More Than A Magazine, A Movement
The popular and critically acclaimed series The Handmaid’s Tale and The Righteous Gemstones each recently wrapped a successful series run.
When placed in conversation, The Righteous Gemstones and The Handmaid’s Tale expose the dangerous consequences of women participating in the cultural backlash against feminism. The tradwife ideologies that Amber and Judy negotiate, and that Serena Joy embraces in theory, become a totalitarian nightmare for women in The Handmaid’s Tale.
“It’s just domestic violence.”
“They did not have a good relationship.”
If I had a dime for every utterance of those repulsive, dismissive sentiments from TV pundits and legal experts about the details in the Sean “Diddy” Combs trial in New York, I would donate it to the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women, to reinvigorate paused funding.
That is because the cultural affinity for survivor diminishment as demonstrated in this case is aligned to the White House administration’s latest reduction of monetary, social, healthcare, housing and legal support for those experiencing domestic violence.
“I need your thoughts on this.” Attached to this urgent text was a link my friend had forwarded to me: An article by Elizabeth Gulino titled, “You Can Buy Sydney Sweeney’s Bathwater Now.”
Upon my first glance at the article, I found myself instinctually grasping for some feminist argument of the campaign, which Sweeney claimed to be fulfilling her fans’ persistent and frankly invasive requests for her bathwater. However, the way our commercial society and the broader marketplace are structured encourages women to market themselves towards those often degrading desires and enables men to continue acting as if treating women as objects is acceptable. And the solution is not restructuring what we construe as feminism, but rather, resisting the urge to accommodate one’s power to what seems like inevitable exploitation.
Defending bathwater products in the name of feminism will not lead us to the kind of liberation we could want for ourselves.
In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.
This week:
—California Governor Gavin Newsom stands up to President Trump over ICE raids: “California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next.”
—Trump threatens EMTALA.
—Israeli forces detained Greta Thunberg and 11 other activists while trying to deliver aid to Gaza.
—New research found unintended pregnancies correlate with gender inequality.
—Taylor Swift finally owns her entire music catalog.
… and more.
“Langston Hughes called [A’Lelia Walker] the ‘Joy Goddess’ of Harlem’s 1920s,” said A’Lelia Bundles, great-great-granddaughter of Madam C.J. Walker and author of Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance, out June 11.
“Now, her life was not always happy. But I think his idea was that she used her wealth, her influence and her homes to create a joyful space and a welcoming space for a wide range of people.”
The U.S. ranks as the 19th most dangerous country for women, 11th in maternal mortality, 30th in closing the gender pay gap, 75th in women’s political representation, and painfully lacks paid family leave and equal access to health care. But Ms. has always understood: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the U.S.’s most intractable problems. Ms. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.
This week: News from South Korea, Mexico, Poland, Australia and more.
This month, the powerful new documentary Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print, celebrating the trailblazing history and enduring impact of Ms. magazine, premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival. With intimate interviews, rare archival footage and excerpts from the Ms. book, 50 Years of Ms.: The Best of the Pathfinding Magazine That Ignited a Revolution (September 2023, Knopf), the filmmakers shine a spotlight on the magazine’s early days as a radical force for feminism, equality and truth-telling.
It’s a thrilling and timely reminder: Ms. has always named the problem—and we still do.
If you’re in New York City June 10-15, we’d love for you to see it! If you can’t make it to a screening, don’t worry: The film will stream on HBO Max starting in July.
Each month, Ms. provides readers with a list of new books being published by writers from historically excluded groups.
Red Hen Press. Alice James Books. Voice of Witness. Nightboat Books. Deep Vellum. Feminist Press. These are just a few of the many indie publishers and nonprofits who recently had their National Endowment for the Arts funding cut by the federal government. An attack on art—specifically literary art—is a deliberate attempt to keep us feeling hopeless, uninspired and compliant.
Many affected publishers have been strategizing ways to lessen the impact, but there is work for us to do, too. Now, more than ever, it’s crucial for us to buy or borrow these publishers’ works, share them with our loved ones and ask our local librarians to get copies.
Reading even just one or two of the 25 books on this list is a first step towards sending the message that we will continue to support the arts and prioritize the stories being told by and about marginalized groups.
When women assume a position of power, does she represent feminist leadership? Can she govern according to feminist principles? What is the difference between women’s leadership and feminist leadership?
This public syllabus on feminist leadership, assembled by Ms. contributing editor Janell Hobson and students in her graduate research seminar at the University at Albany, is an attempt to respond to these questions by exploring different examples of feminist leaders and feminist movements—both globally and historically.
We hope this syllabus can educate us on the kind of feminist leadership that will move us forward toward an inclusive democracy.
(This is Part 2 of a two-part series on women leaders and feminist leadership. Part 1—out last week—breaks down Angela Bassett’s role as U.S. president in the latest and final installment of Mission: Impossible, and how her representation on screen blurs the line between the impossible fictions and possible realities of women’s power in American politics.)
Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning featured Tom Cruise’s action hero Ethan Hunt deep-sea diving through a submarine 500 feet under the sea, swimming naked in sub-zero temperatures, and sky diving in the middle of a plane duel. And yet, perhaps the most implausible fiction was… a Black woman president of the United States?!
Black male presidents in film and TV set the stage for Barrack Obama’s election. Could more depictions of Black female leaders pave the way for a Black woman president?
(This is Part 1 of a two-part series on women leaders and feminist leadership. Part 2—out Monday, June 2—continues with a public syllabus.)