Ms. Magazine: History, Editor, Founder, Ads, Battered Women, Reproductive Rights (1997)
Ms. is an
American liberal feminist magazine co-founded by second-wave feminists and sociopolitical activists
Gloria Steinem and
Dorothy Pitman Hughes. Founding editors were
Letty Cottin Pogrebin,
Mary Thom,
Patricia Carbine, Joanne
Edgar,
Nina Finkelstein, and
Mary Peacock. Ms. first appeared in
1971 as an insert in
New York magazine.The first stand-alone issue appeared in
January 1972 with funding from
New York editor
Clay Felker. From July
1972 to
1987, it appeared on a monthly basis.
During its heyday in the
1970s, it enjoyed great popularity but was not always able to reconcile its ideological concerns with commercial considerations. Since
2001, the magazine has been published by the
Feminist Majority Foundation, based in
Los Angeles and
Arlington, Virginia.
Co-founder Gloria Steinem has explained the motivation for starting
Ms. magazine, stating, "I realized as a journalist that there really was nothing for women to read that was controlled by women, and this caused me along with a number of other women to start Ms. magazine."[7] As to the origin of the name chosen for the magazine, she has stated, "We were going to call it '
Sojourner', after
Sojourner Truth, but that was perceived as a travel magazine. Then we were going to call it '
Sisters', but that was seen as a religious magazine. We settled on 'Ms.' because it was symbolic and also it was short, which is good for a logo."[7]
The title of Ms. magazine was suggested by a friend of Gloria Steinem who had heard the term in an interview on
WBAI radio and suggested it as a title for the new magazine.
Modern use of Ms. as an honorific was promoted by
Sheila Michaels. Michaels, whose parents were not married to each other, and who was not adopted by her stepfather, had long grappled with finding a title that reflected her situation: not being "owned" by a father and not wishing to be "owned" by a husband. Her efforts to promote its use were ignored in the nascent
Women’s Movement.
Around 1971, during a lull in an interview with "
The Feminists" group, Michaels suggested the use of the title "Ms." (having chosen a pronunciation current for both in
Missouri, her home).[8]
Controversy raged in the early 1970s over the "correct" title for women.[citation needed]
Men had Mr. which gave no indication of their marital status since the formal address term "master" for an unmarried man had fallen largely into disuse; etiquette and business practices demanded that women use either Miss or
Mrs. Many women did not want to be defined by their marital status and, for a growing number of women who kept their last name after marriage, neither Miss nor Mrs. was a correct title in front of that name.[citation needed]
From 1972 until
1988 Suzanne Braun Levine was the first editor of Ms.
Ms. made history in 1972 when it published the names of women admitting to having had abortions when the procedure was still illegal in most of the
United States.[10] A year later,
Roe v. Wade would legalize abortion throughout the country. Ironically, also in 1972, science-fiction author
Samuel R. Delany had a planned story arc for the
Wonder Woman comic book that was to culminate in Wonder Woman protecting an abortion clinic. This story arc was cancelled because of
Steinem's intervention - her disapproval of Wonder Woman being out of costume was used as a publicity stunt and excuse to remove Delany from the comic book and cancel the controversial storyline.[11]
A
1976 cover story on battered women made Ms. the first national magazine to address the issue of domestic violence. The cover photo featured a woman with a bruised face.
Ms. magazine's credibility was damaged in the
1980s and
1990s when it became swept up in the day care sexual abuse frenzy and moral panic about
Satanic ritual abuse.[12]
The "We Had Abortions" petition appears in the
October 2006 issue as part of the issue's cover story. The petition contains signatures of over 5,
000 women declaring that they had an abortion and were "unashamed of (the) decision", including actresses
Amy Brenneman and
Kathy Najimy, comedian
Carol Leifer, and Steinem herself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms._(magazine)