Don't Call Me "Baby"

A note to the reader: With the passing of Gloria Steinem, I pulled out a paper I wrote in 2015 while finishing my BFA at NEIU.

Val "Zee"

15 min read

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Just now

For a class assignment, I compared the 15th anniversary issue of Ms. magazine from 1987, which I had saved for years, with an issue of Ms. from 2015. I haven’t rewritten the paper to reflect what I know or might say differently today. I’m sharing it pretty much as I wrote it then, a snapshot of what I was thinking about as an art student in 2015.

And somehow, I’m still tearing apart magazines and asking many of the same questions.

When I went to purchase the 2015 edition of Ms. Magazine at Barnes and Noble, the young(er) woman behind the counter thought I was buying a magazine about Multiple Sclerosis. That is when I realized young women of today are not the audience of Ms. This is a magazine from a time when I was growing up. My mother was a women’s “libber” and I remember her talking about Anita Bryant and Phyllis Schlafly with complete and utter disdain. And then a Ms. Magazine appeared on the coffee table, and I was hooked, which explains why I have the 15th Anniversary Edition in my possession.

The most recognized feminist publication in the nation, Ms. Magazine was launched in 1972 by Gloria Steinem and others. In this paper, I will be comparing and contrasting the two time periods of Ms. Magazine, paying attention to race and gender and if the magazine has become more culturally diverse from 1987 to 2015, and discussing what women were fighting for, and how successful they were at making changes happen.

The 1987 Ms. reflects back over the past twelve years displaying an array of past covers, ranging from “How’s your sex life?” to “Battered Wives” to “Why women don’t like their bodies.” If you were to compare current magazines selling today at your local grocery store, not much has changed. This issue would fit right in to the other covers saturated with the same representations of women. According to Chapter 1 in the book, media helps to shape how women think, feel and desire to look. Media tells us “what it means to be male or female,” or in this case, a feminist. (Dines, Pg. 7, 2011)

Chapter 25 says Ms. Magazine’s target audience is the female reader that has higher incomes and college degrees, and the target audience both in 1987 and 2015 is that of women. The difference is that this is not a typical “beauty” magazine. This is not a magazine about what to wear to get a man, or even how to get a man at all. This is not a magazine objectifying women, at lease in its articles, which makes it feminist and anti-sexist. Looking beyond the 1987 anniversary cover, the first page says, “Let the celebration begin.” The reader decides if this is about the changes made in the women’s movement from ’72 to ’87 or the celebration of the survival of the magazine. If change has happened, it should be reflected in the two magazines through comparison of articles and especially advertisements.

According to Business Insider, “ads are constantly arguing with us about women’s role in society.” (Felix) As discussed in class, the media disempowers women if they don’t look a certain way. Ads stereotyping women with an emphasis on how to look, end up wounding men and women, because men view these women as the normative standard, and women can never achieve this, so they become ashamed or dissatisfied.

Just one page in to 1987 Ms., there is a full page Always Plus maxi pad ad, with the slogan, “Overnight Sensation.” This magazine is filled with numerous ads, from perfumes like Obsession, bra ads, Absolute Vodka, and Salem light cigarettes. There are ads for typewriters, and Weight Watchers and anti-wrinkle creams. There is a No-nonsense pantyhose ad. “If you want to be a no-nonsense woman, better learn how to take a compliment.” Do we say, “Thank you,” when we put on our pantyhose? There is a condom ad with the slogan, “Smart sex in the 80s.” So these advertising messages are telling feminist women, they still need to smell good, stay slim, look younger and engage in safe sex. Ok. So again, not much has changed. But it is not at the level of Midriff advertising, and super-sexualizing women’s bodies to the extreme.

There is a “Charlie” perfume ad displaying a white heterosexual couple, where the blond, thin, white woman is a little taller, and her hand is placed on the man’s butt cheek, and he is looking at her with a smile, with the slogan, “She’s very Charlie.” Here, the woman is portraying more dominance, which is a pretty transgressive ad for the 80s. If advertising is for the white heterosexual male gaze, maybe this is saying, buy your woman some “Charlie,’ and she will take over from there. There is an ad with a very youthful Cher, saying “I never shower alone, and neither should you. “ This is an ad powered by Coors (the beer people) telling women to hang a Coors//High-Priority Shower Card in their shower, with an explanation of self-breast exams on the other side of the card. What??? It is a beer company that sells to men, but has a message for women to see, while they are showering and touching their breasts! As said in Killing us Sofly, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Chapter 24 in the textbook talks about the fact that African Americans feel most ads are designed for white people. True to form, in 1987 there is a New York Life ad showing a white male in his 30s at the center of the ad, with four other men and two women, essentially behind him. Even though the women are shown as working alongside the men in a business context, the women are white and in the distance. There is one African-American male who is shown as the smallest and the most distant in the ad itself. This feels very racist and sexist at the same time. In Chapter 10 The Whites of Their Eyes, it says that the media impacts ideologies. This ad becomes a form of “unconscious racism” (Dines, 2011) Quoting Chapter 26 of the textbook, “Women of color read Ms. in disproportionate numbers…this reality is obscured by ads filled with enough white women to make a reader snow-blind.” (Dines, 2011, p. 239) Or colorblind!

In 1987 race is addressed in one of the articles. In the Media section it talks about TV Families. Ironically enough it asks, “Is Bill Cosby the Father Knows Best of today?” It goes on to say, “What a relief! The one place the American Family is not in trouble is on TV. The families are living well, looking good and laughing all the time. ….They don’t look the same. They’re not all white anymore.” (1987, p.38) .Bill Cosby was not the stereotypical father or male on TV. Come to think of it, neither was his wife, Claire Huxtabol. Cosby was a successful gynecologist, was married to an African-American lawyer, had a beautiful house in a great neighborhood and great kids. Today, the name Bill Cosby brings to mind the stereotypical heterosexual male, and especially the heterosexual African-American male, where the media’s portrayal is filled with hyper-sexuality. The media talked about how he used his power to lure women into his bed and have sex, which could be construed as rape. But that is a discussion for a different paper.

There is a media savvy section which states ‘that not only have women become more visible in the media but are also being shown as diversified and not just as thin pretty white women.’ (1987, p.40). This is a hegemonic normative statement about how the world views women, as thin, pretty and white, and is a sexist and racist. The diversification that is seen in this issue are articles on Maron Wright Edelman, an African American children’s rights activist, and a young Roseanne Barr, not your typical stereotypical women, which can be seen as feminist.

Continuing to thumb through Ms. 1987, the articles range from conversations about teen lust to the Marriage Trap. It’s not talking about men being trapped, but women. Half the women surveyed said they would not marry their husbands, if they had to do it again. (1987, p. 62). It talks about lack of affordable day-care centers, and that male lawmakers can help make this possible. There are articles about staying at home and working. How women need to work flexible hours and are trying to work from home to juggle career and family. If women cannot make as much as men, they will continue to work two jobs while men only work one, and that “children will have too much mother and too little father and the guilt producing impossibility of being a Super Woman and mom” (1987, p. 57). Once again, we are still struggling with these issues.

In the chapter referring to Hip-hop feminism, it talks about women having to make decisions about career and motherhood, and juggling it all. Guilt has become a part of motherhood. According to the New York Times, “Despite the equality often achieved in law, education and workplaces, our constricting kind of motherhood requires women to give up their dreams of an independent life when they have children while men can still have it both ways.” (New York Times online) The bottom line for women in 1987 is that women earn less than men, which 30 years later is still true. In class we talked about human capital equals skills and education, which can produce economic capital.

Chapter 25 discusses Cosmo magazine was helping women to build social and economic capital by telling women to marry their way into a richer lifestyle, whereas the next wave of feminism discusses that women born in 1987 and after will not have to be married in order to be part of the middle class, because they will have more economic capital and hopefully more cultural capital. (Dines, 2011) Women’s occupations in 1987 were 17 percent physicians, 4.4 percent dentists and 18 percent lawyers. Even though women are earning more degrees today, they are not earning the same as men in their field. The magazine says, “The prediction is in the year 2000 eighty percent new entrants into the work force will be dominated by woman, minorities and immigrants.” (1987, p. 55) Fast forward to today, and we are still protesting this. There is more gender equality in the workforce today, but women are still not receiving equal pay. It shouldn’t be hard to connect the dots. It would not only be better for the economy but equal pay would be better for families, because every dollar matters. This is another way to devalue a woman’s work and keep men in power.

There is an interview with Sally Ride about practical “uses of space” such as sending robots into space instead of people, and earth observation programs. Sally Ride became the first American woman in space aboard the space shuttle Challenger, has a Ph.D. and was a pioneer in her field. The interview is lame because it doesn’t ask more interesting questions about her accomplishments, and what it felt like to be up in space, etc. If this was (male astronaut) more questions would be asked pertaining to his space accomplishments. Even though this is a magazine for women, this interview could be seen as a watered-down version of feminism.

The very last page is a cigarette ad for More cigarettes. “Never settle for less.” We won’t.

Where there is discussion about women in general, there is no discussion about race, so that is racist. It is assuming that the world is only white , because that was the hegemonic normative idea back in the 80s. In a poll that was taken in 1987, they only polled men, older men, women and older women. There is also no coverage of women athletes or sports, which was probably a sign of the times. Women are still struggling for a feminist voice in athletics, especially African-American women. The textbook agrees by saying, “African American Sportwomen are threats to Gender and Racial Hierachies.” (Dines, 2011, p.86)

There is a lot of reference to the “Second Wave of Feminism.”

There is an article by Gloria Steinem, better known as one of the founding mothers of feminism. “Looking to the Future” states that women are everywhere but not anywhere near the wage level of their male counterparts. The question was asked by Steinem (79 years old!) of a businessman about trends: Q: “Do you think that men are doing housework and raising children as much as women are?” A: “My God, no. That will never happen.” No men do women’s jobs and can be called men.

Even though females of all races are still trying to strive for equality, there is nothing mentioned about LGBTs or lesbians in the early Ms. which is heterosexist. But in 2015, there is a half page picture of the diversified cast from Orange is the New Black, and there is a list of some highlights of lesbian feminism song soundtracks. Whatever that means.

The present-day milestones are listed, and one of them is that the LGBT names the first African-American and first female president. The abortion pill is considered a milestone, and the American Dialect Society votes for hastag#Blacklivesmatter as its 2014 word. So diversity is being shown here, which makes the 2015 version more transgressive.

On the cover of the recent 2015 Ms. Magazine is Shonda Rhimes, an African American screenwriter, director and producer. She looks like a real woman, with no airbrushing. She is the head creator and head writer for Grey’s Anatomy. Next to her are the words, “The women who run the show.” Time Magazine named her as one of the 100 people who helped “shape the world.” There is a reference to back in the 70’s when a female writer was hired on TV’s MASH, the only thing her work couldn’t become was ordinary. According to the present article, that is still the case today. “You cannot be a run-of-the-mill talent, because they can find another run-of-the-mill talent with a penis and hire him.” (2015, p. 20) And they will.

More women are being portrayed on TV as they are — real women, and being allowed to talk about things that are actually real, and not as a hegemonic society says they have to be. So extraordinary women are rising up to challenges every day and helping to challenge the hetero-normative ideas of what society expects of them, and the articles in Ms. 2015 reflect that.

Back in 1987, there was a stigma attached to the “F” word. Saying “I am a feminist” translated into many negative ideas and nuances. It talks about one day, people will be able to say the word “feminist” loudly and without stammering. As we talked about in class, changing ideologies is a collective process, or unconscious process. In sharp contrast, the 2015 Ms. online version is selling tote bags, coffee mugs and T-shirts saying: “This is what a feminist looks like!” Chapter 28 in the textbook, Goldman brings up the term “commodity feminism,” and that, sought after feminist goals are those of “independence, career, success and financial autonomy.”(Dines, C. 28, p. 256)

There is a 1987 article where the actress Ally Sheedy writes that she learned about being a woman from a radical feminist, her mother. Is there a difference between being a radical feminist and non-radical one? This is parallel to the conversation had in class about Beyonce not being feminist enough. How we need to put groups in a box if we cannot define them. She talks about how this has “opened her up” to every possibility in the world. How about the fact that she is a young, white, heterosexual woman, who is connected in Hollywood, and has a lot of human and symbolic capital?

In 1987domestic violence against women is addressed. It talks about running programs for men addicted to aggressiveness, and how violence helps them feel like a real men. Domestic violence still continues today, and there is more of a voice. (in Class discussion about this) The present magazine has an article about campus rape and combating sexual assault and helping women with the tools to help fight rape. Because if we cannot change men, then let’s try and protect the women. There is also an important article praising cities that are chipping in to purchase rape-kits. So we are still fighting sexism and the sexualized degradation of women.

A big difference between the two magazines is the slightly invisible Aftrican-American female.1987 Ms. has two articles written by black women centered around family and friendship, but nothing about racism or segregation. There is a 1987 ad for a Ms. Magazine subscription showing two youthful women, one white and the other dark-skinned looking up. The words underneath say, “Behold the women of the future.” Much is missing from this ad, like other minorities. This is showing that the ads at the time were reinforcing ideologies of dominance and subordination between whites and people of color.

The 2015 issue gives women of color and race more of a voice with articles written by prominent African-American women, and points out the accomplishments and struggles of minorities such as Moroccan women fighting for gender equality, Iraqui women being viewed as merely property. Women minorities, such as Cambodian women, Ethiopian women and especially African-American women, have more of a presence in the 2015 version.

The female writers are a diversified group and all well-educated with many credentials to back them up. So 2015 is more transgressive when it comes to race. It is also challenging the status quo toward the treatment of women.

The 2015 Ms. magazine is $5.99, targeting women who are making some dollars. In Chapter 24 we talked about reaching the African American consumers. There is no information online about how large of an audience there is for the female African American consumer or other minorities, including the LGBT consumer. The recent cover shows Shonda Rimes, which would appeal to the African-American female. According to Chapter 24 of the textbook, “Most Blacks agree that there is a greater need for African American representation in advertising, regardless of medium.” (text, pg 216)

It would be hard for me to compare the advertising between the two different years, because inside the 2015 version, there NO ads. There are only informational guides about seminars and websites that will take you to “Emerging Women Live,” with a free audio sampler and how to subscribe to Bitch magazine or where to buy locally. Upon further research, I find out that Ms.’s policy is to only accept “mission-driven” or non-profit advertising. How does a magazine survive without conventional advertising? Becoming a Ms. Partner or lifetime member is enough to keep this magazine going strong. So Viacom has its hands off!

According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, in 1990, Gloria Steinem launched the “ad-free” Ms. Magazine. Her hope was that the magazine would be taken more seriously without the ads. She was also having a hard time finding advertisers and knocking on many “hostile doors”. This is because it was not coinciding with the advertiser’s ideolocial ideas of what a woman should look like, i.e., women being portrayed without makeup. So without advertizing, there is no domination or subordination happening. A magazine without advertisement is like a TV show without commercials. It is not telling us to buy something we don’t need It’s hard hitting and comes off as more serious. So Steinman had free agency to decide what articles she wanted. This is liberating in itself. And she has empowerment through this decision.

In the 2015 Ms., there is a particular article that interests me, called, “More than cookies. Feeding the mind of young feminists.” Young girls of color are putting a spin on the Girl Scouts and their cookie selling. They are called the Radical Monarchs. They get badges for participating in protests received a “Black Lives Matter” badge by attending a civil rights march. They are taught to accept “all people” and frequently write kind notes to themselves and the other Monarchs. This reminds me of the discussion had in class about Lauryn Hill and her pregnancy. They are being raised to have a social conscious and to be aware of and embrace diversity. These girls are the game changers or a change agent of hope with our youth.

2015, African American author and political analyst, Donna Brazille writes about the retirement of senator Boxer. Donna Brazille was also Al Gore’s campaign manager in 2000. A hint that some things are changing in the way of race and gender. This is a magazine controlled by women and encourages women-to-women readings and views. In fact, in 2001 the Feminist Majority Foundation purchased the magazine. Very little sexism shows up in any of the articles, and I see no racism. This magazine is all feminism at its finest.

The celebration for Ms. Magazine is still about helping to translate the feminist movement into some kind of print. The first issue hit the newsstands in 1972 and sold 300,000 copies in less than two weeks!!!

After comparing and contrasting the two magazines, I have come to the conclusion that over time, the magazine has become more culturally diverse and the content more complex. Women are still fighting for equality, but change happens slowly. I think it is necessary for women to have a magazine that creates a women-only space. This could be viewed as sexist, because it creates an environment where patriarchal forms of discussion can be challenged. A magazine without advertisement is benefiting the reader, not the media. So the subscriber is ultimately the one with the power. As referenced in the film, “Killing us Softly,” “changes have to be profound and global in order to become permanent.

I have done much research about Ms. and its history, and I must say my favorite quote is by Harry Reasoner, who said 40 years ago, “I’ll give it six months before they run out of things to say.” They should call him Harry Un-reasoner. It’s been over 30 years, and we are still not finished talking. So maybe we have come a bit of a longer way, but please, don’t call me baby.