NEW YORK -- Like a cat with nine lives, Ms. magazine is back on the prowl.
In its third incarnation, the magazine that helped define the feminist movement has been revived by Liberty Media for Women, a consortium that includes businesswomen, heiresses and feminist icon Gloria Steinem."They are women who have put their money where their hearts are," said Ms. Steinem, a co-founder of the magazine and consulting editor. "It is the only magazine for women controlled by women."
Started in 1972, Ms. has ceased publication twice in 27 years -- once for eight months in 1989 because it was losing too much money, and for the most recent three issues as Liberty Media completed its purchase. Its prior owner was MacDonald Communications, which also owns Working Mother and Working Women.
Among Liberty's shareholders are Ms. Steinem; Abigail Disney, grand-niece of Walt Disney; Sandy Lerner, co-founder of Cisco Systems, which makes computer-networking equipment; and Alix L.L. Ritchie, a philanthropist and publisher of a weekly Massachusetts newspaper, the Provincetown Banner.
Publication resumes with the April-May issue, which will be on some newsstands March 30 for $5.95. The magazine still accepts no ads and derives most of its revenue from subscribers, who number around 150,000, according to chief editor Marcia Ann Gillespie.
The first issue of the newly reconstituted Ms. announces on its cover: "WE'RE BACK! Wake Up & Smell the Estrogen."
The photo shows a wide-open, red-lipsticked mouth, the bottom lip pierced by a single pearl, with a strand of pearls -- as in pearls of wisdom -- sitting on the tongue.
If the new Ms. feels somewhat familiar, it's partly because once-radical topics like the glass ceiling, female candidates and sex harassment are no longer the sole provenance of feminist publications but have become the stuff of mainstream news.
But what today's Ms. lacks in breaking new ground, it will to make up for in spunk. One article bashes Elizabeth Dole as "a favorite of the religious right" and asks whether feminists can support her for president. Another is an unapologetic first-person account of a face-lift. Another profiles a devout Roman Catholic woman who disrupted the ordination of a priest by demanding that she be ordained, too.
Ms. Gillespie said the new Ms. is edgier and funnier.
"When Ms. was in its hiatus, I really did listen to what women had to say about it," she said. "A lot of them said things like 'Ms. is really good for you but it's hard because there's so much in there.' So we decided to lighten up. There's this desire to give people as much info as possible in every issue, but we also want to give them room to breathe and to laugh."