THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Midge Kovacs
April 3, 1926 – October 15, 2004
“That evening, seated in front of the television set, switching dials to catch the news coverage of the march on all three networks, I received my first taste of media distortion of the women’s rights movement. Cameras moved in for tight shots of stringy haired, bra-less women in T-shirts, with angry signs. With my own eyes, I had seen a cross-section of women at the march, including establishment types, career women and many older citizens. But none of these women were represented that evening on TV.” – Midge Kovacs on August 26, 1970, after having just marched down Fifth Avenue in the ‘Women’s Strike for Equality,’ from Patricia Bradley’s book, News, Gender and Power.
Pioneering Advertising Executive. President and owner of Midge Kovacs Ads Unlimited. Vice President of the NY Chapter of NOW. Headed NOW’s committee on the Image of Women in the Media. Founding board member of the National Spasmodic Dysphonia Association. Started a support group in New York in 1987 and published a newsletter, entitled “Our Voice,” for patients and doctors in order to raise awareness about spasmodic dysphonia.
Photo. Midge Kovacs,1972, photo by Susan Kamen.
Mary Jean Tully introduces Midge Kovacs at the Veteran Feminists of America event, Seventh Regiment Armory, NYC, May 1998.
More About Midge:
- Obituary, Newsday
- Midge Kovacs Awareness Award, Dysphonia International
- Legal Momentum Records, 1978-2011. MC 727. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
- “The First Ten Years, The Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDEF),” Legal Momentum
- The public service announcement (PSA) in 1973 called “Hire Him, He’s Got Great Legs.” The campaign sought to highlight the inequality of women’s rights in the workplace, especially around sexist hiring practices.
- Women In The Media. Produced by WBAI and Dave Metzger. Recorded on March 10, 1979. Host Fred Silverman speaks with Gaye Tuchman, Professor of Sociology at Queens College, and Midge Kovacs (1936-2004), former Vice President of NOW-New York, about the portrayal and employment of women in the television industry. Broadcast on March 10, 1979.
- A conversation with Midge Kovacs and Marjorie Rosen. “Woman; 345; The Lady Vanishes: Where are the Women in Films?,” 1976-03-26, WNED, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC.
- Cited in Barbara Love’s book, Feminists Who Changed America 1963-1975, page 262
