WINTHROP — Jennifer Scanlon, feminist scholar and director of gender and women’s studies at Bowdoin College, will discuss her new book on Tuesday, June 21, at the Bailey Public Library.

In her book, “Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown, the Woman behind Cosmopolitan Magazine,” Scalon tells the story of Brown, a young self-described “mouseburger” raised in Arkansas during the Depression.

Brown didn’t graduate from college, but wrote a best-seller that sold in 28 countries and became, for a quarter-century, the voice of one of America’s most influential women’s magazines.

Brown was famous for advising women on how to leverage the social-financial contract between the sexes. “She had some interesting schemes,” Scanlon said. “One was, if you go out with a man who is from out of town,get him to pay for your taxi ride home. Have him give you the cab money, let the taxi take you one block, then jump out and take a bus.”

Scanlon had the opportunity to meet with Brown on several occasions at her New York office in the Hearst Building.

Scanlon, who is executive director of The Coordinating Council for Women in History, has written many articles and books including, “The Gender and Consumer Culture Reader,” and “Inarticulate Longings.”

The free book discussion will begin at 6:30 p.m. For more information, call 377-8673.


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