Yours in Sisterhood: Ms. Magazine and the Promise of Popular Feminism / Edition 1

by Amy Erdman Farrell

Overview

In the winter of 1972, the first issue of Ms. magazine hit the newsstands. For some activists in the women's movement, the birth of this new publication heralded feminism's coming of age; for others, it signaled the capitulation of the women's movement to crass commercialism. But whatever its critical reception, Ms. quickly gained national success, selling out its first issue in only eight days and becoming a popular icon of the women's movement almost immediately.
Amy Erdman Farrell traces the history of Ms. from its pathbreaking origins in 1972 to its final commercial issue in 1989. Drawing on interviews with former
editors, archival materials, and the text of Ms. itself, she examines the magazine's efforts to forge an oppositional politics within the context of commercial culture.
While its status as a feminist and mass media magazine gave Ms. the power to move in circles unavailable to smaller, more radical feminist periodicals, it also created competing and conflicting pressures, says Farrell. She examines the complicated decisions made by the Ms. staff as they negotiated the multiple—frequently incompatible—demands of advertisers, readers, and the various and changing constituencies of the feminist movement.
An engrossing and objective account, Yours in Sisterhood illuminates the significant yet difficult connections between commercial culture and social movements. It reveals a complex, often contradictory magazine that was a major force in the contemporary feminist movement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807847350
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	09/21/1998
Series:	Gender and American Culture
Edition description:	1
Pages:	248
Sales rank:	875,413
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Amy Erdman Farrell is associate professor of American studies and coordinator of women's studies at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. Like a Tarantula on a Banana Boat: The Origins of Ms. Magazine
Chapter 2. Self-Help and Sisterhood: Ms. in the 1970s
Chapter 3. This Side of Combat Boots: Ms. in the 1980s
Chapter 4. Readers Writing Ms.
Chapter 5. A Change of Skin or a Change of Heart?: Ms. in Transition, 1987-1989
Conclusion. Imagining a Popular Feminism
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

A compelling story. . . . Farrell's well-researched, carefully crafted book would be an excellent textbook or supplemental reading for courses dealing with women in media, magazine journalism, advertising and women's studies, and those interested in American history and feminism in the United States."—Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly



An interesting and valuable account."—Journal of American History



A pleasure to read and an important contribution to feminist history and mass communication scholarship."—Journal of Communication



Farrell presents not only the herstory of Ms. but also puts the magazine into perspective as it explores the tension between advocacy, political movement, ideology versus business needs, techniques of mass circulation, and advertising. . . . I suspect that are lessons in it for us as booksellers and publishers as well."—Feminist Bookstore News



Farrell looks at Ms. in its social and economic context, using both primary and secondary sources to good advantage. This readable, scholarly book . . . belongs in all academic libraries as well as public libraries with women's studies collections."—Library Journal



Amy Farrell's lucid account of the struggles among the founders, editors, writers, advertisers, and readers of Ms. magazine is an absorbing chronicle of the attempt to create a popular feminism in the U.S. at the end of the twentieth century. By weaving together the methods of the cultural historian with the analytic strategies of textual analysis, she offers an interpretation of this important cultural institution that is at once judicious and filled with insight. Yours in Sisterhood should be read by everyone with an interest in the future of feminism."—Janice A. Radway, author of A Feeling for Books: The Book-of-the-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire



In what will surely be the definitive history of Ms. magazine, Farrell has illuminated with skill and authority the many tensions inherent in the production of a commercial vehicle created to disseminate feminism. Readers whose consciousness was honed by Ms. as well as feminist scholars and students of oppositional movements will find in this work much that engages and informs."—Jane Sherron De Hart, coauthor of Sex, Gender, and the Politics of ERA

Janice A. Radway

[This] lucid account of the struggles among the founders, editors, writers, advertisers, and readers of Ms. magazine is an absorbing chronicle of the attempt to create a popular feminism....[It] should be read by everyone with an interest in the future of feminism.

Jane Sherron DeHart

The definitive history of Ms. magazine...Readers whose consciousness was honed by Ms. as well as feminist scholars and students of oppositional movements wil find in this work much that engages and informs.

Editorial Reviews

Farrell s well-researched, carefully crafted book would be an excellent textbook or supplemental reading for courses dealing with women in media.

"Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly"

Farrell 's well-researched, carefully crafted book would be an excellent textbook or supplemental reading for courses dealing with women in media.

"Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly"

Farrell_s well-researched, carefully crafted book would be an excellent textbook or supplemental reading for courses dealing with women in media.

"Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly"

Farrella[s well-researched, carefully crafted book would be an excellent textbook or supplemental reading for courses dealing with women in media.

"Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly"

ÝThis book¨ belongs in all academic libraries as well as public libraries with women's studies collections.

"Library Journal"

Farrells well-researched, carefully crafted book would be an excellent textbook or supplemental reading for courses dealing with women in media.

"Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly"

"FarrellUs well-researched, carefully crafted book would be an excellent textbook or supplemental reading for courses dealing with women in media.

"Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly""

[This book] belongs in all academic libraries as well as public libraries with women's studies collections.

"Library Journal"

A pleasure to read and an important contribution to feminist history and mass communication scholarship.

"Journal of Communication"

An interesting and valuable account.

"The Journal of American History"

I suspect that are lessons in it for us as booksellers and publishers as well.

"Feminist Bookstore News"

From the Publisher

There have been a number of books recently on the history of 'Ms.' magazine. But unlike most of the others, Farrell's has a strong critical approach, a point of view and a sharp focus. Farrell doesn't simply run down a list of accomplishments, but examines whether or not the magazine kept its promise of bringing feminism to the masses. After a chronological account of the magazine's history, Farrell concludes with a lively section focused on readers' letters. As Farrell points out, these stand as the strongest proof that readers saw Ms. as something more than the usual magazine, and her analysis of what was published and what was not skillfully dissects that relationship. Sometimes accusatory ('I don't believe you, Ms. Magazine. In sisterhood??????') and sometimes laudatory, the letters are consistently engaged. Many readers were concerned with advertising, which was debated from the magazine's inception until its present-day incarnation as a subscription-only publication free of ads. Farrell reports that more than 100 readers sent an ad (for a Lady Bic Shaver) from Ms. itself to the magazine's 'No Comment' section, which features sexist media portrayals. Farrell, a professor of American studies and women's studies, has plenty of interesting information and even opinions often lost in her academic jargon ('scholars have paid little attention to the role of popular culture in forming a collective oppositional consciousness'). It's too bad that a book examining the dissemination of 'popular feminism' couldn't have a more accessible style.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Ms. magazine celebrated its 25th birthday in 1997 and has now been the subject of two books. Mary Thom's Inside Ms. (LJ 7/97) is a history of the magazine from an insider's point of view; Farrell (American studies/women's studies, Dickinson Coll.) approaches Ms. from an academic perspective, exploring the contradictions of its being a mass-market women's magazine with an explicitly feminist agenda. Ms. staff attempted to balance the demands of advertisers with the expectations of feminists, often to the dissatisfaction of both. In particular, advertising demands forced editors to focus on change at the individual level rather than advocating sweeping social reform. Farrell looks at Ms. in its social and economic context, using both primary and secondary sources to good advantage. This readable, scholarly book complements Thom's and belongs in all academic libraries as well as public libraries with women's studies collections.--Judy Solberg, George Washington Univ., Takoma Park, MD

Library Journal