Working Girl Wednesdays: "Being a Career Girl Kept Me From Visiting a Psychiatrist"

Welcome to Working Girl Wednesdays! Need advice on handling the complexities of the modern workplace? Well, fret no more! Whether it’s a senior partner making a move or a catty co-worker plotting for your plum position, Helen Gurley Brown’s 1964 book Sex and the Office has a solution. Every Wednesday on Glossed Over, I’ll present a new tip from the legendary editor of Cosmopolitan. Is her advice utterly ridiculous or startlingly prescient? You decide!

In “Come Back Little Wives, Widows, Divorcees,” HGB finds two working mothers to tell their stories—in their own words, as she dutifully reminds readers more than once. This is Sally, an executive secretary, on whether men should do housework:

Not everybody agrees with me, but I don’t think the husband of a working wife should ever do domestic chores. They rob him of his manliness and diminish his role as master. Carl has never helped with dishes, errands, or marketing, and I’ve never encouraged him to. I’m so grateful he doesn’t object to my working that I feel one way I can repay him is by spoiling him at home—just as he’d be spoiled if I were there all day.

Newspaper editor Christine discusses a lesser-known benefit of working:

As to what the neighbors say about my working, I tell the catty ones who imply I’m neglecting my family that I don’t coffee-klatch, bowl, play bridge or golf. Most women I know spend more time doing those things than I do on the job. There are the “friends,” of course who wait for you to slip—when you say, “I wish I could get to cleaning out the linen closet,” they say, “Well, when mothers go to work in an office…” their voices trailing off as though they’d just mentioned an unmentionable disease. I’ve learned to recognize and discount the signs of jealousy because I have left the kitchen sink and it’s still headquarters for them. I stoically resist mentioning that my being a part-time career girl may just possibly have kept me from visiting their psychiatrists.

Finally, Helen Gurley Brown offers advice to wives looking to enter the workforce. One of her tips:

Don’t be apologetic about being out of your twenties. A man may tell the personnel office to send him a cutiepie with a thirty-eight bust measurement, but he usually settles for less. A woman over thirty-five (age, that is) who is chic and cute and prompt and quiet and energetic can become the love of a businessman’s life.

Next week: a peek at HGB’s “office life”—in her own words!

Comments

[Emma]

"but he usually settles for less."

HGB has never rendered me speechless until now. My mouth literally gaped open in astonishment when I read that sentence.

[Lindsay]

yes, i've been trying for years now to figure out a way to repay my husband for letting me work...the salary and benefits just don't seem like enough.

[katg]

I am delurking to tell you that I think Working Girl Wednesdays are some of the most amusing blog posts I have ever read. My partner and I read them out loud to each other every week.
Thank you for providing us with such amazing advice!

[Glossed Over]

Emma: Right? As if it's oh-so-altruistic of him to give a lesser-busted woman a chance!

Lindsay: The woman in the book went on to say that she set the table as soon as she got home from work, so when her husband came home, he'd feel like she'd been there all day.

Kat: Thanks! Glad you're enjoying the book!

[Charlene]

If those women are real, they are the most incredibly pathetic women on record, even for 1964. My mother would have broken HGB's nose if she'd suggested that to her.