As a young woman I never read Cosmopolitan. I didn't see the point of it. The cover lines seemed tiresome (such an obsession with sex and the constant “pleasing” of men), and the big-haired, big-breasted “Cosmo girls” looked uncomfortably similar to the women in men-only magazines. I preferred the less frivolous and (relatively) more intellectual Marie Claire, with its international agenda, emotional intelligence and practical fashion advice.

That Cosmopolitan seemed superfluous is in some ways proof of how brilliantly Helen Gurley Brown, its editor for 30-odd years, succeeded in her editorial aims. I took for granted the liberties that Cosmo espoused - sexual empowerment, good career opportunities, independence - because I simply had no concept of a life without them. As the daughter of one of the original Cosmo girls (not for my mother the virtuous pages of Good Housekeeping, which she laughingly referred to as “Good Mousekeeping”), I was blithely oblivious to the struggles and sacrifices of my predecessors. The preoccupations of a magazine such as Cosmopolitan seemed as outdated to me as GH was to my mother. Young women, and womankind, had moved on.

When Gurley Brown assumed editorial control of the magazine in 1965 she was 43 and had no previous magazine experience. She did, however, possess some of the strongest feminist ideals of any woman of the 20th century - not that many who would have described themselves as feminists at the time would have agreed. The topics that she urged her readers to explore - sex, birth control, the workplace - may have been broadly similar to the mainstream feminist agenda; culturally and stylistically, however, they were worlds apart.

Gurley Brown's brand of emancipation was not dressed up in sensible footwear and unflattering clothing, or hamstrung by political correctness and unrealistic expectations; her feminism wore vertiginous heels and tight leopardskin, and tossed its well-tended tresses in the face of all opposition. It was as unapologetically sexy as it was direct, and this is what makes her a unique - and controversial - figure. She was genuinely ahead of her time, one of the first so-called “third wave” feminists, the ones who believed that exfoliation and emancipation were not mutually exclusive, that women did not have to give up being feminine to be assertive, that sex, fashion and the occasional bit of frivolity were entirely compatible with a feminist vision. It was a belief, inevitably, that brought her into conflict with her more intellectual (and, as she was so fond of pointing out, less well-groomed) sisters.

Jennifer Scanlon's magnificent and exhaustive biography effectively makes the case for Gurley Brown taking her place in the feminist pantheon, alongside such better-known heroines as Betty Friedan. But where Friedan represents the academically eloquent side of the feminist movement, Gurley Brown's is a more instinctive voice. Her brand of emancipation was born out of the experiences of a poor girl growing up during the Great Depression, a girl with bad acne and not many obvious prospects who nevertheless managed to work (and sleep) her way to a degree of financial independence before marrying, at 37, a senior movie executive. This kind of practical feminism, seasoned with a heavy dose of pragmatism and driven not so much by ideology as by necessity, is in many ways less pure - but all the more human and appealing for it.

It was Gurley Brown's direct, conversational style and identifiable affinity with working-class women that made such a runaway hit of her 1962 blockbuster book, Sex and the Single Girl, the original “having it all” manual and the literary precursor to Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City. As Scanlon points out, by the time that Gurley Brown got around to writing it she was a married woman. Nevertheless, she had many years of experience struggling to fend off the prejudices of a society that still viewed unmarried females with scepticism, if not downright suspicion.

Postwar women were expected to do their duty by marrying young, having plenty of children and generally facilitating a harmonious nuclear family - and it was a heavily reinforced cultural message. As Scanlon writes, “in 1958 ... the rate of American women marrying between ages 15 and 19 exceeded that of any other age group”. Single women were seen as problematic, even mentally ill. In a collection of 1949 essays entitled Why Are You Single?, mental deficiencies arising from the pursuit of the unmarried life included coitophobia (morbid fear of marital relations) and gymnophobia (fear of the sight of a naked body). It was even felt, entirely without irony, that “there may even be a morbid obsession ... a dread or dislike for housekeeping”.

Priceless historical nuggets such as these, deftly stitched into the personal, make this book a deeply satisfying and illuminating read. As well as having an acute cultural eye, Scanlon is also a clear-headed and fair biographer. She is honest about her subject's failings - her obsession with extreme thinness, her intellectual inconsistencies, her stinginess, her often cavalier attitudes - and examines with great insight the role of Gurley Brown's husband, David Brown, whom she credits with much of her eventual success. It is a book that tells us as much about Gurley Brown as the times she has lived through, and an important book for any modern woman who occasionally wonders how we got, for better or for worse, where we are today.

Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown by Jennifer Scanlon
OUP, £15.99; 288pp Buy the book

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