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- FROM THE MANAGING EDITOR, Page 4
-
-
- As roughly half the world's population, women would hardly
- seem to need to struggle for attention. Yet struggle is
- precisely what they have been doing in the final decades of the
- 20th century. Their endeavors deserve no less a word than
- revolution -- in expectations, accomplishments, self-realization
- and relationships with men. It is a revolution that, though far
- from complete, promises over time to bring about changes as
- profound for men and women as any that have occurred in Eastern
- Europe or the Soviet Union in the past year.
-
- It was in this context that we decided it was time to
- prepare an entire issue on women. The subject is familiar to
- TIME readers. In 1972 we published a magazine almost wholly
- devoted to the American woman. In recent years, while following
- women's trials and triumphs in our weekly pages, we have done
- a number of cover stories on relevant topics, including the
- child-care crisis (1987), abortion (1989 and 1990) and the
- future of feminism (1989). This time, however, we decided on a
- first: we would not only devote an entire magazine to the
- subject but make it an extra issue, one that would go to all our
- subscribers and be available on the newsstands for several
- weeks. We were pleased when Sears found our plans so intriguing
- that it offered to become the sole advertiser for this issue.
-
- Many women on and off our staff were eager to contribute
- to the issue, and it is their efforts that chiefly fill these
- pages. But we decided early on that it would be inappropriate
- to confine our contributors to women, and thus we have also
- involved a number of male colleagues. It has been our goal to
- make the issue equally interesting to men and to women.
-
- The issue was prepared under the direction of executive
- editor Edward Jamieson and senior editor Claudia Wallis, with
- support from virtually every bureau and department. Both editors
- are familiar with the subject, Jamieson as the overseer of
- TIME's culture, science and society coverage and Wallis as the
- author or editor of many stories about women. Says Wallis: "With
- this issue we were eager to look forward rather than back at the
- women's movement of the '70s. We wanted to see how the next
- generation is likely to fare and to what degree women are
- changing the worlds of business, politics, the arts and other
- fields as they gain influence."
-
- All of us found it exciting not only to reflect on the
- varied and often controversial currents that swirl around
- women's daily lives, struggles and victories in America today,
- but also to look at the challenges that lie ahead. We consider
- that task highly important, and TIME is committed to pursuing
- it without stint in the months and years ahead. We hope you get
- as much satisfaction from reading this issue as we did from
- preparing it.
-
-
- -- Henry Muller
-
-
-