EQUALITY WATCH : Coming of Age

Ms., the magazine, is 20 years old. Ms., the form of address that has often come to replace Miss or Mrs., has been around longer.

Ms. the title and Ms. the magazine have both caused quite a stir. Not that many years ago, women who asked to be addressed as Ms. found themselves branded as “women’s libbers” or, worse, “bra burners.”

A male TV commentator once predicted that Ms. magazine would last only six months before it ran out of things to say.

But in the two decades since the magazine’s start, and since its advertising-free reincarnation earlier this year, Ms. and American women have had plenty to say. The changes in American society wrought by the modern feminist movement and its journal of record are remarkable, if far from complete.

Women have moved into occupations from which they long had been discouraged if not formally barred. They have broken down barriers that excluded them from many schools and jobs, from some forms of insurance and other benefits.

In two decades, “girls” have become “women” and “lady firemen” have become “firefighters.” Some women have walked in space and others into military combat.

But women still earn an average of only 68 cents for every dollar men earn, still encounter sexual harassment in too many workplaces, and in many families still shoulder most of the child rearing responsibility. And more than two centuries after this nation’s founding, still only 2% of the U.S. Senate answer to “Ms.” instead of “Mr.”