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 THE FEMININE FORCE: RELEASE
THE POWER WITHIN TO CREATE THE LIFE YOU DESERVE
by Georgette
Mosbacher (1993)
by Peter Kurth
I've
got to admit I'm of two minds (if "mind" is the word I'm
looking for) about Feminine
Force: Release the Power Within to
Create the Life You Deserve, Georgette Mosbacher's bubbly foray into
the world of self-improvement. On
the one hand, I can't believe I actually finished reading a book as
gushy, imperturbable, hastily written and retro-bimbo as this. On the other hand, it's a relief to
spend some time with an author who isn't complaining, hasn't got an ax to
grind, doesn't hate anyone, wasn't molested as a child, and never went to
a treatment center for co-dependency, drug addiction, or low
self-esteem. I feel she ought to
be rewarded for her courage. I
feel, indeed, that Georgette Mosbacher deserves the life she has.
She's earned every one of those power lunches, every one of those
houses and gowns, those cars, those jewels, those shiny incisors and that
big red hair.
"I
wasn't born a redhead," Ms.
Mosbacher explains, in what is by no means the funniest sentence in her
book, "but I was born to be
a redhead." Her frankly
incredible guide to a happy, healthy, slimmed-down, tidied-up,
turned-out, made-over life at the Top of the Heap is good old American
uplift with a nipped-and-tucked face.
It's Couéism re-imagined for the Home Shopping Network: "Every day in every way, I am
getting" -- well, let's just leave it there. Georgette Mosbacher has been getting
and getting and getting for the last 20 years. "As my friend Marietta Tree, a
former United Nations Commissioner, says, `What do I have to do not to be
called a socialite?'" Ms. Mosbacher asks.
Poor
Ms. Tree, of course, has been dead since 1991, but I suspect Ms.
Mosbacher has been too busy to notice.
At the moment she's anticipating $20 million in first-year sales
for her thriving cosmetics company, Exclusives by Georgette
Mosbacher. Her husband, Robert,
the Houston honcho and former Secretary of
Commerce in the Bush Administration, is worth a little money
himself.
"He
hasn't come to the point where he'll clean the house or worry about his
socks," Ms. Mosbacher complains, but she says that she can
"live with that." She is
a "self-made woman" with "guts of steel." She sees no reason why she shouldn't
"be a CEO, a warm and nurturing wife, and iron perfect
shirts." Her book is filled
with steps and suggestions, zingers and tips -- first this, then that,
and "thirdly" something else.
"Fourthly," she writes, "make a commitment to steps
one, two, and three." She
regards her "inner voice" as the key to her success, and she
recommends that you do the same if you want to "achieve your
goals." "Goals," in
fact, is Ms. Mosbacher's favorite word, after "Georgette."
"`Georgette,'
my inner voice piped up,'" she says.
"`Things being what they are, what are you going to do to
achieve your goals in this town?'"
Or: "`Georgette,' I
finally said. `You are not going to play into their hands
by wearing black." She
suggests that you talk to yourself in the mirror once or twice a day and
that you "identify at least one thing you did that you feel good
about. At least one thing,"
she repeats, "and hopefully more."
Now,
I wouldn't want to take a guess at the number of people in America who, at this very minute, on the
advice of some money-grubbing guru, are talking to themselves in the
mirror and feeling good about their goals. Whenever I try it, I think about Robert
De Niro in Taxi Driver ("You talkin' to me?") and a glance out
the window, if you're really in doubt, will convince you that the method
doesn't work. The planet isn't
teeming with well-adjusted persons of either sex, just as the boardrooms
of corporate America aren't filled with Ms. Mosbachers,
wafted along to a radiant destiny by means of the Feminine Force. Ms. Mosbacher never does get around to
defining what the "FF" is -- or rather, she defines it only in
vague and sloganized terms, which puts the blame on you if your
"goals" don't pan out.
"The
Feminine Force is my way of describing the intangible but indelible
powers or energies that all women are born with but that many of us lose
somewhere along life's way," Ms. Mosbacher writes. "The Feminine Force operates
according to its own principles and moves uniquely through each of
us." It's something you can
"practice," I gather, in your copious spare time. You can use it to "discover your
talents" and "get a foot in the door." You can "visualize" it,
pamper it, and cuddle it along.
(What you can't do is expect it to repel a jewel thief, as it
apparently did for Ms. Mosbacher one day at the Barbizon Hotel. "God willing," she writes --
this is the funniest sentence
in her book -- "you'll never find yourself at the wrong end of a
gun.")
I haven't got room here to list "Georgette
Mosbacher's 72 Feminine Force Principles," or her advice on
"Getting From Point A to Point B," "Basic Responsibilities 1 through
4," or "Ten Proven Techniques for Turning a Moment Into a
Lifetime." Four or five of
the sharper affirmations will give you a clear idea:
"I am totally responsible
for myself."
"I pack my own
parachute."
"Any goal is a worthy
goal."
"My appearance is talking
and I like what it is saying."
"Network. Network. Network."
Or, as Ms. Mosbacher might have said
more honestly, "Marry up. Marry
up. Marry up." She met her first husband, "an
incredibly caring, generous and wealthy man," at a movie auction in Los Angeles, and tricked him
into dating her by posing as a reporter for TIME.
"When he was through
laughing," Ms. Mosbacher recounts, "he told me he thought I was
very gutsy" (instead of having her arrested, which would surely have
happened to you if your Feminine Force had been out of the house that
day). Her second marriage was to George
Barrie, the CEO of Fabergé, who
popped her one in a drunken moment and brought her as close as she's come
to "abuse" (guts of steel, remember?) Now she's got Mosbacher, who, at the
time that she was dating him in Texas, was described by
one of her friends as "the second most eligible bachelor in the
world" after Prince Rainier of Monaco. This will tell you all you need to
know, really, about the Feminine Force and the females behind it.
"Watch out for the theoreticians
of anger," Ms. Mosbacher warns, giving us also this priceless bit of
wisdom, worth the cost of a thousand self-help books: "Here's my beef with Susan
Faludi: never once does she even
consider the possibility that a lot of women who have had plastic surgery
don't mind the process and actually like the results." Want to meet an eligible man? Walk your dog on the Upper East Side. Phone a few insurance agents and see
whose wife has died. Hang around
F. A. O. Schwartz on a Saturday afternoon "when it's loaded with
divorced men and their children."
Whether she's giving advice on evening dress or market strategy,
growth potentials, make-up styles, "humor" in the boardroom or
sexual harassment, Ms. Mosbacher's message is always the same. It's Get That Guy and Rule the World. It's Lift Your Face and Dye Your
Hair. Compromise. Minimize. Talk About Him.
"It's true," she finally
says in a moment of clarity, "that the sheer ability to endure has
been a trait attributed to strong women since the beginning of
history." But, like I said at
the start: how can you mind when
she's still got her smile?
Peter Kurth is the author of Isadora: A Sensational Life (Little
Brown & Co.).
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