Ms. Magazine Turns 30

by Christine Hall

It was in 1973 that Ms. magazine begin showing up in the various ashrams and communes at Toronto’s Rochdale College, where I lived at the time. I couldn’t help but notice it lying around, for here was a publication that was very different from the other mags designed for female readers. While all of the other women’s periodicals of the day were publishing recipes, giving home decorating advice or pushing the latest fads in clothes and cosmetics, Ms. was talking about stuff that really mattered, and expressing ideas that hadn’t even occurred to many of it’s mostly young readership. Reading Ms. in those days was fun, an adventure into the thrill of discovery.

True, the discovery was that women were still being held captive by the social roles of womanhood, but there was a certain aha at work during the early days of feminism’s second wave. There was the thrill that comes when the light bulb of new insight goes off, illuminating facts that had been hidden. Women were beginning to see that sexism was very deeply ingrained in our culture, much deeper than previously realized, but while these realizations elicited lots of anger, they also brought a spirit of playfulness and fun, for women also began to discover a newfound sense of power that had been lost centuries or millenniums ago.

It was a time for breaking taboos, a time to proclaim the power of sisterhood and to refuse to accept behaviors and cultural nuances that were designed to keep women in the kitchen. It was a time to dream the dream that women should be able to have careers outside the pink ghettos of librarian, school teacher, hairdresser and stenographer. It was a time to relegate job descriptions like “Girl Friday” to the trash heap. It was a time to quit identifying oneself as a chick, a bird, a girl, or some man’s “old lady.” It was a time to be proud to be woman.

Ms. was the right magazine at the right time when the preview issue appeared, tucked inside New York magazine, in December of 1971. Today, as the 30th anniversary edition reaches the stands, it still holds the distinction of being the flagship journal of American feminism. Admittedly, it’s not as fun to read as it was during it’s heyday in the 1970s, but thirty year olds are seldom as fun and interesting as children.

The 30th anniversary edition, which features reprints from each decade of the magazine’s sometimes troubled existence, begins with an article from the Spring/1972 edition that clearly defines the thrill of insight that came to many women during the periodical’s early days. In Click! The Housewife’s Moment of Turth, writer Jane O’Reilly used the word “click” to illustrate the moment when a new insight slips into place.

“Those clicks are coming faster and faster,” she wrote. “American women are angry. Not redneck-angry from screaming because we are so frustrated and unfulfilled angry, but clicking-things-into-place angry, because we have suddenly and shockingly perceived the basic disorder in what has been believed to be the natural order of things.”

She went on to list example after example after example of these “clicks” of insight:

“In Houston, Texas, a friend of mine stood and watched her husband step over a pile of toys on the stairs, put there to be carried up. 'Why can’t you get this stuff put away?' he mumbled. Click! 'You have two hands,' she said, turning away.

“Last summer I got a letter, from a man who wrote: ‘I do not agree with your last article, and I am canceling my wife’s subscription.’ The next day I got a letter from his wife saying, 'I am not canceling my subscription.’ Click!”

Gloria Steinem, one of the founders and current consulting editor of Ms., said that this sentiment is not as out-of-date as some may think. As example, she pointed-out that President Bush was careful to place Sima Samar, Afghanistan’s new minister of women’s affairs, in the audience for his State of the Union Address. “But there has been no aid to women in Afghanistan,” she added. “Click!”

Some things have changed at Ms. over the years, as evidenced by the cover of their 30th anniversary edition, which features Ms. Steinem’s image, despite the fact that she once swore that was something that would never happen. “If Oprah can be on every issue, it’s okay for me to be on it once in 30 years,” she explained.

Although the magazine made some missteps and fell from prominence during the 1980s and 1990s, the publication was revitalized in 1998 when it was bought by a coalition of women investors. In November, Ms. was purchased by the Feminist Majority Foundation which plans to turn it into a non-profit venture that will only accept advertising from organizations with strong feminist ties.

Whether for-profit or not-for-profit, here’s wishing Ms. another 30 meaningful years! I always feel like I’m being visited by an old friend when I read it.