RITA BRAVER:
00:03:59
[LAUGHS] And at least, when we were together, that was much less likely. Also, it was OK to laugh. I mean, laughter turns out to be the only free emotion. It's the only emotion you can't compel. It's crucial. So it was about companionship, about affirming our own and other women's experiences, and also about being diverse because women's magazines were either mostly white or a few brave Black magazines, like Essence. As I understand it, you kicked around a lot of different titles for the magazine. How did you settle on Ms.? Well, first of all, it was short. It was a logo, so it left a lot of space. We had some misgivings about it because it was also thought to be a disease. MS. [LAUGHTER] Yes, right. But we discovered that, in England, it was used, even for children, to indicate a female without marital status. "Mistress" or "master" in England were used for children, too. So it was the one way to indicate "female" without indicating marital status. We were used to a world where everyone was called "Ms." if they weren't married, or "Mrs." if they were. Women of that time wanted to be called "Ms." But, as I understand it, even The New York Times wouldn't call you Ms. Gloria Steinem. No, no. I'm so glad you know that. It was so annoying because, for years and years, I was Ms. Steinem of Ms.magazine. [LAUGHTER] And I have to tell you, I am somewhat surprised that I find that a lot of younger people don't really understand where "miss" came from, or even understand why people my age definitely want to be called that. Well, I do think that young women understand being parallel to "Mr." That is something that indicates gender or sex without marital status. I think they get that. But in the beginning, no, it was quite revolutionary. And fortunately, Bella Abzug, who was in Congress at the time, wrote a "Ms." bill, and passed it through Congress to try to contribute to the fact that this was an option for women. One of the things that was very arresting-- now, as you mentioned, very first Ms. was within the pages of New York magazine. But the cover of that very first issue was groundbreaking. How did you come up with that idea-- all of the hands, and the blue woman juggling everything. Well, you can see that I had been living in India for two years. So Krishna is blue, with a lot of hands. And in this case, each hand stood for one of the multiple occupations of women, whether it was cooking or driving or holding a baby. So we just adapted that Indian tradition to our own purposes. And you sent a message with that cover, for sure. And the first freestanding magazine, of course, had Wonder Woman on it, which was another recurring symbol that the magazine would use over the years. Yes, because Wonder woman was about-- Wonder Woman had fallen into disrepair since my youth, when I loved Wonder Woman. She had become like a carhop. She had lost all her magical powers and her magic lasso that made people tell the truth. So we just put her, the old, real Wonder Woman, on the cover, a colossus striding through a city, distributing food with one hand, stopping planes and bombing with the other hand. And finally, the Warner Communications people who were in charge of Wonder Woman called up after that cover was successful and said, OK, she's got her magic lasso back. We're going back to the real Wonder Woman. Now, will you leave us alone? [LAUGHTER] From the get-go, letters started pouring in. Yes, the letters. The letters were the most rewarding, moving. First of all, there were five times, or I don't know how many times, more letters than any other women's magazine I'd ever worked for got. And secondly, they were personal stories. And women would say, I feel as if Ms. was a friend who came into my house to help me when I needed it, or telling stories. So the section in which we printed some letters, with the permission, of course, of the letter writers, became much bigger than in any other magazine, and much more diverse and interesting. And movies started-- It was the first thing I turned to when I got the magazine. Oh, I'm so glad. You mentioned Jane O'Reilly. In that first issue was a piece by the writer Jane O'Reilly called "The Housewife's Moment of Truth." And in it, she described a click moment. What's a click moment? A click moment is when you suddenly understand the politics of your life. I mean, for instance, Jane included a moment when she was going up the stairs, and she saw things on-- she had put things on the third stair that needed to be taken up on the next trip. And she suddenly realized, wait a minute. My husband goes upstairs. He could have taken this. It's those simple moments when you realize injustice. You look around at a group that's supposed to represent the country, and you could go snow-blind from this group. It doesn't represent America. It's that moment that you realize that, in some way, you are being discriminated against, whether it's for being a woman or some other reason. And that really resounded with women. Yes, it really did. And Jane O'Reilly, who is still writing and living in Boston, is responsible for millions of women having clicks and having a way of naming them. Was there a big click in your own life? You went from being a writer or a reporter to also being an activist. Was there something that made that happen? Yes, there was, because a lot of us become writers because we don't want to talk, and that had been true for me. So I had absolutely never spoken in public. I was terrified to do it. But writing a column in New York magazine about an early abortion hearing-- that is, women standing up and telling their experiences of striving to get an abortion, even though it was dangerous and illegal at the time-- I went to that hearing to cover it. And I was sitting in the audience, and suddenly I realized, wait a minute. I had an abortion when I was in London, and it was illegal there, too. And why have I never-- why has this common experience not been spoken about? So, in the very first issue of Ms., we had a massive petition signed by Simone de Beauvoir, all kinds of people, saying, I have had an abortion. Some 50 Prominent women signed it. Yes. I have had an abortion, and I demand that it become safe and legal. And of course, we're still fighting this battle in some states. As you point out, that came out right before the Supreme Court's famous Roe versus Wadedecision legalizing abortion. Did you think, OK, that's it, we're done here? Or did you think that maybe something would happen, as it has happened-- that the court would remove that protection? I think I had the beginning of an idea that this was basic, that women's role as unique, you might say, reproducers, in the sense that we uniquely have wombs, was always a subject of contention in patriarchal governments. For instance, when Hitler-- you should pardon the expression. But anyway, Hitler was elected, and he was elected. The very first thing he did the morning after his election was to declare abortion a crime against the state. Taking charge of women's bodies. Yes. It is a basic, basic necessity of patriarchy, and a basic enemy of democracy, because certainly, we at least-- if we don't have power over our own bodies, we're not living in a democracy. I mean, going through the old magazines-- sexual harassment on the job, domestic abuse, rape, women's rage, sex, body image, living on welfare, the struggle to find healthcare. There were pieces on women who were openly lesbian, which was not talked about at the time. "Women Loving Women," it was called. Was that deliberate? Did you just say, we are going where others dare not go? Well, I think it was some of that, but it was mostly reflecting women's lives and the letters we were getting, and the contrast between women's real lives and the service magazines that just talked about entertaining and cleaning. So it was just irresistible. It wasn't a good way of getting advertising, to put it mildly, because we weren't talking about their products. And eventually, this led to our becoming a foundation so that we could raise money in other ways. Since you brought that up, I'll go to that subject now because one of my favorite pieces in the new book is one of the stories that you wrote about the difficulty in getting advertisers. I mean, it seems like there were a lot of obstacles. Car manufacturers didn't want to advertise, because they didn't think women bought cars? Well, they thought that men bought cars because they were fast and masculine and so on, and that it would devalue a car to see a woman driving it. I mean, they told me that in Detroit. I'm not making it up. [LAUGHS] And when you asked electronics manufacturers to advertise, they said, oh, no, women just buy what their boyfriends tell them to? Yeah. Or their husbands tell them. They don't understand it. You describe a lunch with a head of a major cosmetics company in which he told you that women who read Ms. didn't buy blush or makeup? Right. Took me to lunch to tell me that, yes. Right, right. [LAUGHS] So that was the reason that you ultimately folded the magazine into a nonprofit foundation. Yes. I mean, I'm glad that we struggled to change advertising imagery, and I think we did have an impact on the way many products were advertised. But, from going around with our ad sales women to advertising agencies and seeing the response-- I mean, two things happened. One, the guys-- and they were all guys, who were making the decisions-- were convinced that women were not their audience. And the other thing was that the women who were the secretaries there all came to our presentations when they didn't come to other-- And told you they read the magazine. Yes. Right, right, right. What about what to put in the magazine? Did the staff agree, or were there lots of, I mean, discussions, arguments? How did that go? Well, fortunately, we were able to do diverse articles. So the passion and interest of diverse people who work there was OK. I mean, it's a great tribute to Suzanne Levine, our managing editor, that she managed to create balance out of very disparate articles. But the fact that they were disparate was a plus, not a minus. The magazine did, at one point, have someone resign, saying that there wasn't enough diversity, not enough women of color being acknowledged in the magazine. Do you think that was a fair criticism? Yeah, probably, because we were certainly not perfect. But in my memory, it was not so much because there weren't enough women of color, but because there weren't enough politically radical articles. In terms of stereotypes, you did not look the way people wanted to characterize feminists. You didn't look frumpy and unattractive. Do you think that annoyed some people? I don't know, exactly. But the idea that you would only become a feminist if you couldn't get a man was out there. I hope people have totally forgotten and are shocked by the fact that that was ever there, but it was. And we looked all kinds of ways. And if the way I looked was useful, fine. But I was worried about the emphasis on me because, even though we had diverse articles, I don't represent diversity. And that's why, when I was going out to speak, is I was invited to do, I asked my friend Dorothy Pitman Hughes, who ran a pioneering childcare center here in New York, who's an African-American woman, to do it with me. And then, when she had a baby and wanted to stay home, Flo Kennedy, the great civil rights lawyer Flo Kennedy, came along, and then Margaret Sloan. So we went out in pairs. So that there wouldn't just be so much focus on you. Well, and also so that the magazine would be understood to be for American women and all of our diversity. You mentioned feminism and all the things that it can be. Why do you think that word seemed to threaten people, the word "feminism"? Well, I think two reasons. One, because they didn't understand it, and two, because they did understand it. [LAUGHS] And if you're in a patriarchy-- look, we've never had a female president. How crazy is that? You have defined "feminism," or "feminist," as anyone who recognizes the equality and humanity of all people. Yes, including men. Why is that scary to some people? Sometimes I think the world is divided into two kinds of people-- those who divide everything into two, and those who don't. In a patriarchy, in a racist patriarchy, there is an emphasis on divisions. And we were and are trying to say each of us is unique. We come with our own experiences. We each are equally valuable as a human being. It's the obvious democratic message. But, because we came from a different place, whether it was race when Europeans arrived and killed most of the Native Americans who were here, or slavery, we're trying to work through a heritage that is not democratic. You mentioned we never had a woman president, which is true, but women do seem to have made huge strides politically, and in other ways, too, since Ms.was first started, in education, in business, as well as politics. Do you feel like Ms.can take any of the credit for helping to move society forward? Yes, no, I think we can, just because we provided a forum. I mean, the dominant letter that we got from women around the country for many years was, at last, I know I'm not alone. And that is very, very valuable. For women who are standing by their kitchen sinks-- or being made to feel, in their own culture, whether it's religious or secular, that they're not equal-- it was and is a message. Other women not part of the founding group say that Ms. played, quote, "an outsized role" in raising consciousness and building a feminist community. Is that fair? Yes, yes. And it still does, yes. And on the other thing, we hear this. In looking at the history of the magazine, I was surprised to read in many places that Ms.actually played a role in the whole idea of creating women's history departments, women's studies departments at major universities. Yes, it's true because it gave women on campus who were tired of reading history courses, studying that didn't include them, by gender or by race-- and because we always had a special program to distribute ourselves, to make ourselves available at a lower price on campus, it was helpful. And it is crazy that history is "his story"-- hello-- and not what I hope it's becoming, which is our universal story. So the subtitle of the new book, of course, is The Best of the Pathfinding Magazine That Ignited a Revolution. So maybe that's not so far off, right? Yeah. I don't think we think we did it by ourselves. There were other feminist publications that were regional, in Boston and California. There were women's groups meeting around their kitchen tables or in their living rooms. There was a lot bubbling up. It was the early 1970s, and it was really the dawn of the second wave of the women's movement, of women saying, we can hold these jobs, we can expect our husbands to help, we can change the way the world is. So, in all, the magazine was part of that time. It was part of its time. Yes. And things that came out of the magazine blossomed in ways we wouldn't have expected. We had a children's story in every pretty much every issue, which, after we did it, we were told, made no sense, that you weren't supposed to put children's stories in a grown-up magazine. But by that time, it was already successful. And it became, thanks to Marlo Thomas, Free to Be You and Me, which then became a television show with wonderful songs, like "William Wants a Doll," like little boys like dolls, too. I mean, it grew in ways we never would have predicted. There are still some huge hurdles. Abortion is one of them we've talked about. Beyond that, what do you see as the major hurdles for women of today? Well, it's ridiculous that we're a democracy in theory, but not in fact. There's been no women or women of color, even though, for instance, Shirley Chisholm declared for the presidency in, what, 1972, I think? We have a woman vice president of color. Yes, we now have a woman vice president, but we are not in the forefront of global democracies in this way. You describe yourself as an optoholic, somebody who is always optimistic. I mean, are you still optimistic about the equality? Yes, because hope is actually a form of planning. If you don't imagine what could be in improving the human condition in whatever way you're thinking, it's not going to happen. We have to imagine something before it becomes reality. So yes, I am a hopeaholic. What would you say to young women coming of age in today's world? How can I help you do what you dream of doing? I know that you were sometimes asked if you are, quote, "passing the torch," and that your answer is-- No, I'm not giving up my torch. [LAUGHS] And the image of a singular torch is so crazy because everybody needs to know where they're going, and if only one person has a torch, that's not much light. So I'd way rather think of each of us having our torch. And you have said you want to use your torch to light the torches of others. Yes, right. What fun is that? [LAUGHS] You are also-- and I love this. You get offended when people ask you if you're, quote, "still working." Yeah, the word "still" enters my life now because of age, I think. And I think it's OK to say, if my research is right, you are now 90 years old? No, I'm about to be. I mean, in March, I will be. 89, yeah. So you're now 89 years old, so we can say this is what 89 looks like. It's pretty darn good. Yeah, well, I don't know. That makes us feel like we're supposed to look like each other. I mean, it looks like whatever we look like. And I did some research, once, to discover the oldest woman in the world, and I discovered a woman in the Himalayas who was 130. [LAUGHS] So you've got a long time to go, right? I don't know. But whatever it is, I feel lucky. I feel rewarded, and I feel infinitely interested, angered, just engaged in every day. You recently were on an episode of Sex and the City. How did that come about? They just call you up and say, come on over? Yes, and it was across the street, so I thought-- [LAUGHS] And they paid me union minimum, and it was fun. Yeah, right. You talked about how aging is the new frontier. Yeah, I think so, because women have, in patriarchal cultures, been valued for our ability to have children, which is time-limited, and less for other kinds of use of our brains and the rest of us. And that is changing, I hope and believe. You have said that you have observed that many women, like you, like me, who came of age and came to a realization in the 1970s, are still outrageous and doing crazy things. Yes, absolutely. Why is that so important, do you think? Well, first of all, we want to use our aliveness, however old we are. Secondly, I think the expectations of women are related to reproduction. So we become important at 13, and through however long you can have children and so on. But what about all the years afterwards, when, like men, we have experience and more freedom, perhaps, in a familial sense, more knowledge? I am stunned. Nobody told me that getting old was interesting, and it is. [LAUGHS] And I'm almost done, but you raised that point, and we said this at the beginning. You never expected Ms. magazine to last for 50 years. No. Do you think Ms.can keep going another 50 years? Sure. I think so, absolutely-- And what does it need to do? --at the same time that I hope that it becomes less necessary because more other publications and media forms are including women, and all of our diversity, in an equal way. You must look back. I mean, you've done so many things in your career, but you must look back, and thinking, being a cofounder of Ms.magazine is a pretty good thing to have done. Yeah, no, I feel very, very, very proud of it, and especially because I started out believing that the only place I could do anything different was in show business. When I was growing up, that's the only place I saw women doing anything. So I did try to tap-dance my way-- You did? I did. As a child and teenager, I thought, surely I can make a living. I can be a Rockette or something. It's not very practical. Actually, boys in poor neighborhoods sometimes have the same problem because they only see guys who look like them succeeding in sports. And that's unfair, too. But I mean, is there something that you know now that you wish you would have known when you were starting that magazine? Oh, gosh, how long do we have? [LAUGHTER] I know it's not easy to hear this, but look, to a lot of people, you are an icon. What's that like? What's the feeling of it? What's the responsibility of it? Well, an icon is a thing, so I don't really want to be a thing. But I'm glad that I, if I symbolize anything, symbolize something I love and care about. And actually, it does bring me amazing encounters because sometimes, when I'm in the street or in an airport, someone will come up to me, and it's like instant intimacy because we each know we know what we care about, and people will tell me stories. And that's a gift. And once, I was in an airport, and the cleaning woman could see that my plane was late by hours. And she said, oh, honey, here's a closet I sleep in. So she gave me a place to sleep. I mean, it is instant understanding, and I'm grateful for that. It could be instant hostility sometimes, but that's OK, too. And little girls read about you in books. No, that's amazing. And I hope the little girls understand that what is unique inside them is what the women's movement supports. [MUSIC PLAYING]
