My “post-fifty posse” has lost Mary Thom, and it is hard to imagine how it will be at our next monthly dinner. We won’t need a round table for five any more.

Mary was the quintessential trusted colleague – she knew what needed to be done, how it needed to be done and what her part was – as well as the best kind of girlfriend.

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.

Women’s Media Center

It’s a special treat to be interviewed by a dear friend, long-time colleague, and inspiring visionary; it was also an honor to be invited to share my ideas with her on “WMC LIVE with Robin Morgan,” which regularly features fascinating and brave women from around the world. My favorite features, though, are those in which Robin takes on language. In this show she is particularly astute when she suggests we abandon the term “cougar” and replace it with “Colette” as in the older major French writer who regularly took young lovers, much to their delight as well as her own. — Suzanne Braun Levine

by Karin Lippert
Huff/Post50

“To this day, it’s one of the ways I define myself: I worked at Ms. It’s my badge of pride,”
Hagar Scher

We came together to celebrate our collective pride and three generations of connections as a “family.” To remember the conversations we started with each other that became articles, sparked a dialogue with our readers – with women everywhere – and transformed our lives and theirs.

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.

By Suzanne Braun Levine,
Huff/Post50

When I went to work at Ms. in 1972, I wore a matching pink skirt and blouse — and a girdle. I had just gotten married and was, therefore, not able to get a bank loan without my husband’s approval. I had given up playing basketball (half-court for girls) in college because no coach or court could be found. And I had had an illegal abortion.

By Suzanne Braun Levine

This has been quite a month!

First of all, I finally held in my hands a copy of my new book How We Love Now; it has been eighteen months since I finished it, and at last it is real. The scary part is that it will soon be in the hands of actual readers, and while I am anxious to hear if it resonates with other women, I am less anxious to hear if it doesn’t, which will undoubtedly happen.

By Suzanne Braun Levine,
Ms. Editor, 1972- 1988

I was interviewed recently for an article about the early days of Ms. magazine, which is about to be forty years old. Soon after that I was interviewed for an article about Our Bodies, Our Selves which was first published around the same time. When thinking about those days and looking at some photographs, my first thought is How Young We Were! And my second is How Brave We Were! Now I have another thought: How Lucky We Were! to be there.