of life in the meantime, 😉
Excellent article! R.I.P. HGB!
Blessings,
Bonnie
Thank you, dear Bonnie! Same here – i developed my own common sense and everything else meanwhile, but indeed at the time her advise was invaluable to me! xxxx
You are the Serge Blanco of bloggers! Blanco was an artist, who played rugby as an art for the French rugby team in the 1970s. No-one reminds me more of him than you; aways pulling a rabbit out of the hat, something new, something that catches your breath. How I agree with you here. We have dowries in India and female genital mutilation in Africa, and there are those who dare moan about some personal issue they have re-branded as sexist…they should be ashamed.
Oh dear, it would take way more clairvoyance than i am capable of at the moment to grasp the multi-layerdness of your sarcasm in its totality…
Serge Blanco had a nightmare
of dowries and mutilation
someone was shouting in a language
unheard of in Basque lands
positioned on the outside of the backline
the elusive runner knew
his was to finish off the moves
and score the tries
this nightmare in a foreign language
was not belonging to a Basque
No chance of sarcasm there…not at that impressionable hour. I am an admirer of your writing – very much. Not the most intellectual of comparisons I know, but you both provide the same thrill. Nice, strong piece you just put. Must check the Basque connection. Dowries and mutilation – what really should be the ”agenda”, not the ”Feminism/sexism” thought police as they patrol our words.
Lol, Serge Blanco is Basque – i was reading on him (and rugby!!! ) for an hour this morning, so to reply to you 😉
I AM stunned…your reply certainly showed the thorough research, in great style!
Your comments deserve it, it’s for people like you that i write in the first place. 🙂
You are a treasure – and nationalism aside, I felt profound respect for the Montenegrin female handball team, when only a few points behind, they stood and applauded their Norwegian opponents in the final seconds of the gold-medal match (Olympics) who had the rudeness to go and score. But for me, culturally, Montenegro won. You might decry Montenegro’s leanings towards ”fin-de-siecle” traditionalism, much as Isabel Allende does with Chile, but I find again and again how much the predominantly anglo-saxon world of corporatism and cheap morality can learn about values they spurn or mock – from standing aside to let someone through a door to a lack of admiration for or interest in different cultural values.
Thank you for being on our side ❤ Oh, in fact we are on good terms (historically) with Brits, Scots and Irish and pretty much admire each others' respective traditions, as different as they are – in fact they complement each other. You know, foreigners who do come here – still need to make an effort to do so, because we are still off the beaten track and it is a culture which is insular and peculiar – in this way those who did bother, do like it, i never really heard any traveler complaining of local ways, except for a bunch of Italian teenagers on a ship from Bar to Bari who found their local female counterparts – unapproachable (i am being serious.)
It is traditional – and i do like tradition, the harm that's done here is what's been done to all this area in last couple of decades when – as 'our' Nobel prize winner Ivo Andric puts it – 'wise men shut up, the fools started preaching and the lowlife got rich…"
Other than that it is fine, as traditional as it is 😉
The piece about the young Italian males is a parable that speaks values for the triumphalism and bigotry – and ignorance of much of the ”western” world. On more than one occasion Finns returning from a short hop to Poland, or Brits etc from Latvia express surprise that the countries have so much history in their streets, that toilets function well and there are buildings that ”actually pre-date the USSR/Socialism”, before suddenly catching themselves and finding SOMETHING to show their ”backwardness”, be it ”high heels”worn by women, absurd chivalry seen, bad food in the hospital (funny coming from Finns and Brits, who generally are not known for their culinary delights, to put it mildly, and a host of other comments of varying negativity always expressed after the initial ones showing the ignorance. Not all people – but quite a few. My annoyance/disgust comes at their surprise that such and such a country actually functions perfectly well day by day. The lowlife, yes, those ones in Riga from GB, drunk, pawing local women in a way they would never do back home, throwing money around before flying back to London. BBC then backs it up by suggesting a move from the Riga mayor to briefly jail those desecrating national monuments will ”harm his tourism” and maybe even is a step towards a ”police state” ”again.” Yep, fools preaching.
Oyyy, it wasn’t that bad at all, promise! These were young boys, maybe 15 or 16, they didn’t seem deviant the least – simply like all kids of their age, upset that they didn’t get to meet someone new… Normally, the guys who cross over from Italy are from the South like Sardinia or Sicily, so it’s not something unseen before for them as they come from a similar culture – it was more of a pet peeve and i totally get it 😉
Great article. As I grew younger while time moved on.. I had to/do believe, that it is really about the collective… ‘we’…not the collective…’me’
Read something somewhere some time ago (can’t remember where) or the words verbatim, though they were along the lines of :
” It’s an inside job, if you want to be successful, it’s an inside job…work on yourself ”
I liked that… (something from my teenage years that stuck with me, not proclaiming I am a master of doing it, LOL!..far from it. I know it sounds simplistic/idealistic, though I love the many teachers that I have had/and hope to have many more….
Not sucking up to you, just feel that credit is deserved where credit is due:
And I think it is due to you, thanks for being one of my teachers Lena 🙂
And thank you for being one of my teachers, Jim! It’s in your direction that i look when i need a reminder that the world is good ❤
I enjoyed reading about your successes, and you do certainly inspire women to take back their “girlie guts.” I lost mine at a very young age. It has taken me a life time to feel them, and now use them. Not all of the women who grew up during the HGB era knew how to set themselves free. But, certainly those women, and women like yourself inspire me to continue my journey to myself. It’s a long and winding road, and I ain’t ever gonna look back. I was the Hestian woman, and now I consider myself the Athenian woman, but it took six decades of waking up.
It is a long and winding road, indeed – for all of us, mine came at a price too… Western Europe is way different, women are more empowered than where i am, but i think ours is because we actually skipped the “normal” development – with WWII and the partisan movement winning, women were simply proclaimed equal, but things don’t change just like that… I wrote about it before (http://moderndayruth.net/2012/03/08/keep-the-bloody-carnations-for-yourself/ ) and albeit in the capital and with the most educated part of population – the things did change, i think we are still quite behind. It shall change, i see improvement already, but it takes time and it is not easy.
Love&Light
Lena Ruth