"Is There Love after Liberation?": The Problem of Romantic Love and the World of Ms. in the 1970s

During the 1970s, feminists confronted the ramifications of romantic love in their efforts to politicize the personal. Although they generally agreed that romantic love was a socially constructed ideal that rewarded women for their dependence on men, feminists were often bitterly divided over how to confront that reality. This article offers a case study of Ms. magazine, which operated as an open forum for feminist writers and readers, as a microcosm of the women's liberation movement writ large to illuminate how and why feminists were preoccupied with this issue. Offering a close reading of three specific episodes in the magazine's history, the plethora of responses they generated from readers, and the magazine's editorial records, the article demonstrates how the debate over romantic love revealed the fundamental challenges of a movement aimed at collectivity and paved the way for more intersectional approaches to feminism.