Ms. Magazine, the JCC, and Feminism’s New Waves

Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Joanne Edgar, and Ellen Sweet are former editors of Ms. magazine, the publication that symbolized the “second wave” of feminism in the 1970s and 80s; they’re also members of the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan community. With this summer marking the 100th anniversary of women winning the right to vote, it seemed an ideal time to bring them together to discuss the parallels between Ms. and the JCC, the changing face of feminism, and more, which we did in early March.

Pogrebin, who along with Edgar and their friend and colleague Gloria Steinem, is a founding editor of Ms., attends JCC films, lectures, and, of course, the conversation series What Everyone’s Talking About (hosted by her daughter Abigail), in addition to occasionally appearing as a guest herself on our auditorium stage. Edgar has been a regular at the JCC since it opened its doors nearly 20 years ago. Since then, she has volunteered at Spa Day for Women with Cancer and Open House events, taken yoga and wellness classes, and trained for triathlons. Sweet’s introduction was as a pool member—she joined with her daughter (the pair were also in training for a triathlon). Today, she takes fitness classes and attends lectures, films, and cooking programs. Both Edgar and Sweet are fans of the JCC’s popular Nia fitness program, featured in an article Edgar edited for Ms. in the 1980s.

Finding Parallels

Of all the similarities between the JCC and Ms., the presence of a strong community is the number one connection between these two parts of the women’s lives.

It wasn’t until she retired from Ms. in 1989 that Pogrebin realized how important community was to her. “I took it for granted until I didn’t have someplace to go every morning. The ability to interact immediately on issues you care about with people on your wavelength is a great luxury.”

To Edgar, who calls “community a sharing of the same values,” the JCC is a place many people do just that. There’s something special about the in-person community the JCC provides, she says.

Sweet, who joined Pogrebin and Edgar at Ms. in 1980, agrees. “The first thing I did when I retired was come to the JCC every morning. I needed to find a community of people I could interact with. The JCC was my anchor in the day.” In an assignment for her Italian class to write about something important to her, Sweet chose her JCC membership card, calling it the “key to the nutrition of my body, mind, and soul.”

The JCC’s emphasis on social justice is closely linked to the Ms. mission of “advocacy journalism,” says Sweet, and a factor that “makes this JCC particularly special. Even in the dance classes, there’s something that filters down about caring about individuals and making the time and space to include them. That’s a continuity between the cultures at Ms. and the JCC.”

Another is the wide range of activities offered by both. “At Ms. we published a magazine, but we also sponsored a women’s metric mile for the Olympics and organized a New York Philharmonic concert with a female conductor and all female composers,” says Edgar. “The variety of happenings at the JCC remind me of that.”

The melding of generations is another link between the two environments. “Now that I’m in my 70s, that’s more important than ever,” Edgar continues. “I have so many friends who are 20 or 30 years younger than I am. It keeps me alive and optimistic.”

For Sweet, seeing the building filled with young children brings back memories of the Ms. “Tot Lot,” a playroom in the office that allowed working moms to bring their children in when other childcare was not available. “We were pioneers when it came to backup childcare,” Pogrebin says. The relationships built in the Tot Lot continue to this day; two of the staff children ended up marrying each other.

They were also pioneers when it came to the toys themselves, thanks to the magazine’s ongoing campaign to pressure toy manufacturers to market non-sexist, non-racist toys to all children, rather than to a specific gender. The magazine devoted “an incredible number” of pages to young children, with features including “Stories for Free Children” and “Toys for Free Children,” says Pogrebin. In 1972, Free to Be You and Me, which an entire generation of children and their parents knew as a ground-breaking, stereotype-shattering record album, book, and TV special, was produced in collaboration with the Ms. Foundation. In 2013, to celebrate its 40th anniversary and the publication of Lori Rotskoff’s anthology about the project, When We Were Free to Be, Marlo Thomas, the project's creator, and members of the original team, including Alan Alda, and Pogrebin, who served as editorial consultant, were interviewed by Abigail Pogrebin on the JCC's stage.

The Changing Face of Feminism

In 2020, Pogrebin says, there are “many feminisms. We were the second wave. Young women today have a fourth or fifth wave feminism, each of which has left its own stamp on the ever-evolving phenomenon we call the women’s movement,” she says.

Edgar has a different take. “I think feminism is still the basic belief that everyone should have the same opportunities. Because I came to feminism through the civil rights movement—I grew up in Mississippi—this new feminism is a natural segue for me. What’s different today is that it’s more actively connected to other movements, like the environment and racism.”

When it comes to the most significant gains women have made in the years since Ms. first hit the stands, from Roe v. Wade and being able to obtain credit in their own names to the rise of female athletes to sexual harassment awareness and laws, “I don’t think they would have existed without us,” says Pogrebin. “We made it kosher to be loud.”

"I recently became friendly with a group of younger feminists who were very angry about a recent instance of misogyny,“ Sweet relates. “I was thinking, ‘God bless them. We were angry too. That makes me hopeful."

Sherri Lerner is the former editorial director at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan. She has written and edited for numerous publications and is currently on the staff of the Wechsler Center.