The joy of work: Helen Gurley Brown, gender, and sexuality in the white-collar office

Journal of the History of Sexuality

Volumn 15, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 89-127

  Berebitsky, Julie ^a  

^a Sewanee University of the South   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33845514339     PISSN: 10434070     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/sex.2006.0047     Document Type: Review

References (196)

1. Elizabeth Gregg MacGibbon, Manners in Business (New York: Macmillan, 1936), 116-17, 122.
2. Angel Kwolek-Folland, Engendering Business: Men and Women in the Corporate Office, 1870-1930 (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 165.
3. Sex and the Office draft, box 22, folder 6, Helen Gurley Brown Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts (hereafter HGB Papers).
4. MacGibbon, Manners in Business, 117.
5. Helen Gurley Brown, Sex and the Single Girl (New York: Bernard Geis, 1962), 30.
6. Helen Gurley Brown, Sex and the Office (New York: Bernard Geis, 1964), 21-22, 25.
7. Louise Kapp Howe coined the term "pink collar" to refer to jobs such as secretary, nurse, and elementary schoolteacher that are comprised almost exclusively of women. Howe argues that these occupations cannot accurately be described as either white or blue collar. Pink-collar work generally is low paid, offers little chance for advancement, and involves some type of emotional labor. Pink Collar Workers: Inside the World of Women's Work (New York: Putnam, 1977).
8. Brown, Sex and the Office, 109.
9. Jane Gerhard, Desiring Revolution: Second-Wave Feminism and the Rewriting of American Sexual Thought, 1920 to 1982 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 11, 76.
10. Beth Bailey, "Sexual Revolution(s)," in The Sixties: From Memory to History, ed. David Farber (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 248-49.
11. Bailey's most recent work on the sexual revolution goes beyond "famous personalities" by examining changes in Lawrence, Kansas. Hugh Hefner, Alfred Kinsey, and Gregory Pincus, but not Brown, make the short list of the "larger-than-life actors" whom Bailey argues are popularly associated with the revolution. Beth Bailey, Sex in the Heartland (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), 3.
12. The standard assessment of Brown as promoting man pleasing and consumption along with sexual liberation can be seen in two recent textbooks on American women's history: Susan Ware, ed., Modern American Women: A Documentary History (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997), 350,
13. and Lois Banner, Women in Modern America: A Brief History, 4th ed. (Belmont, Calif.: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005), 166.
14. For more discussions of Brown by scholars and social commentators see David Allyn, Make Love, Not War: The Sexual Revolution, an Unfettered History (New York: Routledge, 2001), chap. 1;
15. Lisa Marie Hogeland, Feminism and Its Fictions: The Consciousness-Raising Novel and the Women's Liberation Movement (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 56;
16. Susan Douglas, Where the Girls Are: Growing up Female with the Mass Media (New York: Random House, 1994), 68-69;
17. Barbara Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Hess, and Gloria Jacobs, Re-making Love: The Feminization of Sex (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1986), 56-63.
18. John D'Emilio and Estelle Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 303-5.
19. Laurie Ouellette, "Inventing the Cosmo Girl: Class Identity and Girl-Style American Dreams," Media Culture and Society 21 (1999): 372-73, 374-77.
20. For more on "treating" see Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986), 108-14.
21. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Tendencies (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1993), 23-51. She has also brought attention to the ways in which acts of silence and of speech enforce and establish sexual norms.
22. For a discussion of the emphasis on marriage and domesticity in the 1950s see Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (New York: Basic Books, 1988), introduction and chap. 1.
23. J.M.B. to H.G.B., December 15, 1982, box 12, folder 1, HGB Papers.
24. It appears that none of the fan letters Brown received in the 1960s have survived. Her papers do include letters written in the 1980s in response to the publication of her autobiography, Having It All (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982). Some of these letters note the impact Sex and the Single Girl had on the writer's life.
25. D.W. to H.G.B., September 17, 1983, box 12, folder 4, HGB Papers.
26. Amanda Izzo, "Inventory-Biographical Note," HGB Papers.
27. Arthur Berman, "Married Life Pleases Author," New York Post, June 15, 1962, 48, box 21, HGB Papers;
28. Joan Didion, "Bosses Make Lousy Lovers," Saturday Evening Post, January 30, 1965, 36, box 21, HGB Papers.
29. Betty Bevan, "Office Sexpert," n.d., box 24, folder 8, HGB Papers.
30. Brown, Sex and the Single Girl, 1.
31. Biographical details drawn from the following sources: box 1, folder 4, HGB Papers;
32. Izzo, "Inventory";
33. Amanda Izzo, "That Cosmo Girl: Helen Gurley Brown, Feminism and Popular Visions of Women's Fulfillment, 1962-1997," B.A. thesis, Smith College, 1999, 2-4;
34. Brown, Sex and the Office, 284-309;
35. Brown, Having It All, 10-15, 26-29;
36. Berman, "Married Life."
37. Brown, Sex and the Single Girl, 1, 3, 93, 5.
38. The secondary literature on female office workers is extensive, though historians have focused mostly on the entrance of women into the white-collar world, ending their studies in 1930. All of these works contain sections on sexuality and romance in the office, but it is not the primary focus of any. In addition to Kwolek-Folland, Engendering Business,
39. see Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation (New York: Basic Books, 1977);
40. Margery W. Davies, Woman's Place Is at the Typewriter (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982);
41. Cindy Sondik Aron, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Civil Service: Middle-Class Workers in Victorian America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987);
42. Lisa Fine, The Souls of the Skyscraper: Female Clerical Workers in Chicago, 1870-1930 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990);
43. Sharon Hartman Strom, Beyond the Typewriter: Gender, Class, and the Origins of Modern American Office Work, 1900-1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992).
44. "Womanly Dignity," Phonographic World, June 1894, 313.
45. Fine, The Souls of the Skyscraper, 65.
46. Kwolek-Folland, Engendering Business, 63-64;
47. Fine, The Souls of the Skyscraper, 58-59.
48. Nancy F. Cott, "Passionlessness: An Interpretation of Victorian Sexual Ideology, 1790-1850," Signs 4 (1978): 219-36.
49. Mary Bularzik, "Sexual Harassment at the Workplace: Historical Notes," in Workers' Struggles, Past and Present: A "Radical America" Reader, ed. James Green (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983), 121.
50. Clara E. Laughlin, The Work-a-Day Girl: A Study of Some Present-Day Conditions (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1913), 123-24.
51. Davies, Woman's Place, appendix table 1, "Clerical Workers in the United States, by Sex, 1870-1930."
52. Kwolek-Folland, Engendering Business, 63-69;
53. D'Emilio and Freedman, Intimate Matters, 223.
54. MacGibbon, Manners in Business, 120;
55. see also Frances Maule, Girl with a Pay Check: How She Lands It-Holds It-Makes It Grow (New York: Harper, 1941), 232;
56. Edith Johnson, "Has Sex Any Place in Today's Business," Oklahoman, September 24, 1933, 42;
57. "Business Etiquette," Time, January 20, 1936, 68-70.
58. Much of this review recounted MacGibbon's view of sexuality in the workplace. The New York Times also reviewed MacGibbon's book ("Office Etiquette," February 2, 1936, BR 21). Manners in Business was revised in 1954, but the chapter "Sex in Business" remained virtually the same. If anything, MacGibbon strengthened her argument against expressions of sexuality in the workplace, adding paragraphs that urged bosses and secretaries to behave in a way that would forestall any office gossip and cautioned further against affairs with married men. She also added a paragraph sympathetic to men and the temptations they faced at work by noting that some "curvaceous women" should have a warning sign on their desk. Manners in Business, new ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1954), 133, 136, 138.
59. Prior to the publication of her book in 1936, MacGibbon presented some of her views on personal relationships in the office in "Etiquette for Office Hours," Independent Woman, February 1934, 43, 56-57.
60. "Frances Maule, 88, Author and Editor," New York Times, June 29, 1966, 47.
61. Three of Maule's employment books are especially relevant to office women: She Strives to Conquer: Business Behavior, Opportunities and Job Requirements for Women (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1937),
62. The Road to Anywhere: Opportunities in Secretarial Work (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1938),
63. and Pay Check.
64. She Strives also had a teacher's guide and student's manual and was positively reviewed in a number of newspapers. See, for example, "For Girls in Business," New York Times, October 21, 1934, 20,
65. and Boston Transcript, January 12, 1935, 3.
66. Parts of She Strives appeared in McCall's Magazine and Independent Woman. The Chicago Daily Tribune also carried an article on Maule's advice on office romance. See Doris Blake, "Keep Emotions on Tight Rein When at Office," May 19, 1935.
67. "Love Among the Typewriters," the chapter on office romance from Pay Check, appeared in Independent Woman, November 1934, 351.
68. Maule, Pay Check, 237, 234.
69. MacGibbon also disputed the accuracy of representations of office romance in fiction and film (Manners in Business, 117, 120);
70. see also Doris Blake, "Doris Warns Business Girls Office Devotee Ends an Emotional Bankrupt," Chicago Daily Tribune, July 10, 1932, E6.
71. Esther Becker and Richard L. Lawrence, Success and Satisfaction in Your Office Job (New York: Harper, 1954), 67-68.
72. On flirtations as inconsequential see MacGibbon, Manners in Business, 121,
73. and Maule, She Strives, 156-57.
74. Johnson, "Has Sex Any Place in Today's Business."
75. Maule, Pay Check, 198, 238-42, 200-202.
76. For more advice against using sex to advance and against getting involved with the boss see Maule, She Strives, 160-64;
77. MacGibbon, Manners in Business, 117-18;
78. Johnson, "Has Sex Any Place in Today's Business";
79. Lena M. Phillips, "'Sex Appeal' out of Business Life." This article was copyrighted by the Public Ledger and appeared in the Oklahoman, the Washington Post, and possibly other newspapers (March 11, 1928);
80. Lillian G. Genn, "You Can't Vamp Your Way to Success," Oklahoman, April 29, 1928, 89;
81. Mary E. McGill, Into a Man's World: Talks with Business Girls (Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor, 1938), 57-58.
82. Esther Becker, Secretaries Who Succeed (New York: Harper, 1947), 117.
83. See also Mary Haworth, "Boss Entrances Lonely Secretary," New York Journal-American, January 26, 1959, 10.
84. Maule, She Strives, 155.
85. Maule, Pay Check, 234-35.
86. Frances Maule and Louise Alteneder, Student's Manual for Use with "She Strives to Conquer" (New York, n.d.).
87. Maule, Pay Check, 242.
88. See also MacGibbon, Manners in Business, 122;
89. Maule, She Strives, 161, 165, 172-73.
90. Maule, She Strives, 156.
91. Maule, Pay Check, 237-38.
92. See also Johnson, "Has Sex Any Place in Today's Business";
93. and MacGibbon, Manners in Business, 119, 121.
94. Other occupations included in the census category "clerical work" include bookkeepers, telephone operators, cashiers, and office machine operators. "'Older' Women as Office Workers," Bulletin of the Women's Bureau 48 (1953): 47-49, 53;
95. Strom, Beyond the Typewriter, 387;
96. Claudia Goldin, Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 160-77.
97. Marylin C. Burke, The Executive Secretary: Techniques for Success in the Secretarial Career (New York: Doubleday, 1959), 23, 67, 158-59.
98. For other postwar examples that urge office women to avoid relationships with their employers, eschew using "feminine wiles" to advance, and dress in a way that does not draw attention to "any part of the anatomy" see Estelle Sharpe, "Smart Secretary Respects Taboos," Washington Post, July 24, 1953, 40;
99. "Secretaries Quash Idea They Like to Romance with Their Bosses," Los Angeles Times, October 2, 1949, 21;
100. Anson Campbell, Kitty Unfoiled: An Informal Portrait of the American Secretary (Pittsburgh, Pa.: Reuter & Bragdon, 1952), 123-28.
101. Kwolek-Folland, Engendering Business, 68-69.
102. Kwolek-Folland, Engendering Business, Ibid., 175;
103. Helen Hoerle, The Girl and Her Future (New York: H. Smith and R. Haas, 1932), 4.
104. In the early 1940s a feminist made a similar argument regarding why "cheesecake" representations in men's magazines hurt women. Joanne Meyerowitz, "Women, Cheesecake and Borderline Material: Responses to Girlie Pictures in the Mid-Twentieth-Century United States," in Sexual Borderlands: Constructing an American Sexual Past, ed. Kathleen Kennedy and Sharon Rena Ullman (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2003), 328.
105. See Beth Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 87-90;
106. Becker, Secretaries Who Succeed, 112;
107. Charlotte Leigh-Taylor, "Reflections," March 25, 1963, box 21, folder 5, HGB Papers.
108. Maule, Pay Check, 201.
109. MacGibbon, Manners in Business, 121-22.
110. Maule, She Strives, 158-59.
111. Maule, She Strives, Ibid., 157.
112. "The Typewriter Girl," Typewriter and Phonographic World, March 1906, 203-4.
113. "Playboy's Girl Friday," Playboy, September 1957, 39;
114. Arv Miller, "The Perfect Secretary," Playboy, May 1956, 45-49.
115. Rona Jaffe, The Best of Everything (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1958), 32-34, 46-47.
116. "Play-Office Sets for Ages 7-12 Brought out by Eberhard Faber," Playthings, April 1960, 87.
117. Brown, Sex and the Office, 9.
118. "Parting is no fun at all," Woman Alone (Brown's syndicated newspaper column), April 24-25, 1965, box 32, folder 5, HGB Papers.
119. Bernard Geis to Helen Brown, June 7, 1962, box 19, folder 5, HGB Papers.
120. H.G.B. to "Berney dear," November 8, 1962, box 19, folder 2, HGB Papers.
121. H.G.B. to Bernard Geis, February 8, 1964, box 19, folder 2, HGB Papers.
122. Brown also encouraged married women to work, including those with children (Sex and the Office, chap. 17). Brown never had children and has stated many times that she did not want children.
123. Sex and the Office outline, box 22, folder 2, HGB Papers.
124. Brown, Sex and the Office, 76. Early drafts of Sex and the Office contain more on career success and ambition than the published book, though even toned down, many reviews noted that Brown emphasized hard work. Brown's radio spots and newspaper articles also had a strong prowork message.
125. Brown, Sex and the Office, Ibid., 112, 196-97.
126. Ouellette, "Inventing the Cosmo Girl," 365-70.
127. Brown, Sex and the Office, 21.
128. Sex and the Office, suggestions by D.S.G. for H.G.B., box 22, folder 2;
129. Sex and the Office outline.
130. Brown, Sex and the Office, 3.
131. Sex and the Office outline.
132. Sex and the Office Ibid.
133. "Helen Gurley Brown at Grossinger's," box 15, folder 6, 6, HGB Papers.
134. Canadian radio scripts, #28, box 16, folder 9, HGB Papers.
135. For Brown's take on masculinity and femininity as "inculcated," not innate, see Helen Gurley Brown, "Who Does What to Whom?" Woman Alone, April 18, 1965, box 32, folder 5, HGB Papers.
136. Brown, Sex and the Office, 10, 57.
137. "The Book I wrote ..." n.d., speeches and appearances, box 15, folder 5, HGB Papers.
138. Robert L. Kirsch, "'Sex and Single Girl' Falls Short of Its Promising Tide," Los Angeles Times, July 6, 1962, box 21, HGB Papers.
139. Dorothy Jacobsen, "If Horatio Alger Were a Shapely Secretary," Sex and the Office scrapbook, box 47, HGB Papers.
140. See also "Meat Loaf, Anyone?" Newsweek, August 31, 1964, 53;
141. Jean Martin, "Unhappily Ever After," Nation, January 11, 1965, box 24, folder 9, HGB Papers.
142. Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat, 21, 71-73.
143. Quotation from C. Carlyle, How to Get a Husband (1950), 3,
144. quoted in Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat, 72.
145. Barbara Ehrenreich, The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1983), 29-41,
146. Look quote on 38.
147. Wini Brienes, "The 1950s: Gender and Some Social Science," Sociological Inquiry 56 (1986): 75-76.
148. Brown repeatedly stated that she believed that "superior" men would-or should-find successful women sexually desirable. See "You keep insisting," Canadian radio scripts, and "Show Them Your Brain," Woman Alone, June 6-7, 1963, box 31, folder 12, HGB Papers.
149. Brown, Sex and the Office, 183, 61.
150. Brown, Sex and the Office, Ibid., 10.
151. Brown, Sex and the Single Girl, 93.
152. Brown, Sex and the Office, 61.
153. Sex and the Office outline.
154. Sex and the Office Ibid.
155. Helen Parmalee, "Married Girl," n.d., box 21, folder 6, HGB Papers.
156. Brown, Sex and the Office, 188;
157. "In Person: Defends Advice on Sex," Sex and the Office scrapbook.
158. "Mrs. Dan Malin Suggests Another Title," Houston Post, n.d., box 24, folder 8, HGB Papers.
159. See Alfred Kinsey, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1948), 585;
160. Edmund Bergler, Revolt of the Middle-aged Man (New York: A. A. Wyn, 1954);
161. Frank Caprio, Marital Infidelity (New York: Citadel, 1953).
162. On encouraging wives to work to keep themselves interesting to their husbands see Brown, Sex and the Office, 261-62, 268.
163. "Sex and the Office," Modern Office Procedures 10 (March 1965): 21-24.
164. "The Gurley Girl-A Myth?" Modern Office Procedures 10 (May 1965): 33.
165. The Gurley Girl-A Myth?" Modern Office Procedures 1965): 10 (33. Ibid.
166. In fact, Modern Office Procedures published an article on workplace affairs in 1959 and alluded to them in an earlier article about office Christmas parties. See Harrison Johnson, "Let's Have a Controlled Christmas Party," December 1958, 6-7,
167. and "Love in the Office," June 1959, 13-14.
168. Brown, Sex and the Office, 185.
169. Brown, Sex and the Office, Ibid., 10.
170. "Helen Gurley Brown at Grossingers." In discussing the informal office attire of women in the 1920s Kwolek-Folland notes the power of clothing as a way for pink-collar women to challenge business values, disrupt the office by inserting a hint of sexuality into it, and assert their own sense of self (Engendering Business, 175).
171. See Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (Boston: Beacon, 1964), 74,
172. and Michael Korda, Male Chauvinism: How It Works (New York: Random House, 1973), 107-15.
173. Brown, Sex and the Office, 285-89.
174. Brown, Sex and the Office, Ibid., 219-21.
175. Sex and the Office outline.
176. "When a Secretary Travels with a Boss...," Canadian radio scripts.
177. Brown, Sex and the Single Girl, 78-79.
178. Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat, 87-90;
179. Tyler May, Homeward Bound, chap. 5.
180. "Dear Working Girl," Canadian radio scripts.
181. "Dear Girl Secretary," Canadian radio scripts, box 16, folder 10, HGB Papers.
182. Brown, Sex and the Single Girl, 79.
183. Stephanie Harrington, "Two Faces of the Same Eve," New Tork Times, August 11, 1974, 11.
184. "New Girl at the Office," Cosmopolitan, September 1968, 98-105.
185. Korda, Male Chauvinism, 115.
186. Laura Stein, Sexual Harassment in America: A Documentary History (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1999), 1-4.
187. Dierdre Silverman, "Sexual Harassment: Working Women's Dilemma," Quest 3 (Winter 1976-77): 20.
188. Helen Gurley Brown, "At Work, Sexual Electricity Sparks Creativity," Wall Street Journal, October 29, 1991, A22.
189. "Sex and the Single 'Scuttler': Yucck," Wall Street Journal, November 6, 1991.
190. Roger Simon, "Odd Ideas from the Original Cosmo Girl," Los Angeles Times, November 3, 1991, E11.
191. See also Brown, Sex and the Office, 285-86.
192. On courtship see Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat, 5, 26-27, 34-35.
193. Dateline NBC transcript, August 30, 1995.
194. Ellen Joan Pollock, "Deportment Gap," Wall Street Journal, February 7, 2000.
195. Edwin Darby, "The Skirt Sets' Horatio Alger?" Chicago Daily News, n.d.,
196. Sex and the Office scrapbook.