Dear John,
We started the year looking forward to celebrating the new feminists taking office this week. A record-breaking 12 women are now governors—including three feminist newcomers Katie Hobbs in Arizona, Maura Healey in Massachusetts and Tina Kotek in Oregon—the latter two of whom share the honor of being the nation’s first out lesbian governors.
And an exciting group of new feminists were to take office this week on Capitol Hill—but thanks to Republican infighting that has left the House of Representatives without a Speaker, no one has yet been sworn in. (The silver lining? If you’re watching the unfolding drama every day as we are, you no doubt have delighted in seeing the chamber for the first time in history being led by a Black woman—Cheryl Johnson, Clerk of the House of Representatives).
The 16 new feminist Representatives include Alaska’s Mary Peltola (the first Alaska Native and first woman in the state to hold a House seat), Vermont’s Becca Balint (the first woman and first openly gay person to represent the state in Congress), Yadira Caraveo from Colorado, Valerie Foushee from North Carolina, and Emilia Sykes from Ohio. In statehouses across the nation, women now make up 32.2 percent of all lawmakers. Colorado also joined Nevada as the only majority-women state legislatures in the country.
These gains, however record-breaking, underscore the need for increased women’s representation at the local, state and national levels. As the president of the American Association of University Women Gloria L. Blackwell pointed out in Ms. this week, women still make up just around a quarter of Congress members, and less than a quarter of state governors. “We can’t let the headlines about the record numbers of women in government roles distract from the full story: We still need to continue to work hard to keep the momentum going and to make sure we achieve true gender parity before too long,” she wrote.
More than ever before, feminist lawmakers are needed—to stand up in the face of Republican attacks on abortion, voting rights and democracy itself.
In other news, did you notice our new logo? This year marks a major milestone for Ms. magazine – the celebration of our 50th anniversary! When it launched in 1972, Ms. was a brazen act of independence, demonstrating the untapped potential for journalism that centered news and analysis on women and their lives and made a feminist worldview more accessible to the public.
We’ll be celebrating all year—especially via our forthcoming book, 50 YEARS OF Ms.: THE BEST OF THE PATHFINDING MAGAZINE THAT IGNITED A REVOLUTION (Alfred A. Knopf, Fall 2023)—and through special programming on our website, in our print magazine, and across our multimedia channels and podcasts as well as live events this fall.
For now, please enjoy this interactive timeline of the magazine's storied history, along with testimonials from generations of readers, and insights from editors spanning five decades.
Onward,
