After a tumultous 25 years which included a 9-month suspension of publication, fights with advertisers, and ground-breaking work on unpopular topics like domestic violence, Ms. magazine is celebrating its birthday this month.
Ms. is a thick, ad-free magazine that is published 6 times a year and enjoys a circulation of 200,000. Ms. is still often the first or only major magazine to report on women’s news from around the world. Ms. reporters focus on how events in the news (and events ignored by news media) impact women, such as the handover of Hong Kong and welfare reform. Ms. stories contain information on activist groups and suggest actions that individuals can take to help solve the problems, founding editor Gloria Steinem said.
Given the advances the women’s movement has made, some question the necessity of a magazine like Ms. Steinem said “There’s nothing I would like more than to see Ms. rendered unnecessary.” Current editor in chief Marcia Ann Gillespie said “We’re not home free yet. The wage gap isn’t a myth. We’re still trying to figure out how to gain access to certain fields of work, whether in the military or in corporations. The real truth is, if we look at Congress or the White House, we still have a long, long road ahead of us.”
