More Than A Magazine, A Movement
The late Faith Ringgold was a feminist, an activist, a teacher, a mother and an artist known for her innovative use of mediums, ranging from the more traditional oil on canvas, murals and mosaics, to story quilts, protest posters and soft sculptures.
(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!)
An extraordinary grassroots activation took place this past Saturday at 8 a.m., when two buses full of organizers, activists, celebrities, politicians, doctors and influencers braved the Phoenix heat—which would top out at 107 degrees by the afternoon—to set out on the inaugural Vote for Abortion Bus Tour and Rally, a nationwide campaign to register voters and protect abortion access and reproductive healthcare during another contentious and precarious election season.
Shows centering on women, LGBTQ+ individuals and people of color are often the first to get the axe—undermining streaming platforms’ supposed commitment to diversity.
The disappointments of past cancellations and the victory of the writers’ strike offer two sides of the same story—illustrating the foibles of a top-down approach to television production that emphasizes revenue over meaningful content.
Here are our critic’s top picks for the most disappointing cancellations of 2023.
Nicholas L. Clarkson, former assistant professor of gender studies at New College of Florida, has announced his resignation from the school, which used to be known as the most progressive public college in the state. Clarkson was the only full-time gender studies professor at New College.
“I have loved teaching at New College,” Clarkson wrote in a letter addressed to interim president and former Republican House speaker Robert Corcoran. “But now Florida is the state where learning goes to die.”
Over 40 professors have already resigned from New College in light of these attacks, according to Clarkson, who calls the mass exodus “an indictment of [Richard Corcoran] and the trustees’ actions, as well as the state’s regressive politics.”
Ms. Classroom wants to hear from educators and students being impacted by legislation attacking public education, higher education, gender and sexuality studies, activism and social justice in education, and diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Submit pitches and/or completed draft op-eds and reflections (between 500-800 words) to Aviva Dove-Viebahn at adove-viebahn@msmagazine.com. Posts will be accepted on a rolling basis, with posting beginning in August 2023.
A new Florida law severely restricts gender, race and sexuality studies at state-funded colleges—and eliminates diversity programs altogether. Far from just a “Florida problem,” this is one piece of an alarming right-wing strategy spreading nationwide. Gender studies advocates warn, “Thiis is about to be the entire country’s problem. Every Republican-dominated state legislature is watching closely what is happening in Florida.”
Far-right conservatives fear that younger generations will be taught to think critically about the rampant misrepresentation and sanitization of American history and the continued discrimination against women, people of color and LGBTQ+ individuals.
Written by Naomi Alderman and adapted into a TV series for Prime Video, The Power asks a deceptively simple question: What would happen if, overnight, girls and some women worldwide gained the ability to administer electric shocks at will?
Ms. spoke with Naomi Alderman about her novel and how she sees its television adaptation resonating in the years since the book’s initial release.
In her new book Consent Culture and Teen Films: Adolescent Sexuality in U.S. Movies, independent filmmaker and scholar Michele Meek challenges the idea of consent as a straightforward concept and questions the messages about consent and teenage sexuality reflected in films of the last 20 years.
Judy Blume is most at home surrounded by books. That’s the predominant impression of a new documentary on the author’s life directed by Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok, Judy Blume Forever, which premiered at Sundance last month and will begin streaming globally on Prime Video in April.
The film relies heavily on interviews with Blume herself, a wonderfully charming presence throughout the documentary. (“I could be fearless in my writing the way I couldn’t in my life,” Blume explains in the film, referring to the complexities of her own personal life, where she chafed against the confines of her early marriages.) But one of its best components is its emphasis on the readers and how they were and still are affected by her novels.
Writer and director Noora Niasari calls her film Shayda “a love letter to mothers and daughters, to culture, to the brave women and girls of Iran,” and I can think of no more apt description for this beautiful gem.
