Nice of these gals to reach out to me and offer a complimentary review copy, especially given that I’ve called them out before on not being terribly intergenerational in their coverage and bylines. Congrats to them on a historically rich, ethnically diverse 35th anniversary issue, and even more, on keeping such a landmark publication going all of these years.
The most thrilling thing about the issue is that a reader can’t help but get a sense of how damn much has changed. The statistics in the Then and Now section alone are enough to eradicate any doubts of the feminist movement’s effectiveness.
1972: women own 4.6% of US businesses
2006: women own 40%, and of those 1 in 5 are owned by women of color
In other ways, the statistics prove we’ve still got some major work to do.
1972: Women in US prisons and jails: 14,008
2007: 209,980
Women’s solo art exhibitions at U.S. museums:
1970s: 14%
2000s: 27%
The rest of the issue seems like regular Ms. Fare—national and international updates on local happenings, longer features on famous feminists—with the exception of a center spread (haha) filled with feminists’ answer to the questions: How has feminism changed your life over the past 35 years? Where is it going in the next 35?
The usual suspects are included—Gloria Steinem, Alice Walker, bell hooks—but I was happy to see that a lot of young feminists (including the bloggers on these here pages) and a wide range of international and American women of color are represented. I’m partial to Bitch magazine founder Lisa Jervis’ comment:
A useful, idealistic, transformative, progressive feminism for the next 35 years and beyond is, counter-intuitively, not about women: It’s about gender (and all the legal and cultural rules that govern it) and power (who has it and what they do with it).
With that vision of feminism in the twenty-first century in mind, I have to say that the magazine fell short in terms of “gender� and exceeded expectation with regards to “women.� I guess this is one of the ways in which these generational fault lines tend to crack up—Lisa and I, and a lot of other young feminists I would guess, are interested in interrogating and redefining gender, not just femaleness.
Older feminists seem largely preoccupied with the category “women� and all that that entails. The big features throughout the rest of the magazine all focus on women—Title XI’s effect on women’s lives, Carol Moseley Braun’s new eco-interests, women in the media (with no mention of Jen Pozner’s Women in Media & News, the Journalism & Women’s Symposium, or Women’s eNews I might add), breast cancer research, Bella Abzug, and an excerpt from a new book by an abortion doctor. There a review of Robert Jensen’s new book on pornography (by a previous co-author...sketchy), but other than that, men’s potential affiliation with and transformation via feminism is absent from these pages.
Which begs the question, what is Ms.’s vision of men’s role in the next 35 years of gender revolution?
Next Week: Speaking of dudes, I’ll review Robert Jensen’s Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity. The week after that is Woodward and Bernstein: Life in the Shadow of Watergate by Alicia C. Shepard.
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For a few years, I've found the prisoner gender gap to be very interesting. It clearly says *something* about equality. On the one hand, one can see the positives of a more equal distribution, meaning there is more actual liberty for women, for instance. However, to begin with, the prison population as a whole has of course increased 700%, so the increase among women are not that exceptional. More importantly, it shows that there's a great structural problem that still needs to be faced for the US, and crime and violence is of course a feminist issue as well. Equality by conforming to the violent, abusive norms of normative masculinity is problematic, at best. The US crime and prison figure does deviate sharply from Western Europe, for instance, so obviously *something* should be possible to do about it.
Are there more exact figures on which crimes women are incarcerated for in the issue?
I don't know if this is the time and place for this comment, but I always have a strong reaction to statistics like these regarding businesses [allegedly] owned by women:
I personally know an older couple (friends of my husband's family) who own their own heating and air conditioning business. Although SHE is listed as the owner, HE and his white male employees run the business and have done so for two generations. The words "And Sons" are even part of the name. All she does is answer phones in the office. But because she is listed as the owner, they are allowed to bid on government contracts as a "woman-owned" business.
It PISSES me off to no end that they set things up this way. I sometimes fantasize about reporting them, but I don't know that it would do any good.
Um, I just want to say that the Wonder Woman mosaic on the cover is FREAKIN' SWEET, and I want one poster-sized.
That is all.
I'm confused about this:
"I’m impartial to Bitch magazine founder Lisa Jervis’ comment"
Did you mean that you liked it? If so, you meant to say partial, instead of impartial.
This post makes me want to go buy the magazine ASAP!
I really think you need to capitalize Bell Hooks... :)
I am also confused about whether you agreed and appreciated Lisa Jervis' comment or not?
I really think you need to capitalize Bell Hooks... :)
I am also confused about whether you agreed and appreciated Lisa Jervis' comment or not?
I love the cover as well... will be picking up this copy asap
Oops, I am only an idiot once in a while - promise - bell hooks - too used to caps! lol!
Thanks for the heads up on ye ole impartial...I've corrected. bell hooks prefers her name to not be capitalized, though Ms. did capitalize it in the issue.
I'm confused about why the statistic about women in prison "shows we have a long way to go".
Yes, it has increased by about 9 times, but then the prison population in general has increased by about 7 times. I'd like to see the stats for the increase in male prisoners side-by-side to this to do a better comparison.
So overall the percentage of female prisoners has slightly increased, but I don't think that's neccessarily a negative thing. It sounds weird here I know, but I like the idea of all-around equality, so even for things like prison it would seem like a positive thing if the percentage of men to women in prison was roughly equal.
I guess I'm just curious to hear why Courtney thought this stat was negative in case I'm missing something.
i agree with Junie B's concern regarding stats on women-owned businesses.
i work at a small investment management company, originally founded and owned by two men. about 2.5 years ago we expanded and they sold some of their ownership shares to a woman. now it's 2 men and 1 woman each with equal ownership.
when we are entered in client and consultant searches for money managers, female ownership means we can not only identify ourselves as woman-owned but also minority-owned--as women are considered a minority--despite all 3 owners being white, and having only one person of color in our 9 person company.
so, i do think there is good reason to be skeptical of those stats. but on the plus side, our woman owner has done more for the growth and success of the company in the 2.5 years she's been here than the other owners combined did in twice as much time.
the Wonder Woman mosaic on the cover is FREAKIN' SWEET, and I want one poster-sized.free online games