Less than a week after Netflix announced that it would being offering corporate employees up to a year off to care for new babies, both Microsoft and Adobe Systems Inc. have joined the rising tide of tech companies with progressive parental leave policies. Last Wednesday, Microsoft announced that all new parents will receive 12 weeks […]
Author: Carter Sherman
Carter Sherman is a former Ms. editorial intern. She recently graduated from Northwestern University, where she studied journalism and international studies, and has previously interned at Elle and Los Angeles Magazine. Follow her on Instagram at @heyyymizcarter.
We Heart: Comedians Take Down the Tampon Tax, Taylor Swift-Style
Periods are even worse than you thought—and not just because no one told you you don’t need to be chained to the tyranny of the tampon. In case you aren’t familiar with the intricacies of the American tax code, “necessities” or “non-luxury” items are exempted from sales tax as people must buy them in order to survive. […]
Take a Class in Advanced TV Herstory
Only about 40 percent of all speaking characters on TV are women—but Cynthia Bemis Abrams is here to celebrate those who do. Her new podcast, Advanced TV Herstory, traces the lineage of women in TV, onscreen and off, from All in the Family’s Maude Findlay (whose handling of social issues such as menopause “was necessary to propel the conversation in the […]
Menstrual Merchandise—For When Tampons Just Aren’t Enough
Everyone knows about pads, tampons and the Diva Cup—but the world of period products and services is much more innovative than you might think. From tampon-replacing underwear to reusable pads, menstruation is a new frontier for pioneering companies—often helmed by women entrepreneurs—that embrace women’s sexuality and health as well as work to further ethical practices. Let us know if you think we’ve missed […]
8 Period Anthems for Surviving “The Curse”
The next time you’re curled up in a ball, holding a heating pad in one hand and a milkshake in the other while a wolverine ravages your uterus, don’t resign yourself to watching Nicholas Sparks movies for the week. Menstruation is no reason to feel bad about yourself, so cheer up with this Ms. Blog playlist […]
We Heart: Hannibal’s Stance on Sexual Assault
Hannibal is often lauded as one of the simultaneously most beautiful and grisly shows on television, but it deserves yet another accolade: Its showrunner Bryan Fuller refuses to depict sexual assault. If you’re unfamiliar with the Hannibal Lecter mythos, here’s a primer: Lecter is an esteemed psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer whose exploits are chronicled in […]
How Paper Towns Falls Short
John Green once dubbed his 2009 novel Paper Towns an attempt to “disembowel the evil construction of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl.” So it’s more than a little disappointing that the sneakily sexist Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype is alive and well in the Paper Towns film adaptation. Coined by A.V. Club writer Nathan Rabin in […]
Bill Cosby and #TheEmptyChair
On Sunday evening, New York magazine released a devastating story featuring the first-hand accounts from 35 women Bill Cosby has allegedly assaulted. Yet perhaps the most unsetting aspect of the story was not its words, but its cover: the women sitting side-by-side, in stark black and white, feet flat on the ground—and at the end of the line, one empty chair. As New […]
Science’s Gender Gap is Worse Than You Thought
Female mice experience pain differently than male mice, according to a study published last week in the scientific journal Nature Neuroscience. That means pain medication that works on a male mouse might not work for a human woman, researchers say. Those findings might seem trivial to people who don’t spend their days wearing white lab coats, but […]
Meet Caroline VanSickle: Feminist Biologist
Last year, the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison extended an unusual job offer to scientist Caroline VanSickle: to join the country’s—and likely the world’s—first-ever endowed fellowship for feminist biology. If you’ve never heard of feminist science or feminist biology, you’re not alone. While the field of feminist science is far […]