Enter Helen (48 page)

303
  
In the fall of 1969, a lawyer friend told Gingold: Lynn Povich,
The Good Girls Revolt
, p. 55.

303
  
On March 16 of that year: Background ibid., chapter 1.

304
  
Susan Brownmiller . . . led another group of women: Brownmiller gave another vivid account, this time of the
Ladies' Home Journal
sit-in that she helped organize, in
In Our Time
.

305
  
“We demand that the
Ladies' Home Journal
hire a woman editor-in-chief”: Ibid., p. 86.

305
  
“The Women's Liberation Movement represents”: Ibid.

306
  
“We can do it—he's small”: Ibid., p. 91.

306
  
“He was a quiet little man”: Jacqui Ceballos, interview with the author, October 2014.

306
  
They also agreed to give members: Susan Brownmiller,
In Our Time
, p. 92.

306
  
Plans were already in the works for a new column, “The Working Woman”: Per Letty Cottin Pogrebin, follow-up interview, May 2015.

307
  
“a baby feminist”; “My editor at Doubleday warned me”: Letty Cottin Pogrebin, interview with the author, January 2014.

307
  
“I think we passed over it very quickly”: Susan Brownmiller, interview with the author, January 2014.

42: T
HE
S
TRIKE

308
  
“The feminist movement was so joyous”: Jacqui Ceballos, interview with the author, October 2014.

308
  
Hardly a day passed: Helen Gurley Brown, “Step Into My Parlour,”
Cosmopolitan
, June 1970.

308
  
“Like many other women”: Ibid.

308
  
“Why does a man usually instigate sex”: Ibid.

309
  
“I was finally too embarrassed”: Betty Friedan,
Life So Far
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), p. 224.

309
  
“I propose that women who are doing menial chores”: Ibid, pp. 232–33.

310
  
They didn't have the tens of thousands of demonstrators: Ceballos, interview with the author, October 2014. Ceballos recalled a conversation she had with a fellow activist about recruiting demonstrators, after hyping the upcoming
march and strike to the press: “I said, ‘How are we going to get fifty thousand to march?'”

310
  
In early August: Account of Lucy Komisar at McSorley's from Grace Lichtenstein, “McSorley's Admits Women Under a New City Law,”
New York Times
, August 11, 1970; and background about Statue of Liberty takeover from Ceballos's recollections of events leading up to August 26, 1970, posted on Veteran Feminists of America's website, vfa.us, as well as from Ceballos's interview with the author, October 2014.

310
  
The coalition also called for women across the country to ban four products: Background from Linda Charlton, “Women Seeking Equality March on 5th Ave. Today,”
New York Times
, August 26, 1970; and photo, “Betty Friedan Speaking at Press Conference,” Corbis Images, www.corbisimages.com, August 25, 1970.

310
  
“I can't believe they've been reading
Cosmopolitan
”: “Boycott of Products Amazes Beholders,” UPI, republished in
Lebanon Daily News
, August 26, 1970.

311
  
“the Mao Tse-tung of Women's Liberation”: “Who's Come a Long Way, Baby?” reported by
Time
women staffers, led by Ruth Mehrtens Galvin,
Time
, August 31, 1970.

311
  
“the movement had no coherent theory”
and following
: Ibid.

311
  
“Whatever the ‘real' differences between the sexes may be”: Kate Millett,
Sexual Politics
(Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000), p. 29.

312
  
“[They] backed me up against a radiator”: Helen Gurley Brown, “Step Into My Parlour,”
Cosmopolitan
, November 1985.

312
  
“It's hard for me to understand how
any
self-loving, man-loving woman”: Helen Gurley Brown, “Step Into My Parlour,”
Cosmopolitan
, November 1970.

313
  
they demanded an end to sexist articles . . . as well as $15,000 “in reparation”: “Women's Lib Pickets Meet with Editor,” UPI, republished in
Milwaukee Journal
, December 3, 1970.

313
  
“I don't know who sent it because it wasn't signed”: Walter Meade, interview with the author.

313
  
They didn't even have permission: Background is from Marcia Cohen,
The Sisterhood: The Inside Story of the Women's Movement and the Leaders Who Made It Happen
(New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1988), p. 280.

313
  
Among their ranks: Ibid.

314
  
“WOMEN'S STRIKE DEMONSTRATION”: August 26 Strike Committee, undated, 1970 flyer, Phyllis Birkby Papers, SSC.

314
  
On the morning of the strike: Jacqui Ceballos, interview with the author, October 2014.

314
  
Other women liberated: Mary Breasted gave a great play-by-play of these events in her article, “Women on the March: ‘We're a Movement Now!'”
Village Voice
, September 3, 1970.

315
  
“By five o'clock I was exhausted”: Jacqui Ceballos, interview with the author, October 2014.

315
  
“OPPRESSED WOMEN: DON'T COOK DINNER!”: “Women Strike for Equality March,” photo by Michael Abramson, August 26, 1970, Getty Images, www.gettyimages.com.

315
  
“When the cops blow the whistle”: Betty Friedan, “Women Take the Streets,”
“Voice of New York,”
New York
, April 11, 1988.

315
  
“Take the streets!”: Ibid.

315
  
They pushed past policemen . . . “Bitches!”: Background is from Marcia Cohen,
The Sisterhood
, p. 285.

316
  
“Why can't you light your own fucking cigarettes?”: Mary Breasted, “Women on the March: ‘We're a Movement Now!'”

316
  
a ragtag group of women's magazine editors: Mary Thom,
Inside Ms.
(New York: Henry Holt, 1997), p. 11.

316
  
“It was exhilarating”: Pat Carbine, interview with the author, January 2014.

316
  
“‘Ms.' is used by women who object”: Linda Charlton, “Women March Down Fifth Avenue in Equality Drive,”
New York Times
, August 27, 1970.

43: P
ITIFUL
P
EOPLE

317
  
“Failure is always at your heels”: David Brown,
Let Me Entertain You
(New York: William Morrow & Co., 1990), p. 131.

317
  
“We definitely have a double standard”; “We are totally possessed by each other”: Helen and David Brown, respectively, in Diana Lurie, “Living with Liberation,”
New York
, August 31, 1970.

317
  
“I think Helen is taking on a decision”
and following
: Ibid.

318
  
cosmically connected to his every physical and emotional need: David Brown,
Let Me Entertain You
, p. 70.

318
  
“the Working Girl and the Producer”: Faith Stewart-Gordon,
The Russian Tea Room: A Love Story
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), p. 146.

318
  
20th Century Fox fired David for the second time: David Brown,
Let Me Entertain You
, pp. 123–25.

318
  
three controversial movies: Ibid., p. 128.

318
  
“We were—because of our concern”: Ibid., p. 124.

318
  
Zanuck's habit of creating cinematic showcases: Background on Darryl Zanuck from Martha Smilgis, “In Darryl Zanuck's Last Drama, a Forgotten French Lover Sues for $15 Million,”
People
, July 14, 1980; and Steven Daly, “Myra Breckinridge: Swinging into Disaster” in
Vanity Fair's Tales of Hollywood: Rebels, Reds, and Graduates and the Wild Stories Behind the Making of 13 Iconic Films
, ed. Graydon Carter (New York: Penguin Books, 2008).

319
  
“It was a dangerous area with a high crime rate”: David Brown,
Let Me Entertain You
, p. 124.

319
  
the Zanucks would be in and out of court: Ralph Blumenthal, “End of Fox Suits Is Indicated,”
New York Times
, May 15, 1973.

319
  
After getting the bad news: David Brown,
Let Me Entertain You
, p. 125.

319
  
“Look at the table they're giving us”
and following dialogue
: Ibid.

320
  
she cried her eyes out in George Walsh's office: Helen briefly recounted this scene in a memo that she wrote to herself and titled “PROBLEMS,” November 1973, HGB Papers, SSC.

320
  
“She and Jackie Susann had a husband-watch agreement”: Walter Meade, email exchange with author, January 2015.

322
  
“To go home, for her, took a ton and a half of Valium”: Walter Meade, interview with the author.

322
  
“Didn't you work in order not to have to work someday?”
and following dialogue
: David Brown,
Let Me Entertain You
, p. 252.

322
  
she felt like a character out of a Kafka story: Helen Gurley Brown and Lyn Tornabene, audio recording no. 2268, tape 10, “HGB Interview,” 1970–71, HGB Papers, SSC.

322
  
“I can hear him telling her she was just like one of Kafka's characters”: Meade, email exchange with author, January 2015.

323
  
“That's
me
!”
and following
: Helen Gurley Brown and Lyn Tornabene, audio recording no. 2268, tape 10, “HGB Interview.”

323
  
countless treatments and surgeries: These are well documented by Helen Gurley Brown herself in her books,
I'm Wild Again: Snippets from My Life and a Few Brazen Thoughts
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000) and
The Late Show: A Semiwild but Practical Survival Plan for Women Over 50
(New York: William Morrow, 1993).

44: S
OME
N
OTES ON A
N
EW
M
AGAZINE . . .

324
  
“We were talking about women who wanted to make their own decisions”: Pat Carbine, interview with the author, January 2014.

324
  
It started with a simple idea that was revolutionary at the time: The bulk of the historical background in this chapter comes from two major sources: Mary Thom's personal and well-observed
Inside Ms.: 25 Years of the Magazine and the Feminist Movement
(New York: Henry Holt, 1997); and Abigail Pogrebin's fascinating and deeply researched oral history, “How Do You Spell Ms.,”
New York
, October 2011.

325
  
Around the same time, Gloria asked Letty: Letty Cottin Pogrebin, follow-up interview with the author, May 2015.

325
  
Gloria had hosted two of three meetings: Patricia Cronin Marcello,
Gloria Steinem: A Biography
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004), p. 120.

325
  
Gloria had been satisfied, but: Abagail Pogrebin, “How Do You Spell Ms.”

325
  
Then there was the question of the name: Ibid.

325
  
“All are designed to tell the woman”: “Some Notes on a New Magazine . . . ,” April 1971,
Ms
. Magazine Records, SSC.

326
  
Assuming its readers were “intelligent and literate”: Ibid.

326
  
Stories with headlines like
and following headlines as examples
: Ibid.

326
  
Notoriously difficult and prone to yelling: Abigail Pogrebin, “How Do You Spell Ms.”

326
  
“My plan was to get
Ms.
going”: Pat Carbine, interview with the author, January 2014.

327
  
The Ms. Bill would forbid federal agencies: Carl C. Craft, Associated Press, “Sex Prefix Is New Target of Bella Abzug,”
Gettysburg Times
, July 27, 1971.

327
  
“not as the wives of individuals”: Ibid.

327
  
“Hello, I'm calling from
Ms.
magazine”: Abigail Pogrebin, “How Do You Spell Ms.”; and Mary Thom,
Inside Ms.
, p. 14. Thom explained how anyone working for
Ms.
in the beginning had to pronounce it and spell it repeatedly. Author based dialogue on these accounts.

327
  
Carbine and Steinem borrowed friends: Pat Carbine, interview with the author, January 2014.

328
  
Ms.
would be approximately eighty-eight pages: Stats from “Some Notes on a New Magazine . . .”.

328
  
“Do you have The Globbies?”: Slimmers Glove System.

328
  
“Relax”:
and following
: Cupid's Quiver.
Time
wrote about the ad for Cupid's Quiver in “Advertising: The Unlikeliest Product,” December 26, 1969.

328
  
“We did not go for cosmetics
at all
”: Pat Carbine, interview with the author, January 2014.