The Woman Who brought ‘Ms.’ to Fame: Sheila Michaels

She used two consonants and a full stop to transform the way we address women in the modern world. Sheila Michaels advocated for a title that allowed women recognition regardless of their marital status. Independence was the name of the game. But it would take a hell of a lot for the world to take notice. How did she utilise something so small to change the lives of women all over the world?

Her motives were both personal and political. She attributed her negative attitude toward marriage to her mother’s own turbulent life. This is the story of the woman who brought ‘Ms.’ to fame.

Sheila Michaels was born to Alma on May 8^th, 1939 in St Louis. Her mother gave her the surname of her husband, Bill Michaels, even though he was not Sheila’s father.

Sheila’s biological father was her mother’s lover, Ephraim London. He was a well-known lawyer whom Sheila did not meet until she was 14. When she was very young, her mother divorced Bill Michaels and married Harry Kessler, a metallurgist.

Harry didn’t want a child around, so Sheila was sent to live with her maternal grandparents in New York for five years. These experiences shaped Sheila’s view of how women were seen. She said:

“There was no place for me. No one wanted to claim me and I didn’t want to be owned. I didn’t belong to my father and I didn’t want to belong to a husband – someone who could tell me what to do. I had not seen very many marriages I’d want to emulate.”

She argued for the use of ‘Ms.’ in feminist groups but would her concept gain traction? It all came down to an appearance on the New York radio station WBAI. Amid, no less, a quiet moment…

The Birth of the Ms.

‘Ms.’ appeared on Sheila’s radar in the early 1960s while she was residing in Manhattan. While collecting mail, she noticed that her roommate, Mari Hamilton, had received a copy of the Marxist newspaper ‘News & Letters’.

Hey, it was the ‘60s…

The letter was addressed to ‘Ms. Mari Hamilton’. Sheila assumed the word was a misspelling. When she saw the letter, she wondered if those two little consonants could solve her dilemma. She told The Guardian:

“The entire idea came to me in a matter of hours. Tops.”

In truth, the term ‘Ms.’ [miz] has been in use since at least the early 1900s. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the word back to a 1901 article in The Sunday Republican, a Massachusetts newspaper. They wrote:

‘The abbreviation “Ms.” is simple, it is easy to write, and the person concerned can translate it properly according to circumstances. For oral use it might be rendered as “Mizz”, which would be a close parallel to the practice long universal in many bucolic regions, where a slurred Mis’ does duty for Miss and Mrs. alike.’

Linguist Mario Pei noted in his 1949 book, ‘The Story of Language’, that ‘feminists… have often proposed that the two present-day titles be merged into… “Miss” (to be written “Ms.”), with a plural “Misses” (written “Mss.”).’

However, when Sheila first encountered the phrase, ‘Ms.’ had not yet become popular. She recognised an opportunity in this little-known word to promote a title that, unlike ‘Miss’ and ‘Mrs.’, did not define women based on their marital status.

Sheila stated in a 2007 interview with The Guardian that she was:

“Looking for a title for a woman who did not ‘belong’ to a man.”

That she did. And in 1969, she appeared on the New York radio station WBAI. In one quiet moment, she changed history.

A Quiet Moment in Manhattan

In 1969, Sheila appeared on the New York radio station WBAI as a member of The Feminists, a far-left women’s rights organisation. During a quiet moment in the debate, she mentioned ‘Ms’. When the interviewer asked about the pronunciation, Sheila replied:

“I answered, ‘Miz’.”

The broadcast quickly reached Gloria Steinem. She was looking for a name for her new feminist journal. When the journal debuted in 1971, it was titled ‘Ms.’. Meliss Arteaga wrote in the magazine:

‘It made sense to us from the start. “Ms.” is how you address a woman as a whole person.’

By 1986, the title had garnered enough popularity to be officially adopted by the New York Times. When it first appeared on the newspaper’s front page, an editor’s note explained:

‘Until now “Ms.” had not been used because of the belief that it had not passed sufficiently into the language to be accepted as common usage. The Times now believe that “Ms.” has become part of the language and is changing its policy.’

The title went on to become commonplace in North America and the UK, as well as across the English-speaking world. One quiet moment in a radio station in New York changed history.

Sheila changed history.

The Commitment to Feminism

Though Sheila remained committed to the feminist movement until her death, she wore many hats in her life. According to the BBC, she worked as a ghostwriter, editor, and biblical historian. As well as a brief stint in a restaurant.

She spent her later years collecting oral histories of the Civil Rights Movement. It’s said her favourite job was driving taxis throughout New York City. As I said, she wore many hats…

She died on June 22^nd, 2017 at the age of 78.

The Woman Who brought ‘Ms.’ to Fame

Although Sheila didn’t coin the term ‘Ms.’, she transformed it into a symbol of a woman’s right not to be defined by her relationship with men.

Because of her, ‘Ms’. spread around the world. The use of the word by The New York Times was a watershed moment in history. In those days, women married young, while those who did not were thought of as ‘unwanted’. The use of the title ‘Ms.’ helped women avoid condemnation for being single but also granted them independence from a reliance on men for a title.

Sheila knew women faced outdated pressures to identify their status. While feminism was about information, Sheila’s battle was to suppress it. It wasn’t that she wanted a woman’s status to be a secret, rather that it was nobody’s business but hers.

‘Ms.’ was, in essence, Sheila’s way of saying ‘mind your business’. As she once said:

“The first thing anyone wanted to know about you was whether you were married yet. I’d be damned if I’d bow to them.”

Sheila Michaels rescued ‘Ms.’ from lexical obscurity by popularising the term as a means for women to be defined independently of their relationship with men.

Her legacy lives on in a simple, two-letter phrase. One that is now used throughout the English-speaking world to refer to women as people, rather than wives or singles. She, rather wonderfully, used two consonants and a full stop to change women’s history.

“Wow, wonderful. ‘Ms.’ is me!”
– Sheila Michaels.

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