"Where were you in 1970?" Gloria Steinem asks in her introduction to The Decade of Women: A Ms. History of the Seventies. If you were a woman between the ages of 18 and 64 in 1970, you probably were not where the FBI thought you were: that is, snug at home in your kitchen making dinner for your husband and 3.3 children. In the real world, by 1970, 50 per cent of the female population worked full-time outside the home. Forty out of 100 of those women had been divorced at least once. And the majority wanted to have two or fewer children.
Contrary to FBI beliefs, the feminist movement was not just another commie-inspired flash-in-the-pan. Women and women's roles had been quietly changing since the '30s. Though virtually un-noticed by Madison Avenue and the male power establishment in the '60s, dramatic new norms were emerging. There was general acceptance of women working, smaller families and divorce, while new habits, new identities, and new networks created new needs and expectations. Because the government would not or could meet these needs, political mobilization occurred. By the time the government officially noticed the Woman's Liberation Movement, it was a revolution.
Since its beginnings in 1972, Ms. Magazine has been the only national voice of the feminist (r)evolution. Despite dissension, division, and backlash from within the movement as well as attack from without, Ms. has survived to provide what is probably the only real and complete record of woman's turbulent history of the last decade. In pictures and words compiled from Ms. and other sources, it chronicles not only the women's movement but the effect it has had on the rest of the world as well, quoting everyone from Angela Davis: "Let us then forge among ourselves and our movements an indivisible strength," to Phyllis Schlafly: "Why should we lower ourselves to 'equal right' when we already have the status of special privilege?" to Patti Smith: "As far as I'm concerned, being any gender is a drag."
Everything is here, from the founding of NOW to Sister Theresa Kane's polite chiding of Pope John Paul II for his conservative policies toward women in the church--the losses and divisions as well as the victories appear in this book. In fact, Steinem, in her detailed insightful introduction, sees victory even in those defeats:
"...Massive change proceeds more as a spiral than a straight line...so experiences that appear to be circular and discouraging in the short run may turn out to be moving in a clear direction in the long run. Those of us who were taught the cheerful American notion that progress is linear and hierarchical, for instance, may have had to learn with pain in the '70s that no worthwhile battle can be fought and won only once."
Buy this book. If you want to learn about the feminist movement or celebrate it, if you want to look at some good pictures or simply be entertained, buy it. It has violence, sex, dignity, pathos, humor, and political change, and it's a true story. Because, contrary to popular belief, the '70s weren't silent for everybody.