It would be impossible to overstate the impact of Ms. Magazine on the US and on the world. Fifty years of advancing the cause of women—of being loud, confrontational and controversial where necessary, of starting the right kind of fires. Ms. has dared to go anywhere and everywhere women are—from households to government—and this collection of snippets from fifty years of publishing is a celebration and a declaration that women matter.

Extracts from the magazine are presented in sections from each decade of publishing, with some context where needed. There is original writing from people like Alice Walker (movingly, on The Colour Purple), Joy Harjo (on becoming a mother and contending with US healthcare), and of course Gloria Steinem. There’s a great piece by Michele Wallace about Black women in rap (Queen Latifah and MC Lyte!), and their role in countering misogyny. There is much thoughtful writing in the early years about housework and ”women’s work”—all considered banal and “background” and not worth talking about before the women’s movement. The impact of that writing is made clear in feedback in readers’ letters—from women, children and men. A powerful essay from 1990 by Jane Caputti and Diana Russell on femicide analyses the terrible events of December 6, 1989 at the University of Montreal, and is heartbreakingly and shockingly still relevant today. Steinem writes about Ms.’s struggles to get advertising to support the magazine, and (the sexist reasons) why—including, very memorably, a lunch with Leonard Lauder.

This is all just in the first half of this amazing and incredible retrospective, and I cannot recommend this book enough. So much feminist thought and history is captured in these pages, and all of it still so very relevant today. What is between these covers is really the history of women in the last fifty years—not just in the US, but internationally—and the progress of human rights as related to half the world’s population (with women’s rights inevitably tied to children’s rights). This is also a grim reminder of just how far we have to go, how slowly change happens: civil rights as a continuing process, never quite finished.

Thank you to Dorothy Pitman Hughes and Gloria Steinem for being such powerful voices for women. Thank you to all of the women who’ve been on the frontlines and in the background. Many thanks to Ms. for being such a force for change and for good. And thank you to NetGalley and to Knopf for access to this ARC.

Before Ms. Magazine came along, magazines for women focused solely on the domestic lives of women. Cooking, keeping a tidy house, raising children were the topics deemed to be of interest to women. But then came Ms Magazine, focusing on and targeted toward a whole new group of women.
When Ms appeared I was in college and got myself a subscription. My roommates and I devoured every new issue. It opened a whole new world…discussions
 of sexuality, politics, equal employment and other topics that were quite different from our mothers’ magazines.
50 Years of Ms. is a celebration of this groundbreaking publication, with some background on obstacles faced through the years and essays focused on important subjects covered throughout the decades of the magazine’s existence. It was an interesting, enjoyable look back at journalistic history. Thank you to NetGalley for the advance copy for review..

This book should be required reading for every young woman who might not realize the struggles the women before them had. Just because women won the right to vote in 1920 does not mean that magically, society treated them equally. Founded the year before I was born, Ms. magazine was at the forefront of the modern women's movement, and this book curates a selection of material from the magazine. Included are articles about date rape, abortion rights, gender equality, ERA, the importance of Wonder Woman, you name it. If the issue was important to women during the past 50 years, Ms. covered it in detail. I also liked seeing the letters to the editor and the different covers through the years. I will be looking for a copy of this book in bookstores to add to my coffee table collection for myself and my three daughters.  

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review; all opinions expressed are my own.

This is a great book about a magazine that the patriarchy thought no one would read it on its first printing they never thought they would have to re-print it but they did it blew off the shelf. They said no one would want to read about women loving women, abortion, the working woman and child care and other issues that face the American woman but that’s because it was men saying it and women wanted to read it. I mean it was also men who said women shouldn’t ride horses or bicycles because they wo might fall out so needless to say the publishers didn’t listen printed the magazine and here it is 50 years later. This is a great book and anyone who has just a passing interest in women’s issues can go back and sing the history of everything women had to fight for and in some cases are still fighting for. I consume this book faster than a banana smoothie from smoothie king. This is a great book and a definite five star read. I want to thank the publisher a NetGalley for my free arc copy please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

Thank you, NetGalley, for a chance to review 50 Years of Ms. I found this book riveting from the first chapter right to the last. What a textbook of knowledge for women to learn how far we have come and still need to go. Ms is ahead of her time. I highly recommend this book to everyone who wants to help make a better and more inclusive world for all. Thank you, Ms.

Ms is one of those magazine you never read even if it was often quoted
This a good to get to know a founding source of thought 
Highly recommended 
Many thanks to the publisher, all opinions are mine

This book is one to wrap your arms around for the love of women -- with all the pain endured throughout the ages and advancements made since the magazine was first published in 1972. 

Well known activist Gloria Steinem worked with talented feminists over the years to cover leading news articles related to equal rights for women. This is a collection of stimulating stories, letters, poetry, news clips, and photographs covering 50 years of publications. Some of the magazine covers bring back memories.

The material is massive and it’s well organized in the book. It touches on a number of topics which includes: rape, abortions, effects of divorce, violence, women in prisons, military and women’s rights, prostitution, fashion, equal pay, gender rights, and Supreme Court rulings. 

Some of what I read was very disturbing such date rape, violence against women and third-world women who work in horrible conditions hired by American companies. 

Other parts made me feel inspired with the progress that has been made with equal pay for equal work, more representation in political leadership roles and help for battered wives. I think all women cheered when Billy Jean King won the tennis match with Bobby Riggs in 1973 paving the way for female athletes.

This book addresses how quickly conditions have changed with the recent reversal of Roe v. Wade. Fewer medical schools are training doctors to do procedures removing a fetus. “Why spend time training for a surgery that’s likely to be made illegal?” However, what happens when someone needs it for an emergency medical situation and there’s not a doctor to help? 

It’s not easy to find a copy of a Ms. magazine in stores these days. However, digital copies are available online and this book will bring the past up to date with readers. It's my hope that the next generation will take a look as so few understand that just a short time ago, women fought for rights that are enjoyed today. 

The work of the editor is praiseworthy. It’s certainly thought provoking. It’s my hope that someday there will also be a museum dedicated on the National Mall just for women.

My thanks to Knopf and NetGalley for allowing me to read this advanced copy with the expected release date of September 19, 2023.

Even though I wasn't familiar with Ms., I was still fascinated by this compilation off essays offering a first row seat to the evolution of feminism in the United States. Great book to prompt discussion with a book. I also loved the covers.

This is THE book about Ms magazine, one of the most influential magazines in the history of modern publication. This book is so full of not only information, but photos, archives and magazine covers. The gamut of topics in one book such as this is astounding and captures the history of women and women’s rights like no other. From topics you would expect to more unexpected ones like Marilyn Monroe are throughout these pages. This magazine pre-dates me but the book has made me greatly appreciate it in its entirety. I highly recommend this in print!

This is an excellent overview of the history of Ms. Magazine. The framing materials fill out the context for the founding and editorial/business decisions of the magazine. The introductory essays are interesting, and the rest of the book includes a broad and fascinating range of Ms. articles arranged by decade.

50 Years of Ms. is a collection that will serve many roles for many readers, from remembering why we became activists to helping with research to even just plain old nostalgia.

The articles included range from analyses of the types of things we accept because "that is just how it is" to debunking the many fabrications that have been made to thwart progress in so many areas. The one common denominator in them is, whether implicit or explicit, they are calls to action. Sign petitions, write letters, contact legislators, get in the street, and, perhaps most important, make the changes in your own life that will empower you and help empower other women. From the beginning the idea of the personal being (always) political is evident.

I found a lot of the sidebars and shorter features interesting because they are the things I likely overlooked, or at least didn't pay a lot of attention to, when reading the original magazine. The short columns with paragraph recaps of events or ideas. These, as much as the articles themselves, helped take me back to those days.

Because of my age and when I became active in the movement(s), this reminded me of the victories we won, the battles we lost (or rather, haven't won yet), and the many things we still have to work on, both within and without our movements. Just in the past 5-7 years I have read so many good books that highlight how dynamic activist groups are organizing to avoid some of the mistakes my generation made. By my age and generation, I will say that my first WGS course was in 1990, and I never had another semester (or quarter at one of my grad programs) without at least one.

I would recommend this to anyone with an interest, formal or informal, in feminist history leading right up to today's issues (which are largely, unfortunately, also yesterday's issues). From those who simply remember reading the issues as they came out to know they weren't alone in what they believed to be right, to those wanting a nice collection of primary sources that cover some of the history of feminist thought of the past 50 years.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

As a queer, feminist writer who's been doing this work professionally for 15 years — which is about two internet centuries — this book was absolutely fascinating to me. I've been a fan of Ms. Magazine my entire life, and have spent extensive time studying Gloria Steinem and her connection to the resurrection of modern day Wonder Woman. This book took me so much deeper! It's an expansive source of primary history, full of writing in the moment for five decades of feminist activism. I have a feeling all my colleagues will be getting this for Christmas! 

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

50 Years of Ms. is an absolutely fascinating collection that should be required reading. We should all see how far we've come, and also how far we still need to go. I loved flipping through the various articles, reading many of the greatest feminist icons in their own words, at the time when they were making the most impact. Highly recommend!

Description
A celebration of Ms.—the most startling, most audacious, most norm-breaking of the magazine's groundbreaking pieces on women, men, politics (sexual and otherwise), marriage, family, education, work, motherhood, and reproductive rights, as well as the best of the magazine’s fiction, poetry, and letters

Just as the description promises, this book collects essays and more from over the past 50 years. I liked combing through the pieces as seeing the verbiage of the day, advice, and issues, many of which resonates today. All told, this is a great coffee table or library book.