Read the reviews from the best documentaries like Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print and Zurawski v Texas from the past year.
The Best Feminist Fiction Films and TV Shows of 2025
From devastating dramas to sharp satires and genre-bending thrillers, this year’s feminist fiction on screen refused easy answers—and demanded our attention. These films and series center women’s agency, ambition and survival, offering stories that linger long after the credits roll. Here are some of the standout feminist fiction watches of the year.
Aviva Dove-Viebahn reviews the top fiction feminist watches from the past year including The Substance, Ironheart and The Better Sister.
2025 ‘Best of the Rest’: Our Favorite Books of the Year
You’ve read the other “Best of” lists—now read this one. You know, the one for the rest of us.
Here are Ms. magazine’s top feminist books of 2025.
The Epstein Files Matter Only If We Center Survivors
The latest episodes of the Ms. Studios podcast On the Issues with Michele Goodwin reclaim the Epstein files from the men who dominate the narrative.
This two-part series includes a conversation with Jess Michaels, a 1991 Epstein survivor, and Moira Donegan, a feminist writer and journalist with The Guardian.
What the ‘Wicked’ Weight-Loss Discourse Gets Wrong
We can’t afford to look away from changing beauty norms in our society, and how they are fueling eating disorders.
Jennifer Rollin, an eating disorder therapist based in Maryland, says, “What I hear from a lot of clients is that when they are trying to recover from their eating disorder in this society, it almost feels wrong, because ‘everyone around me is talking about Ozempic,’ and ‘all the celebrities are talking about their big amount of weight loss.’”
But while it can feel cathartic to criticize or distance ourselves from prominent women who seem to be conforming to dangerous beauty standards, that criticism is harmful and does not bring us any closer to addressing the problem.
The Gifts We Give Children Matter More Than We Think
Gift-giving may seem small, a holiday ritual, a birthday moment, a simple gesture. But it lays a cultural and societal foundation. Children need stories that build possibilities, not break them into stereotypes. They need toys that expand their sense of self, not shrink it.
bell hooks Taught Us to Imagine Freedom. Universities Are Forcing Us to Fight for It.
On the day bell hooks became an ancestor, four years ago today, my beloved friend, comrade and co-conspirator Black feminist sociologist Shawn McGuffey and I were consoling one another over text when he wrote, “We should do something.” “Say less,” I replied.
We had institutional support from Northeastern University at a time when universities and other institutions were publicly and ceremoniously committing to funding DEI related initiatives in the tidal wave of so-called racial reckoning that occurred in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. The first symposium took place two months later on a cold and clear February morning in 2022. This annual gathering became an important tradition that we looked forward to each year.
This week, we mark four years since the woman born Gloria Jean Watkins, a Black feminist writer, academic, professor and activist became an ancestor. But in 2026, there will be no bell hooks symposium at my university. Due to university wide fiscal austerity, we will not mark the anniversary this year in any official way. It is a tremendous loss, for our students and for our community locally, nationally and internationally.
As I grappled with my own grief over this loss, I had to also reflect deeply about what it means to be a Black feminist scholar in the academy today.
Trump’s Anti-Diversity Crusade Claims Two Campus Magazines
I recently discovered two glossy magazines published by and for young people: Alice, which focuses on fashion, beauty, personal health, wellness and lifestyle; and Nineteen Fifty-Six, which brings a Black cultural lens to coverage of news, style and the arts.
Both are student-run publications housed at the University of Alabama. And on any other day, they would make one think the future of journalism look very bright indeed. Except that the sole reason I found these magazines at all is because they are now officially suspended. Last week, campus officials announced their permanent shuttering. Yet another casualty of the Trump administration’s attacks on free speech and public higher education—all in the name of stamping out supposed diversity, equity and inclusion.
‘Ms. Does Not Flinch’: Why Independent Feminist Journalism Matters
Bonnie Thornton Dill on the enduring power of Ms. magazine:
“Opening minds and eyes is what Ms. is about, and there has been no time when Ms. is more needed than it is today. …
“While major media outlets rarely, if ever, report on violence to abortion clinics and abortion providers … Ms. keeps a constant tab and a laser focus on that sort of violence, including how the deadly violence that targeted lawmakers in Minnesota was the result of antiabortion extremism. …
And what national media outlet is tracking the administration’s attacks on women and gender studies programs?”
2025’s Top Feminist Moments in Pop Culture
Another year of feminist struggles, another year of feminist triumphs. Our pop culture pushed back and provided many glimpses into feminist resistance throughout the culture.
This year’s top feminist moments reveal how artists, storytellers and creators confronted regressive politics with imagination, joy, righteous anger and expansive visions of humanity.