More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Addressing obstetric violence requires enduring solutions rooted in cultural transformation. In 2002, Alyne da Silva Pimentel Teixeira, a 28-year-old Afro-descendant woman in Rio de Janeiro, sought medical help for severe abdominal pain during pregnancy. Despite her critical condition, she was left unattended for hours and mistreated, ultimately leading to her tragic death. Some might believe […]
Since the election was decided in November, like many people, I have been paying close attention to the individuals selected for appointment by the incoming Trump administration. As an OB-GYN and abortion provider, I know firsthand that these appointees will have a direct and devastating impact on our community’s access to healthcare, public health and social safety net infrastructure and our ability to be well.
Collaboratively, these cabinet picks have gained popularity by way of anti-intellectualism, misinformation and scare tactics, ultimately preying on the most vulnerable members of our community. They are not just poorly qualified to lead this work—they are dangerous.
Each month, we provide Ms. readers with a list of new books being published by writers from historically excluded groups.
I don’t know where this year went, but it was a tough one on many fronts. For better or for worse, here we are. Enjoy these 12 titles—then keep your eyes peeled for my Best of the Rest for 2024.
I was a refugee during the Cold War, displaced by the geopolitical struggle between the U.S. and the USSR. Like millions of other children from that time, I carried the heavy weight of that war. My family fled Afghanistan, and in the process, I lost years of regular schooling—years that were supposed to form the foundation of my childhood.
The weight of this suffering has always fallen on children. And just as the world once turned away from the children of Auschwitz, Nagasaki and Trảng Bàng, it turns away from children in Gaza, Afghanistan, Sudan and many other places today. We revisit those historical images as if they were warnings, as if by remembering them we could prevent history from repeating itself. But we haven’t learned. The children of today are still carrying the same burdens—only the names and places have changed.
U.S. patriarchal authoritarianism is on the rise, and democracy is on the decline. But day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. The fight is far from over. We refuse to go back, and we refuse to let the incoming Trump administration quietly dismantle the progress we’ve made. We are watching. This is the War on Women Report.
Since our last report…
—Since the Dobbs decision, U.S. infant mortality rates were higher than usual, with hundreds more infants dying than expected. Abortion bans can hurt access to broader healthcare for both babies and mothers, including reducing a state’s number of maternal healthcare providers as bans lead to OB-GYN exoduses.
—Seven women, including three in Texas, have died after receiving inadequate miscarriage and abortion care.
—Trump’s win, after being accused of sexual assault by 27 women, sends a disheartening message to victims of sexual assault and advocates.
… and more.
The world is seeing “heightened levels of conflict-related sexual violence, fuelled by arms proliferation and increased militarization,” a recent United Nations report notes. Although the vast majority of victims of this crime are women and girls, this kind of violence is also all too common—and severely underreported—among men, boys and people of diverse gender identities.
“Most of the reported incidents against men and boys occurred in detention settings,” the U.N. report states.
Generation Z—born between the mid 1990s and the early 2010s—is the most diverse generation in American history, with nearly half of the Gen Z electorate in 2024 identifying as people of color. Gen Z has also come of age during the rise of school shootings, the COVID-19 pandemic and the first Trump presidency’s legislative attacks on reproductive freedom.
While 41 million Gen Z members voted in the Nov. 5 election, some Gen Z voters are old enough now to run for office themselves. In The Z Factor’s second episode, Chander interviewed 29-year-old Tennessee State House Rep. Justin J. Pearson, who serves Memphis. In 2023, he was the second youngest person to serve in the Tennessee legislature. Since then, he’s advocated for climate and racial justice and gun violence prevention, introducing more than a dozen gun safety bills over the last year.
Trump supporters’ calling for an end to women’s suffrage may be the canary in the coal mine for further drastic changes to the electoral system.
An excerpt from Solis:
In 2033, life in the New American Republic is bleak. A xenophobic and racist government has imprisoned thousands of undocumented people in a giant labor camp in the Arizona desert. Black people, Brown people, Asian people and Indigenous people are dumped on the cage floors, their bodies almost broken and their hearts filled with fear. The prisoners are forced to scavenge for a precious and newly discovered chemical in the surrounding mines. This chemical is being used by the president to control the weather. The climate crisis and global drought has pushed the country to the forefront of the water wars that are ravaging the world. The work is grueling, the torture inhumane. This world seems hopeless.
And yet, in the darkest of places is where the fierce light of revolution ignites.
2024 marks the first time in several years that the U.S. Supreme Court will not hear a significant case relating to abortion rights—but the question of the constitutional right to bodily autonomy remains on the docket. On Wednesday, Dec. 4, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in U.S. v. Skrmetti, a case challenging Tennessee’s ban on healthcare for trans youth. The case is the first of its kind to be heard by the nation’s highest court—and as such will likely set an important precedent for future trans rights cases.
“The Court has the opportunity and duty to apply the law fairly, which means returning medical decisions to where they rightfully belong: to parents, their children and their doctors.”