Trump Is Ending Temporary Protected Status for Haitian Refugees. Here’s What That Means for Women.

The Trump administration announced late last month it will terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian refugees in the United States. As a result of this decision, thousands of Haitian immigrants with legal status will become undocumented and eligible for deportation in September.

Women and girls face the brunt of violence in Haiti. Without TPS, Haitian women will be arrested by ICE, detained and eventually returned to a country where gangs frequently use sexual violence against women and girls to terrorize communities and gain control.

In 2024, the U.N. logged more than 6,400 cases of gender-based violence in Haiti.

Five Ways the GOP Is Quietly Paving the Road to a National Abortion Ban

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The vast majority of Americans support abortion and reproductive freedom, yet state lawmakers continue to introduce and pass laws stripping citizens of these rights. Providers face confusing, punitive rules that might lead them to delay or deny care. Planned Parenthood and other providers face budget cuts that threaten to restrict healthcare access for millions of Americans.

These are not isolated outcomes. Rather, they reveal a coordinated national strategy. Here are five myths we believe need to be dispelled to counter the challenges that lie ahead.

Americans Want a Feminist Future—But in Order to Make it Happen, We Have to Rethink Our Entire Political System  

Donald Trump has insisted that he has a “mandate” from voters to peddle his wildly unpopular policies—and, apparently, to stop at nothing to enforce them. But in reality, Americans by and large want a feminist future.

I talked to experts in gender and politics about the promise of a truly representative democracy—and what it will take for feminists to build one. The first episode of the brand-new Ms. podcast Looking Back, Moving Forward digs into the history and future of the feminist fight for both political representation and political power. The experts I spoke to for the episode reminded me that feminists have the power to redefine our democracy—and that rumors of our defeat have been greatly exaggerated.

You can listen to the episode now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Canada Rejects MAGA’s Gender Panic—And Why It Matters After This Year’s Pride Month

As Pride Month came to a close against a backdrop of global backlash to LGBTQ+ rights, Canada’s spring election delivered a rare counterpoint: Voters refused to take the bait.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s campaign, dubbed a “Maple MAGA” version of Trumpism, alienated moderates. It was grievance-driven, thin on substance and heavy on imported outrage. His fixation on divisive social issues made it harder to convince voters he could govern effectively. In the end, Canadian voters sent a clear signal—they’ll take affordability over fear politics.

At a time when liberal democracies from the U.K. to South Korea are seeing renewed assaults on LGBTQ+ rights, Canada’s election offers rare evidence that backlash isn’t inevitable. When cost-of-living pressures intensify, the politics of distraction lose their potency. The gender panic playbook didn’t just fail—it boomeranged.

The Problem With Sabrina Carpenter’s Album Cover Is Not Sex—It’s Violence 

The real discomfort with Carpenter’s controversial cover isn’t about sexual provocation. It’s about normalizing images of violence against women.

Policing women’s sexual choices should never be the goal of this discourse. Our personal sex lives are rich with context, and I hope that most people who enthusiastically interact with violent sexual acts, such as choking or hair-pulling, have felt comfortable enough with their partner to talk them through and have a truly consensual experience.

But we can monitor the way we speak about sex—especially expressions that lack that personal context, like album covers—and our tendencies as feminists to defend them in any light, no matter how troubling, for fear of restricting women as opposed to liberating them. 

We do not need to be OK with violence. Each of us has the personal autonomy to consider it, be conscious of it, oppose it, or even play with it. But when we look at an image of a woman having her hair pulled like the leash of a dog, it is only human—and important—that we feel uncomfortable.

Idahoans Launch Ballot Initiative to Safeguard Reproductive Rights

On Saturday, June 28, hundreds of reproductive freedom advocates gathered on the steps of the Idaho State Capitol for the “Rise & Sign Rally” to support a citizen-led initiative to put the Reproductive Freedom & Privacy Act on the November 2026 ballot. The law would restore the right to abortion, ensure access to healthcare care in cases of pregnancy complications or emergencies, and safeguard birth control, emergency contraception and IVF in Idaho. 

“Today’s rally is just the beginning,” said Melanie Folwell, executive director of Idahoans United for Women and Families, which organized the rally to launch a statewide grassroots campaign to collect signatures needed to put the Reproductive Freedom & Privacy Act on the ballot. “Across the state, Idahoans are ready to rise, sign, and take back the right to make deeply personal medical decisions without interference from politicians.”

Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Will Create a Disaster for Rural Mothers and Babies

Women and babies who live in areas that voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump are likely to suffer some of the Big Beautiful Bill’s most sweeping and damaging effects.

The historically brutal Medicaid cuts—a staggering $930 billion slashed from the program over the next decade—could force as many as 144 rural hospitals around the U.S. to close their labor-and-delivery units or drastically scale back services.

Independence Day, Ranked-Choice Wins and Jacinda Ardern: This Week in Women’s Representation

Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation in politics, sports and entertainment, judicial offices and the private sector—with a little gardening mixed in! 

This week:
—This Friday marks the 249th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The journey for women’s equal representation remains unfinished.
—Zohran Mamdani looks poised to join 36-year-old Boston mayor Michelle Wu as part of a new generation of leadership in the U.S. Northeast. It’s time for more aging men like Cuomo to step aside and let more women step up. And if New York City is any indication, the voters may take matters into their own hands.
—St. Paul in 2023 elected an all-women city council in its ranked-choice voting elections. There’s now a vacant seat, and three women are among the four candidates running in an Aug. 12 special election.
—Jacinda Ardern’s new book, A Different Kind of Power, highlights the shifting dynamics of power, how women are redefining what leadership can be, and the impact of fairer election systems for creating openings for new voices like her own.

… and more!