Pretty and smart is still an unbeatable work combination. I know one big city mayor who used to run a high profile company and only wanted pretty girls around his bullpen. The overweight young woman whose bra straps always showed, and who had the unfortunate habit of burping out loud, lasted minutes before being moved quickly to another floor.
I did start out my career in the women’s magazine industry but quickly tired of conversations about hemlines and moved into areas that exposed me to eligible and attentive authors and newsmakers. It was a given in the days when martini lunches unlocked a writer’s block that the afternoons were a total write-off. No one cared if you returned to the office, as long as you got the interview.
Moving into the newspaper world was a different story. The newsroom was full of tough Australian journalists hired by my new boss, Rupert Murdoch. There was a camaraderie there that I hadn’t seen before. (Covering Watergate together can do that.) You conformed to this hugely sexist, hard-drinking bunch of outlaws if you wanted to get ahead. I remember raunchy late night calls qualifying every bit as “sexual harassment,” but the term had yet to be coined. And, truthfully I got some great inside tidbits by playing along as “one of the boys,” but definitely being one of the girls.
In the television business I showed up every weekday to watch the senior producer flirt with the anchor. She fed him great stories and made him look smart all in the name of what she was getting after the credits rolled. Bless that dumb anchor if it got his lovesick producer in at 2 a.m., dressed in St. John’s Knits, while the rest of us arrived with bed head, in basic sweats.
