Feminist who popularised Ms' dies
In 2007, Ms Michaels told the Guardian: “I was looki ng for a title for a woman who did not belong' to a man.
American feminist Sheila Michaels credited with bringing the honorific ‘Ms’ into mainstream use, has died at the age of 78.
Ms Michaels did not invent the term — it dates back to around 1901 — but Ms Michaels brought it back into the public sphere in the 1960s for women who did not want to be identified by their relationship to men, the Mail Online reported.
She first noticed the term on a letter addressed to her friend Mari Hamilton. It read: ‘Ms Mari Hamilton.’ Ms Michaels assumed it was a typo, but Ms Hamilton explained to her its historical validity, according to the New York Times.
In 2007, Ms Michaels told the Guardian: “I was looki ng for a title for a woman who did not ‘belong’ to a man. There was no place for me. 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.”
Speaking to the New York Times in an interview last year, she said the honorific resonated with her, both as a feminist and as the child of unmarried parents.
The new honorific was in the public sphere, but it was not adopted by the New York Times until 1984 — seen as a landmark for its usage by a traditional stylistic conservative.
The term became even more popular in 1971 when Gloria Steinem used it as the name of her feminist magazine.