A Cover Like No Other

When Gloria Steinem co-founded Ms. magazine, she wanted a cover image that would break completely with the norms of the day. There would be no high-end models and no teasers for makeup tips. Instead, the preview issue featured a goddess with eight arms. And she was blue. Kim speaks with Gloria and also with the magazine’s first editor, Suzanne Braun Levine, about the ways women had been visually portrayed until their groundbreaking publication hit the newsstands, and how the staff at Ms. worked to turn those stereotypes on their head. See the portraits we discuss: Pauline Perlmutter Steinem Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman Hughes, 1971 Marilyn Monroe Student Protest Susan B. Anthony Ms. magazine preview cover Gloria Steinem and Dorothy Pitman Hughes, 2013