Gloria Steinem on the trailblazing magazine 'for women in all their diversity'
Getty ImagesIn 1972, pioneering feminist, journalist and activist Gloria Steinem – who turns 90 today – co-founded Ms Magazine, putting conversations about gender equality, reproductive rights and social justice in the spotlight.
"The foundation of this magazine, and what makes it different from others, is that it simply considers that women are human beings – that doesn't sound very revolutionary but it is," Gloria Steinem – who turns 90 today – told the BBC in 1973, as she explained why she had felt compelled to launch the groundbreaking feminist magazine Ms – the first magazine owned, run and written by women.
Sitting at a desk, surrounded by papers and in front of posters advocating women's rights, Steinem was at the time already one of the best-known feminists in the US.
Articulate, energetic and committed, she had carved out a name for herself in the 1960s and 70s through her journalism, which included going undercover at the New York Playboy Club to expose exploitative working conditions. She was also a passionate activist, having founded, along with Brenda Feigen and Dorothy Pitman-Hughes, the Women's Action Alliance in 1971 – a group to empower women to combat sexism in society.
As a journalist, she felt that even publications women wrote for did not reflect her own experiences or those of women she knew. Nor did they offer advice about how to deal with the sexism, barriers and harassment they contended with on a daily basis.
"It started in desperation, I think, because there was just a great many women writers and editors who didn't feel that they were working on magazines that they read and that they had the opportunity to really be honest about their own experiences in a magazine," she said.
At the time, while there were glossy publications on the newsstands nominally for women, the vast majority of them were concerned with tips on homemaking, parenting advice or features on fashion and beauty. None of those magazines seemed to Steinem to be articulating or addressing the struggles faced by women in a male-dominated society.
"It would have been much easier to not start one, but it was just clear that there was no other way we could be honest about women's experience," she told the BBC in 1973.
At first, she planned to produce a newsletter to raise money for the Women's Action Alliance, as she told BBC Witness History in 2022, mostly "as a way of getting out the sort of writing we cared about. And Florynce Kennedy, a wonderful lawyer, outrageous woman, said: 'Nobody reads newsletters. How about a magazine?'"
They considered several potential names, including Bimbo – rejected because they didn't think they had the luxury of irony – and Sojourner, in tribute to Sojourner Truth, the African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist, which they dismissed for fear it sounded too much like a travel magazine. Eventually Steinem and the other founders settled on the name Ms – a title for a woman, married or not.
The next problem was how to fund it. "We then started to try and raise money, which turned out to be impossible, everybody said: 'You're crazy and magazines don't make money'."
Steinem had helped found New York Magazine in 1968, and convinced its editor Clay Felker to fund the launch of Ms as a 40-page insert in the December 1971 issue.
"Really the only thing that enabled us to have a test issue to illustrate and thereby to demonstrate that women did really want this kind of magazine was that New York Magazine, which I had been a founder of before, gave us enough money to put out a test issue," she said.
Getty ImagesThe cover featured a picture of the Hindu goddess Kali, pregnant and using all eight of her arms to juggle a surfeit of chores – cooking, cleaning, typing, driving – and one arm holding a hand mirror to signify the pressure to look good while doing it all. The accompanying article "Click: The Housewife's Moment of Truth" by co-founder Jane O'Reilly detailed the moment of clarity that comes to women when they recognise biases within society.
It also featured a groundbreaking "We Have Had Abortions" petition which listed more than 50 prominent women, including Nora Ephron, Billie Jean King, Susan Sontag and Gloria Steinem herself, who signed their name to a public manifesto demanding the legalisation of abortion.
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That issue, with a print run of 300,000 copies, was dated "Spring 1972" so it would be able to stay on newsstands for months without looking out of date. It sold out in just eight days, generating 26,000 subscription orders.
"And that was put out nationwide, and it was enormously successful – and that in turn enabled us to raise money for the total magazine," said Steinem.
In 1972, Ms started regular circulation as a stand-alone magazine, the first in the US to be owned, run and written by women. Steinem would remain an editor and writer on it for the next 15 years.
Pivotal role
In the years that followed, Ms Magazine would play a pivotal role in bringing feminism into public discourse. Known for its bold covers, many of which featured Wonder Woman, a childhood hero of Steinem, it covered the myriad of issues that affected women's lives.
It featured the works of writers like Alice Walker, Doris Lessing, Maya Angelou and Angela Davis, providing a platform for women to share their experiences and opinions, and challenging narrowly defined expectations of how women should look, feel and act.
Its journalism would regularly tackle head-on subjects that were often ignored by other publications or seen as taboo by wider society – domestic violence, workplace discrimination, lesbianism, date rape and abortion.
The writing, frequently told with humour and from a personal perspective, reflected the diverse interests and concerns of women, fostering a sense of solidarity with readers across the country and prompting thousands of letters to flood in.
"The biggest testimony is the letters," Steinem told the BBC. "We get thousands of letters every week. Many more letters than big magazines like McCall's or the Ladies' Home Journal get. I marked a couple that seem kind of typical to me: 'I bought Ms and it was like an explosion. Suddenly I came fully to my senses. It was an awakening of the person within me. I finally realised there was not something wrong with me. I wasn't the only one who felt the way I did, that there is an answer.' And here's another one: 'My daughter, a junior in medical school, introduced me to Ms. It is difficult to express the sense of exhilaration upon finding in print the ideas that have been smouldering in my semi-rebellious soul for some 40 years. It is comforting to know I am not alone.'"
The magazine would however also face criticism. Conservative commentators railed against it, saying that it attacked "family values", while some feminists thought that it was too cautious or that it represented a perspective that was too white, college-educated and urban. In 1986, the author Alice Walker resigned as a Ms contributing editor, citing the magazine's lack of diversity.
And despite its cultural influence, Ms Magazine struggled financially. Throughout the 1980s the magazine's economic stability was continually threatened. Along with an economic downturn, its refusal to shape editorial content around advertisers' needs and its frequent critiques of misogynistic adverts also meant it was a challenge to secure advertising dollars. But it has persevered through various ownership changes over the years, and since 2001 it has been owned by the non-profit Feminist Majority Foundation. It is now published quarterly.
While Ms Magazine may not have the reach or impact it once did, it has made an enduring contribution to the feminist movement, influencing public discourse and inspiring activism.
Steinem and its other writers' commitment to exploring women's lives and amplifying their voices in a way that mainstream media at the time could not, or would not, helped to shape the landscape and language of women's rights in the US.
"We don't feel we are editing a magazine for a peculiar few. We feel we are editing it for women in all their diversity," said Steinem.
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