Tag: From the Vault

When Ms. was launched as a “one-shot” sample insert in New York magazine in December 1971, it was a brazen act of independence. At the time, the fledgling feminist movement was either denigrated or dismissed in the so-called mainstream media. Most magazines marketed to women were limited to advice about finding a husband, saving marriages, raising babies or using the right cosmetics.

To pay tribute to five decades of reporting, rebelling and truth-telling, Ms. gives you From the Vault, made up of some of our favorite feminist classics from the last 50 years of Ms.

For more ground-breaking stories like this, order 50 YEARS OF Ms.: THE BEST OF THE PATHFINDING MAGAZINE THAT IGNITED A REVOLUTION (Alfred A. Knopf)—a collection of the most audacious, norm-breaking coverage Ms. has published.

bell hooks

bell hooks: The Iconoclastic Writer and Activist Who Reminded Us ‘Feminism Is for Everybody’ (Spring 2011)

We were devastated to hear bell hooks—scholar, writer, activist and feminist legend—died on Wednesday, Dec. 15, at her home. She was 69.

In this beloved interview from the Spring 2011 issue of Ms. between hooks and Jennifer D. Williams, hooks frankly shares her bold takes on the past, present and future of feminism, and how to *live* it—not just think it.

“On one hand we’re being told that feminism failed, but if it failed why do people want to go back and take away some basic successes of the movement?”

Anita Hill sexual harassment

Anita Hill Sizes Up Sexual Harassment in ‘The Nature of the Beast’ (Jan/Feb 1992)

From the Jan/Feb 1992 issue:

“The response to my Senate Judiciary Committee testimony has been at once heartwarming and heart-wrenching. In learning that I am not alone in experiencing harassment, I am also learning that there are far too many women who have experienced a range of inexcusable and illegal activities—from sexist jokes to sexual assault—on the job.”

How Media Teaches Young Girls to Hate Their Bodies and Young Boys to Objectify Them

Out-of-Body Image: How Media Teaches Young Girls to Hate Their Bodies and Young Boys to Objectify Them (Spring 2008)

A steady diet of exploitative, sexually provocative depictions of women feeds a poisonous trend in women’s and girls’ perceptions of their bodies. A strategy to counter one’s own tendency to self-objectify is to make a point of buying products, watching programs and reading publications that promote more authentic women’s empowerment

From the Vault: "Dispatch from Beijing" (Jan/Feb 1996)

Dispatch from Beijing (Jan/Feb 1996)

The United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women (September 4–15, 1995) was ground-breaking and revolutionary, forcing participants to realize that all issues are “women’s issues.” But attendees also had to suffer dirty, crowded conditions, disrespect and downright misogyny.

“Why did women endure such treatment? For each other’s sake. (This is how they get us.)”