Has Ms. undergone a sex change?

• Author: Milligan, Susan
• Position: America's leading feminist magazine

HAS MS. UNDERGONE A SEX CHANGE?

But for the logo in the corner, it could be Self. "Re-Making Love,' reads the July cover headline that runs over a photo of a man kissing the bare shoulder of a carefully made-up woman. Yet this is Ms., the country's leading feminist magazine. So, what does Ms., which claims "the most influential women in America' as its readers, have to say about the current condition of lovemaking?

""Re-Making Love' was chosen as our cover story,' write the editors, "because sexuality is the area of our lives where the power balance has changed the most and is likely to stay changed.' And how has that balance changed? Feminists used to get angry at men who treated women as sex objects; now Ms. says sex objects are okay--if they're men. The authors of this article write: "Whether in 1950 or 1980, casual sex has always been the macho symbol, and very few men were complaining as long as they controlled the action.' Now, they boast, women can control the action, too, and they applaud women such as one who told them, "I have lovers because what else is there in life that's so much fun as turning on a new man, interesting him, conquering him?' They also scoff at George Leonard, who, in a 1982 Esquire article, deplored the "loss of loving, nurturing, long-term' sex. Have we ever come a long way.

Claiming "the macho symbol' as a woman's right is just one example of how Ms. has come to encourage some of the very values it used to condemn. While still officially feminist, Ms. is a compromised version of the radical magazine it was 14 years ago. The magazine that declared in its first issue that it wanted to be as "serious, outrageous, satisfying, sad, funky, intimate, global, compassionate, and full of change as women's lives really are' has retreated from that complexity. Ms. is now full of articles such as "How to Manage a Fear of Power,' "Packing It In: A 10-Day Trip in a Carry-On Bag,' "Toys for Free Grown-ups: A Consumer Guide to Sex Gadgets, Potions, and Videos,' and "The New Computer Diet--From Chocolate Chips to Microchips.' There is little anymore that distinguishes Ms. from other mainstream women's magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Mademoiselle, Working Woman, or even magazines such as Playgirl.

"When Ms. was launched scarcely a decade ago, it was a different world,' proclaims a recent trade ad. "We led the way, and we changed the world. So much so that we changed ourselves . . .' And so the magazine did. Perhaps the biggest change in Ms. is that it no longer challenges the greed, selfishness, and materialism it once claimed subjugated women and imprisoned men. Today's Ms. not only condones those values, but offers itself as a primer on how women can live by them.

Sofa sisterhood

In 1972, when modern feminism was hitting its stride, Ms. published its first issue, providing a forum for feminist political debate. Co-founded by Gloria Steinem and Patricia Carbine, Ms. was meant to fill a void left by traditional women's magazines. The first issue promised to examine the problems and hopes raised by the changing roles of women. Nearly every article questioned a cultural, political, or social norm. Even the magazine's name made a statement that women would not be defined by their roles as wives or mothers. In those first years the magazine grappled with a wide range of tough issues. Ann Crittenden Scott proposed in "The Value of Work' that housework be considered real work and that men and women have equal control over family finances. "Three Lives in Appalachia' damned stripmining and black lung disease in the hills of Kentucky. John Kenneth Galbraith wrote that American society identified "increasing consumption of goods and services with increasing happiness' and explained how...