Nurses say they are fed up with seeing patients and communities strapped for cash and struggling to survive. So nurses’ unions around the globe are staging demonstrations today in favor of policies that promote economic justice. National Nurses United (NNU) members will protest outside the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C. Joined by the AFL-CIO and […]
Author: Annie Shields
Annie is the Community Editor at The Nation and the former New Media Coordinator at Ms. magazine. She studied sociology and women's studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She's a big fan of birds, plants and things that are funny. Her animal totem is the bat.
NEWS BRIEF: Global Population Hits 7 Billion
Today, according to projections from the United Nations Population Fund, the global population hit 7 billion—a number that continues to grow by more than 200,000 a day. As Ms. reported in the latest issue (on newsstands now or available here), the increasingly steep climb in the Earth’s population raises serious concerns about sustainability. The Feminist […]
UPDATE: Major Victory in “Rape Is Rape” Campaign
The “Rape is Rape” campaign, demanding that all rapes be counted in the FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report (UCR), took a huge step forward yesterday at a crucial meeting of law enforcement officials. The Uniform Crime Report Subcommittee of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) voted unanimously to expand its definition of rape in […]
#OccupyWallStreet, SlutWalk NYC and Racial Blind Spots: Editors’ Picks, 10/2-10/8
Progressive and feminist activists were in the national spotlight this week as they took to the streets of cities and towns across the country in protest of corporate greed and rape culture. The Occupy Wall Street movement continued to gain momentum, spreading from New York City’s Liberty Square to 18 other cities in the U.S. and […]
Going Postal, Occupying Wall Street and KKK Analogies: Editors’ Picks, 9/23–10/1
When a woman of color says something you don’t like about politics, naturally her race and gender are to blame. Or so we’d be led to believe by the backlash this week against Melissa Harris-Perry (for those not familiar, an esteemed black feminist scholar, frequent MSNBC commentator and author of an acclaimed new book on the […]
An Open Letter to Ben and Jerry
Earlier this month, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company announced their latest zany frozen concoction–“Schweddy Balls.” The ice cream is named for a fictional treat from a 1990s Saturday Night Live sketch in which Alec Baldwin played a chef named Pete Schweddy, appearing on a fictional NPR show called “Delicious Dish” to talk about his […]
Feminists: The FBI Is Listening to You
As our regular readers know, over the past several months Ms. and our publisher, the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF), have been waging a campaign to get the FBI to change the archaic “forcible rape” definition that’s used in the annual Uniform Crime Report (UCR). We teamed up with Change.org in June to help get the word […]
Troy Davis and a New Fight Against The Death Penalty: Editors’ Picks, 9/18-9/24
Like countless people across the globe, this week we were glued to coverage of the impending execution of Troy Davis. In 1991, Davis was convicted of, and sentenced to death for, the 1989 murder of Mark MacPhail, an off-duty police officer in Savannah, Georgia. There was no physical evidence against Davis, and the prosecution’s case […]
Pioneering Trans Kids, Slave-Inspired Earrings and Gaddafi’s Guards: Editors’ Picks, 8/28-9/3
The Washington Post reports that five of Col. Moammar Gaddafi’s female bodyguards have come forward to say that they were systematically raped and abused by the now fugitive Libyan leader, his sons and other members of the regime. Since the 1970s, Gaddafi has maintained an elite team of about 30 women, known as his Amazonian guard. […]
Editors’ Picks, #HERvotes Edition
Over the past few days, dozens of leading feminists from all walks of life have shared personal stories, compelling essays, policy solutions and calls to action in an effort to mobilize women voters in 2012. So many have raised their voices that even if you have been following the HERvotes blog carnival, there are probably […]