All for ERA

Women's mags close ranks

The November Cosmopolitan brims with the customary hints for foraging single gals ("If you have invited someone to your home for sex ... it only takes a few minutes to change the sheets"). But it also carries some closely reasoned political advice: a 3,700-word article by Columbia Law School Professor Ruth Bader Ginsburg urging passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. To give the ERA cause a boost, Cosmo and 32 other women's magazines from Ms. to Playgirl, from Vogue to House & Garden agreed to run pieces about the amendment in their next month's issue.

How each magazine handled the story was left to individual editors. Predictably enough, no one comes out against the ERA. Presentations range from perfunctory (Playgirl devotes a mere 300 words in its editor's column) to intensely personal (writes Essence's editor in chief Marcia Ann Gillespie: "I did not stand up for my rights as a black person in America to be told that I have to sit down because I'm a woman"). Ladies' Home Journal has the most glamorous contributor in Senator Edward Kennedy. Also the most platitudinous: "[The ERA] will give meaning and vitality to the principles of social justice, economic rights and political equality."

The group action, organized by Redbook's male editor in chief Sey Chassler, is aimed at nudging some states closer to ratification--three more are required.

Even though the 33 magazines have a joint circulation of 60 million, one editor at least had few illusions about their collective clout, especially head to head with Opposition Leader Phyllis Schlafly. Says Cosmo's Helen Gurley Brown: "All the women's magazines together may not be as effective as Phyllis Schlafly with her rabble-rousing TV appearances. But we hope reason will prevail."

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