“If I were to give any advice to men, it would be ‘Shut up and listen,'” Helen Gurley Brown told a crowd of about 200 packed into the McCormick Tribune Center Forum Monday afternoon.
Showing up in a little black skirt, black fishnet stockings and dangling gold jewelry, the 80-year-old former Cosmopolitan editor in chief kicked off the Medill School of Journalism’s Gertrude and G.D. Crain Jr. Lecture Series.
Introducing Brown to the audience, Medill Dean Loren Ghiglione said he immediately noticed two quotes displayed in her office when he went to visit her: “Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere” and “I love champagne, caviar and cash.”
Living up to that image, Brown discussed the success of Cosmopolitan magazine, her personal and professional life and her feminist views.
“In the beginning (feminists and I) didn’t agree on the fact that you could be sexy, love men and still be a feminist,” Brown said. “But they finally came to their senses because Cosmopolitan has always been a feminist magazine.”
Brown, who was born in Arkansas, had a tough childhood. Her father died in an elevator accident and her sister was diagnosed with polio. She barely attended college and started working at an early age.
Brown was working in the advertising field when she met her husband, motion-picture producer David Brown, and married him in 1959. He encouraged her to write the book “Sex and the Single Girl,” which became an immediate bestseller, with its candid advice to young, single women about sex, love, fashion and careers.
From there, Brown proceeded to write several more books — and collect many more awards along the way.
But when Brown took over the floundering Cosmopolitan magazine and became its editor in chief in 1965, she completely changed its image, and turned it into the success it is today.
“It had a good feminist message — get out there and do something on your own,” Brown said. “It was inspiring because it told women that there’s something that you can do good, and let’s find out what it is.”
Cosmopolitan also worked because it told the truth to women, she said.
Although Cosmo doesn’t promise a Tom Cruise for everyone, Brown said it does assure women that there is someone “good and decent” out there for each of them.
“We’ll help you find him, win him, woo him, and when you lose him, we’ll get you another one,” she said, as the audience burst into laughter.
Brown left her position as editor in chief of Cosmo in 1997. But she couldn’t leave the magazine behind and now oversees the 36 international editions of Cosmopolitan.
She is also releasing two books, a newer edition of “Sex and the Single Girl” and a book that will include some of the many letters she has written. Brown said she hopes to continue to project the positive image of the “Cosmo girl.”
“I think there is the grown-up, mature, adult side of you, but then there’s also that girly side of you that is enthusiastic, cute and funny,” she said.
Medill sophomore Katie Humphrey said Brown’s speech was entertaining as well as thought-provoking.
“I never really thought of Cosmopolitan as a feminist magazine before,” Humphrey said. “She gave me a different way to look at it.”
Despite her age, Brown surprised some audience members with her trendy views of women.
“It’s interesting that she has the thinking of a woman growing up today, ” said Evanston resident Marla Gabie. “Most women close to her age think in a much more prudish way.”
