The American Woman

In one very real sense, our TIME/Rockefeller Foundation poll shows that women have become dominant in our society. Women will soon constitute a majority of the workforce; they earn 57% of college degrees; they make 75% of buying decisions in the home. At the same time, the poll found that women are not terribly concerned with equality issues, nor are they patting themselves on the back for their pre-eminence--they are simply dealing with the often bewildering changes and uncertainty in our economy as breadwinners, spouses, mothers and daughters. It's not the anachronistic battle of the sexes anymore but how we all--women and men--grapple with a new economy and new era. I suppose you could say that's true equality.

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While our story looks to the future, it also harks back to the special women's issue we did in 1972, in which we explored--excuse the phrase--the New Woman. (That phrase was more than 100 years old at the time.) As Nancy Gibbs notes in her smart story--which is accompanied by an extensive, graphic look at the poll--there were no female Supreme Court Justices or Cabinet members or network anchors in 1972. Part of our package revisits some of the women we profiled back then, including one who worked for years as a welder and is now the only female crane operator at the Kennedy Space Center. NBC Nightly News will be featuring a profile of these women, and video pieces will appear on TIME.com

Our special report is also a collaboration with Maria Shriver, who has overseen a wide-ranging study called The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything along with the Center for American Progress, and who will also be revealing some exclusive findings from our poll on Meet the Press on Oct. 18. Maria, the First Lady of California and an irresistible force in her own right, also oversees California's annual Women's Conference, one of the nation's premier forums for women to come together to discuss vital issues. Held on Oct. 26-27, this year's conference will have about 25,000 attendees. "Our goal," she says, "is to empower women to see themselves as architects of change in their own lives, in their communities, in the world."

Our beautiful cover image was commissioned by our new director of photography, Kira Pollack, who enlisted the fine-art photographer Ralph Gibson, whose elegant and timeless portraits of women have been widely exhibited in international collections.

A few weeks ago, we ran a different special report, on national service. Now the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) has organized an unprecedented week of programming, beginning Oct. 19 on NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox and other networks, that will spotlight service. You won't be able to miss it. This is part of EIF's new iParticipate campaign, designed to usher in a new era of volunteerism. Go to the campaign's site--iparticipate.org--to find volunteer opportunities near you.

Richard Stengel, MANAGING EDITOR