Week 5 Response – Anika Czander

Helen Gurley Brown is not only a feminist icon, but also a personal hero of mine. As a fan of Sex and the City, Brown seems to be the real life 1960s Carrie Bradshaw. The notion that her work would set back the feminist movement is shocking and disappointing to me. For millennia, societies have read about men and their sexual exploits, and it seems wildly hypocritical to me to praise Don Juan as a work of art, but shut down Cosmopolitan Magazine and Sex and the Single Girl as vulgar writings. Even though the quality of Cosmopolitan Magazine has declined greatly since the 1960s in terms of writing, Brown has paved the way for women to speak openly and freely about sex and being single, bringing closer together a community of open-minded women, and opening the floor to increasing supporters of sex-positive feminism.