A VERY infuriating article from a former Cosmo writer where she flat out admits they lied repeatedly to sell a feminist propoganda dream NONE of them were living

TheOGJammies · 2020-06-28T19:03:07+00:00

The Propaganda Sold to Women

After giving birth, Browder got a job writing for Cosmopolitan Magazine, but she carefully omitted the fact that she had a baby during the interview process. At Cosmopolitan, her job was to spread the message of Helen Gurley Brown, the magazine’s Editor in Chief. Brown’s message to single women was “Hard work and sex will set you free (as long as you don’t have children).”

Helen Gurley Brown, Editor in Chief of Cosmopolitan Magazine

Browder’s job was to sell the idea that for a woman to be fulfilled in life, she has to “(1) work hard; (2) take the Pill or use some other contraceptive; and (3) if the contraceptive failed, get an abortion.” To put it simply, the magazine was selling the idea that the sexual revolution was “both for unmarried sex and against motherhood.”

Pursue Excitement and Sex, Reject Marital Bliss

Helen Gurley Brown pushed the propaganda that women are no different than men, and therefore they should pursue sex without attachment just like men. It encouraged the rejection of the “outdated” code of morality. It urged women to seek a glamorous lifestyle filled with the thrill and excitement of sex without consequences.

Cosmo went as far as condoning the pursuit of sex with married men. Why should a single girl feel guilty about having sex with another woman’s husband? She’s single after all, and therefore free to do whatever she wants if it suits her. This behavior was in accordance with Helen Gurney Brown’s guiding motto of “good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere.”

Abortion as Birth Control

Obviously, this sort of reckless sexual behavior doesn’t come free from consequences. Cosmopolitan pushed the idea that if the single woman were to become burdened with an unwanted pregnancy, all she has to do to get on with her life is to get an abortion in order to get rid of that problem.

Reckless sexual behavior doesn’t come free from consequences.

Browder described how she bought into the lie herself when she had her third pregnancy. Faced with a litany of economic hardship brought on by the uncertainty of a career as a freelance writer, she decided to undergo an abortion because she saw a third child as adding to her “problem.” She has regretted that decision ever since.

The Writers Didn't Practice What They Preached

In her tell-all memoir, Browder wants women to know that the elites didn’t necessarily practice what they preached. Helen Gurley Brown, even when the message in her magazine encouraged women to remain single, was herself happily married. Browder wrote, “Helen Gurley Brown didn’t listen to the nonsense we were peddling at Cosmo any more than I did. She was married and by all accounts faithful to the same man for fifty years (she called David her “pussycat”).”

Browder wants us to know about all the women who bought into the lie and died sick (from abortion complications or the Pill), alone (from their years pursuing of meaningless sex), and childless (from their years of ignoring the call of motherhood and their maternal instinct).She realized how she had never been happier than when she was a mother taking care of her children, and she reflected on how much her husband meant to her.

The elites didn’t necessarily practice what they preached; Helen Gurley Brown didn’t listen to the nonsense we were peddling at Cosmo.

Browder also talked about how the lies she told women about rejecting codes of morality came home to roost in her own life. She had an experience where one of her closest friends, who was divorced, tried to seduce her husband. Luckily her husband rejected her friend’s advances. But from this experience, Browder saw the damage she had caused from her years in Cosmo writing about how it was okay for a single woman to pursue another woman’s husband.

valsavana · 2020-06-28T19:32:55+00:00

A lot of that article & excerpts from the book read like anti-choice drivel and the fact reviews on goodreads are praising it for things like being an "addition to the growing field of works documenting pro-life history since the 1960s" tells me everything I need to know- this book has an agenda and it's not the pro-woman one it pretends at.

She may be correct about the damaging overemphasis on "sexual liberation", assuming she's telling the truth about how much they pushed it, but that boils down to even a stopped clock being right twice a day.

grrl_in_nyc · 2020-06-28T19:24:17+00:00

I have a lot of problems with this writing around the writer’s views on reproductive freedom. I don’t see Cosmo ever saying ‘all you need to do is get an abortion. The ‘died sick (from abortion complications or the Pill)’’ is just not accurate. Abortion is a medical procedure so there can be complications from it or the Pill but the implications of the oppose. - less reproductive freedom - is devastating. I don’t doubt a lot of what Cosmo has pushed as an editorial point of view is problematic, but a point of view that emphasizes that women has reproductive choice is essential especially in 2020 when that choice is under attack in the US especially

Comicalacimoc · 2020-06-28T19:56:08+00:00

Mixed on this. Obviously no one should participate in being the other woman. But marriage is shown to make women more miserable than men.

Novemberinthechair · 2020-06-29T05:37:01+00:00

It wasn't feminist.

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Myplummms · 2020-06-29T13:15:00+00:00

I guess the caveat here is she had a HVM who didn’t cheat? A lot of loyal housewives are cheated on daily, due to no fault of their own. This article almost seems like it’s blaming women for their partner’s infidelity. Why do we shame women for promiscuity, even others?, but never men? It makes no sense and infantilizes men in general.

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