Lost Women: Aphra Behn—Novelist, Spy and the First Woman to Earn a Living as an English Writer

This Women’s History Month, we’re reviving the iconic “Lost Women” column—diving into the archives to make these histories more accessible to our new age of Ms. readers.

For any writer to have produced 19 plays and 13 novels, plus 11 volumes of letters, translations and miscellaneous prose and verse, is remarkable. For a 17th-century woman to have done so is phenomenal. That was the literary output of Aphra Behn (1640-1689), the first woman to earn her living as a writer in the English language. 

Speaking While Female: A History

Thousands of American women have courageously spoken in public over the past four centuries. Their speeches helped shape the beliefs, culture and ideals of America. But their voices have been omitted from American history, and our storehouse of common knowledge. The same cannot be said about the many lionized male orators who appear in our history books, media, and public discourse.

I know because when I give talks and teach classes in public speaking, I ask my audience: “Which famous speakers in American history can you name?” Many people can rattle off at least half a dozen American male speakers like Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Billy Graham and Ronald Reagan. But when I ask which women speakers they remember, there’s a long pause. Someone might mention Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama. Mostly the faces are blank.

Could it be true, I wondered, that the “great men” in history gave all the greatest speeches? Or could it be we just don’t know about great women speakers?

What Gloria Steinem Means to Us

“I hope you live forever.”

“Gloria made me believe I could do and be whatever I chose.”

Ms. magazine changed my life and Gloria lives in my heart.”

“Your words changed my life and enabled me to become the feisty female that I am.”

Can you believe it’s Gloria Steinem’s 90th birthday? In honor of Ms. magazine’s beloved co-founding editor, we asked you to tell us: “What does Gloria mean to you?” These are just a few of your moving responses describing the many ways she “inspired our feminist lives.” Happy Birthday, Gloria!

What Does 90 Look Like? Just Ask Gloria Steinem

Today, as Gloria Steinem, herself, turns 90, I will not flatter her with compliments about how she still doesn’t look her age, or how considerate, clever and courageous she remains. What I’d like to do, instead, is celebrate her and the feminist movement she continues to devote her long life to, enabling me, and countless others of my generation to, as she once put it, “Live out the unlived lives of our mothers, because they were not able to become the unique people they were born to be.”

Why It’s So Important That an Arizona State Senator Is Speaking Out About Needing an Abortion

Abortion has always been a fact of life. People in all occupations and walks of life need and seek abortion care. Arizona state Senator Eva Burch’s decision to share her need for abortion care while holding elected office in a state whose legislature and courts are grappling with abortion laws emphasizes that the personal is political. It also creates a powerful contrast between the relentless attempts by the anti-abortion movement to impose their worldview on the entire country and the many ways that people across the nation are fighting back—by sharing their stories, helping others get care, voting for abortion rights, and finding ways to overcome enormous obstacles to get an abortion. 

Senator Burch is not alone. New data from the Guttmacher Institute shows an increase in abortions with more people accessing abortion care in 2023 than any other year in the last decade. 

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation: The Fair Representation Act Can Improve U.S. Elections; Mexico May Get Its First Jewish President

Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation. 

This week: the reintroduction of the Fair Representation Act, which would help solve the problems of partisan gerrymandering and uncompetitive elections for U.S. House; rest in power, Dorie Ann Ladner, a prominent figure in the civil rights movement; women’s representation in Florida’s state legislature has crossed 40 percent; as the presidential race in Mexico continues, Claudia Sheinbaum, a physicist of Jewish descent, holds a significant lead over her closest rival, Xóchitl Gálvez; a missed opportunity to increase women’s representation in Philadelphia; and more.

They Never Deserved to Be Called ‘Pro-Life’

Less than three weeks after Alabama’s State Supreme Court unleashed massive chaos and hardship by ruling that frozen embryos created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) must be considered children, the state legislature passed a bill providing immunity to clinics that provide IVF and people who access that care. Alabama’s stridently anti-abortion governor hastily signed the legislation into law. Are we supposed to be grateful?

Protecting and supporting families is not the focus of the Republican Party. They prove that every day by opposing food and nutrition assistance, childcare subsidies, paid family leave, Medicaid expansion and other programs that help families be healthy and thrive.