Black trans femmes are from the future. We exist in bodies that the world has not yet evolved to accommodate. We speak a language that has yet to be written. We claim freedoms that are not yet accessible. But when we create art, we pull pieces of that future into the present—disrupting, reshaping and unraveling the confines of the modern world.
Women Over 40 Are Being Excluded from Hollywood
The exclusion of women over 40 from Hollywood leaves us watching the same show over and over again—on screens and in politics.
In ‘Girls State,’ Care and the Growing Gendered Political Divide
A new documentary, Girls State, shows how some of America’s most ambitious and politically minded young women respond to the gender inequalities they face at Girls State, a government leadership camp in Missouri.
The documentary shows us that institutions can no longer stymy these young women’s ambitions for more influence by telling them to first look inward. The girls see through superficial slogans for unity and defensive headlines. They’re ready for real changes.
Keeping Score: Women’s Basketball Reaches New Heights; France Protects Abortion, While Florida Tightens Its Ban
In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.
This week: Women’s college basketball smashed viewership records; France passed a constitutional amendment protecting abortion; Florida will soon have a six-week abortion ban; Beyoncé makes history on the country album charts; IWMF honors Palestinian journalist Samar Abu Elouf; Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) managed to include $1 billion for childcare in the fiscal year 2024 appropriations bills; federal employees will soon have access to insurance plans that cover fertility services; President Biden announced a new plan to cancel student debt; the Supreme Court allowed Idaho to maintain its ban on gender-affirming care for minors; and more.
A Comedian in the War on Abortion: The Ms. Q&A with Lizz Winstead and Ruth Leitman
Lizz Winstead, comedian and founder of Abortion Access Front, teamed up with director Ruth Leitman to create the hilarious, heart-filled documentary No One Asked You.
“There’s nothing shameful about needing to have an abortion,” Winstead told Ms.
“It’s a medical procedure that people need to help them achieve their life goals, and to help them have the life that they want to have,” said Leitman.
I’d Be an Adoptee Teen Mom All Over Again
A 20-year study of birth mothers and analysis of the outcomes of their open adoptions, Gretchen Sisson’s book Relinquished posits that most birth mothers don’t want to relinquish, and would not do so if they had limited financial support. After the Dobbs decision and before the upcoming election, Sisson’s timing could not be better.
Beyoncé’s Country Accent in ‘Cowboy Carter’
Beyoncé’s voice of discontent resonates strongly, as does her once-considered “too country” accent, on Cowboy Carter. This, her eighth studio solo album, is a brilliant and genre-bending album rooted in country music that transcends the genre through its audacious, boundary-pushing and aggressive remixes and interpolations that have honored the hybrid space that is Southern culture.
Education Is Under Attack. Here’s 13 Feminist Educators on How to Fight Back
Educators advance the spirit of teaching by encouraging inquiry, engagement, and investigation of diverse perspectives. Many carry the torch forward by addressing critical issues affecting our lives and communities. Education challenges entrenched thinking, not by telling students what to think, but by offering lessons on how to think critically. That is why education is under attack.
Here’s an inspiring sample (in alphabetical order) of wise women cultural critics, philosophers, theorists, scholars and professors from among many who inspire social justice education.
April 2024 Reads for the Rest of Us
Each month, we provide Ms. readers with a list of new books being published by writers from historically excluded groups.
Here are 25 fantastic books releasing this month that we recommend you dig into. There are stunning debuts, masterful historical fiction, kaleidoscopic short stories, thoughtful manifestas, moving memoirs, groundbreaking nonfiction, and so much more.
How Americans Became Fixated on Fat
It’s no coincidence that fat commentaries revolve around female bodies: Even though women are statistically less likely than men to be overweight, feminists have long pointed out how twin fantasies of beauty and thinness torment us.
(For more ground-breaking stories like this, order 50 YEARS OF Ms.: THE BEST OF THE PATHFINDING MAGAZINE THAT IGNITED A REVOLUTION, Alfred A. Knopf—a collection of the most audacious, norm-breaking coverage Ms. has published.)