More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Each instance of gendered and sexualized narratives against high-profile women—and even ordinary people, including students like myself—serves as a warning to thousands of other women and those close to us. Witnessing these attacks often leads them to reconsider their own participation in public discourse.
The message is clear: Speak out, and your sexuality will be weaponized against you.
Former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s opinion piece in The New York Times on Harvey Weinstein’s appeal offers an excellent opportunity to interrogate the larger systems in the U.S. that enable violence against women. But Vance’s article excluded a critical piece of the story: his decision not to press charges against Weinstein in 2015 after Ambra Battilana Gutierrez presented a recording of Weinstein admitting to groping her breast.
Women who experience sexual and physical violence are often criticized for delays in reporting. But if institutional inaction and underhandedness are more common responses than not when women do report, then why would they?
A new generation of women are demanding that the next chapter of their lives no longer be ignored, overlooked or squandered.
Dr. Sharon Malone, author of Grown Woman Talk, will be in conversation with Jennifer Weiss-Wolf at Ms. headquarters (433 S. Beverly Dr., Beverly Hills, Calif., 90212) on Thursday, June 27, at 8 p.m. PT—or come at 6 p.m. to watch the presidential debate! RSVP for the free event here.
(This article originally appears in the Summer 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)
As a Black woman, witnessing other Black women in elected roles is not only significant, but powerful. Signifying transformative progress, it goes beyond mere resemblance; it’s a recognition of our challenges, our resilience and our capacity to drive successful outcomes in this nation.
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.
This week: Delve into the persistent gender imbalance in local elections, explore the impact of cumulative voting in elections in Illinois spanning over a century, discover why ranked-choice voting is a logical solution to Maryland’s recent primary with large candidate fields and plurality winners, inclusion of plurality candidates in elections and why ranked-choice voting is a viable solution, and celebrate Angela Alsobrooks for her historic victory—a triumph for all Black women in politics.
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: Young workers are avoiding states with abortion bans; 70 percent of likely voters support a ceasefire in Gaza; far-right groups are mobilizing to spread election conspiracies; potential new abortion restrictions in Louisiana; an update on Flint, Michigan; over 80 percent of men of color support abortion; Justice Samuel Alito is under fire for flying a “Stop the Steal” symbol; the Louisiana state legislature rejects a bill that would have allowed rape and incest victims aged 16 and younger to have an abortion and moves to add abortion pills to the list of controlled dangerous substances; and more.
When Rep. Marilyn Lands won her race for the 10th District seat in Alabama in March with 63 percent of the vote, she did not expect to beat her Republican opponent by such a large margin.
After having an abortion herself, Lands made reproductive freedom the heart of her winning campaign this year. She has found that sharing her story has had a profound impact on her relationship with voters.
We currently have zero Black women governors and only one Black woman in the Senate. But that could soon change.
This week, exciting news came out of Maryland’s Democratic primary race: U.S. Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks won big despite being outspent 10 to 1 by her opponent, Rep. David Trone, a wealthy businessman who threw more than $60 million of his own money into his campaign. Alsobrooks is the county executive for Maryland’s second-largest county, and this win means she, along with Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, could become the United States’ fourth and fifth Black women to ever serve in the U.S. Senate.
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.
This week: why expanding women’s power isn’t a single-issue effort but is a prerequisite to progress across the board; the number of women running for the U.S. House is down, with Republican women seeing the greatest decline; Prince George’s county executive Angela Alsobrooks won an impressive victory in the U.S. Senate primary; Suzanne LaFrance on track to be Anchorage’s first woman mayor; in North Macedonia, where Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova became the first woman president; and more.
Roe v. Wade was overturned on June 24, 2022. But according to Shefali Luthra, author of Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America, “it had been on the verge of collapse for decades.” After all, most Medicaid recipients had lost insurance coverage for the procedure in 1977 and a plethora of restrictions—from parental consent and notification requirements for minors, to mandated counseling sessions to dissuade people from ending their pregnancies—had long kept procedural abortion out of reach for large segments of the population.
Undue Burden digs into this lack of preparedness by introducing diverse people who have been directly impacted by the decision—people who have had to travel hundreds of miles to have an abortion, people whose highly-anticipated pregnancies became untenable, a trans man who became pregnant shortly after beginning his transition, and a young couple who lacked the emotional and financial resources to welcome a second child, among them. Their stories are juxtaposed with those of overwrought clinicians as well as staff at abortion funds. The result is a poignant and dramatic look at the stakes of losing Roe and a compassionate assessment of the human toll wrought by Dobbs.
