Author: Helen Gurley Brown
I ordered Having It All a long time ago because it appeared in searches as a book about office culture. In some ways, it is, but it is actually a manual on how to navigate office relationships. At first, this sounds good, and you might think, well, what is wrong with an office relationship manual? Well, nothing if it was a general one. But this office manual is about women, defined as mouseburgers, aka non-appealing (the author places herself in this category too) and how to succeed in offices by using men, and even sleeping with them to succeed in their careers. A useful office manual? Yes, if you live in a bizarro world.
Having It All was written by Helen Gurley Brown, the author of Sex and the Single Girl book, which was turned into a film of the same name starring big Hollywood names such as Tony Curtis, Henry Fonda and Natalie Wood, among others. In this first book, which was published in 1962 and seen as scandalous and feminist, by some, Gurley Brown advocated for women’s financial independence and sexual freedom. But, in this second book, Having It All, she carried on with bizarre stuff that has upset feminists and continues to do so by suggesting sleeping with men as a way of going ahead in their careers.
Having It All is divided into 12 chapters discussing issues such as defining yourself, what a mouseburger is and how to rise to the top despite not being the prettiest or the best, diet, exercise, face and body care, clothes, sex, love, marriage, friends, money and having it all. All these chapters are centred around men, and some elements of the book constitute a painful read. I have never been a prude, but to have the audacity to write so openly about finding sugar daddies and sleeping around is just too much even for me. This is just wrong and everything that was always wrong with the world in which women were reduced to their bodies. However, Gurley Brown looked at things from her perspective of the 1960s when her first book was published, and her career in advertising and publishing, which were always (and still are) a man’s world. In some ways, her work can be seen as revolutionary because she advocated for women’s sexual freedom and being individual and financially independent. Nobody can dispute this, but her methods are questionable at best.
Helen Gurley Brown was an editor of Cosmopolitan and Cosmo girls were seen as revolutionary at the time when she worked because they openly talked about sex and were liberated from an otherwise conservative American society. In some ways, Cosmo girls went ahead of time, but at the same time, they have been upsetting feminists who were working hard to achieve genuine women’s equality and recognition. I never knew, until I read this book, why so many feminists historically disliked Cosmopolitan but I do now.
However, having not liked this book does not mean I will not read Gurley Brown’s other books. I think it is important to read historical perspectives and all perspectives regardless of our disagreements, and whilst I question Gurley Brown’s methods, I am still interested in her work from a scholarly perspective because it constitutes an important part of women’s history (and women’s abuse) in the workplace.
Thank you for reading!