By Suzanne Braun Levine
Huff/Post 50

In her widely debated new book Lean In, Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg called it “the ultimate chicken and egg situation.” She is talking about the endless back and forth about what is holding women back from Having It All, whether the system needs to change in order for women to get ahead or whether women need to get ahead to change the system.

By Ann Voorhees Baker
Women at Woodstock 2013

So happy to be able to share this great news on my site! I love my radio programs with Eileen on “Feisty Side of Fifty” radio and am glad I will seeing her the West Coast (July 28-31,2013) and East Coast (October 6-9, 2013) Women at Woodstock retreats for women 50 (or so) & up — Suzanne Braun Levine

Marc Freedman
Encore.org

As the great midlife migration of baby boomers gathers momentum and scale, long-predicted revolutions in longevity and demography are unfolding in front of us. By 2015 we’ll have more Americans over 60 than under 15 — and that’s just the beginning. Demographers are predicting that more than half the children born in the developed world since 2000 will live to 100.

Suzanne Braun Levine
Next Avenue

The first editor of Ms. magazine shares her war stories, timed to PBS’ important new documentary on feminism, ‘Makers’

Life was a lot different when I was a young woman in the early ’60s. If I was looking for a job, it was in the “Help Wanted/Female” pages. If I needed a bank loan, I had to get my husband’s signature. “MS” stood for multiple sclerosis. And women wearing pants were routinely turned away from restaurants and clubs.

Marianne Schnall
Women’s Media Center

On February 14, V-Day’s Eve Ensler calls on “one billion women and those who love them” to rise up to confront violence against women.

I was in the room 15 years ago, when activist and playwright Eve Ensler announced her intention to use proceeds from her award winning play “The Vagina Monologues” as a vehicle to raise funds and awareness to stop violence against women. That night, V-Day, the global initiative to end violence against women and girls, was born.

by Richard Eisenberg
NextAvenue.org

“The new ‘Encore Career Handbook’ is a terrific guide that shows you how to make a difference while making a living. If anyone can figure out how to overcome obstacles at the start of your second act, I think it’s Marci Alboher,” says Richard Eisenberg from PBS’ Next Avenue.”

Gloria Steinem memorably said, when on her 40th birthday, someone said she didn’t look forty, “This is what 40 looks like!” Now, the magazine she co-founded and I edited for 17 years is turning 40.

To commemorate that occasion the New York City Council – the city of its birth – issued a proclamation to honor the magazine, the women who created it and its readers. Signed by Christine C. Quinn (for the Entire Council), the first woman New York City Council Speaker who hopes to be the city’s first woman mayor and Council Member Gale A. Brewer honored Ms. for “40 years of service to its readers who have shared their struggles, achievements and stories within its pages, and by so doing, have changed the world.”

Marlo Thomas
The Huffington Post
June 13, 2012

You can’t judge a book by its cover. But you can absolutely judge a magazine that way — because the cover is a good indication of what the magazine cares about. And that is precisely, why 40 years ago, women everywhere began grabbing up Ms. magazine with both hands. From the start — and continuing today — those covers have instantly told you that Ms. cared about what women cared about. With an editorial team staffed with revolutionaries, Ms. not only had the wisdom to imagine the perfect combination of image and cover line to capture the concept of an important issue; it also had chops to bang out the story.

The Clayman Institute for
Gender Research

By Suzanne Braun Levine

This year is the 40th Anniversary Year of Ms. Magazine. Hard to believe, and for those of us involved in that history, it is very moving to remember those early years. The birthday events began at The Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University on January 26th as part of a four-month long celebration of feminism.

Suzanne Braun Levine,
Huff/Post50
The actress Julianne Moore recently sounded off about celebrity magazines. “They encourage young women and some middle-aged women to be interested in somebody else’s narrative rather than their own,” she told Moremagazine. “I don’t want my daughter or her friends to be interested in Jessica Simpson. I want them to be interested in what’s happening in their own lives.” The message goes way beyond pop culture.
When I think about my own daughter and all the other “young women” who are the theme of this International Women’s Day, I realize …