Education

To the Men Who Send Women Hate Mail

PUBLISHED 5/15/2026 by

I am not alone in receiving unsolicited emails—especially as a professor, public writer and thinker, and woman who dares to speak her mind. Often, the emails are thoughtful, engaging and sometimes deeply moving expressions of gratitude that warm the heart. However, from time to time, there are the crude, crass and obtuse intruders, thrusting insults and even threats into our inboxes. These expressions of masculine fragility and anger—whether intended to or not—chill the receiver’s speech and cause women to silence themselves.  

Here, then, is my response to Mr. Sawyer—but also, in many ways, a response to the countless men who insert themselves into women’s inboxes with condescension, hostility and misplaced certainty. Women in public life know these messages well: the unsolicited lectures, the attempts at intimidation, the casual cruelty masquerading as critique. Consider this every woman’s letter to the crass and crude male intruder in her inbox. I hope you enjoy.

Keeping Score: Supreme Court Blow to Voting Rights Will ‘Silence Our Voices’; Conservative Judges Try to Restrict Mifepristone; Moms Worry About Putting Food on the Table

PUBLISHED 5/14/2026 by | UPDATED 5/22/2026 at 9:28 A.M. PT

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:
—The Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, slashing protections against racially discriminatory voting laws.
—A record high amount of books were censored from libraries in 2025, often due to LGBTQ characters or plotlines addressing racism.
—A third of moms living on low incomes have gone into debt or skipped meals so their kids could eat.
—Just 22 percent of American voters have significant confidence in the Supreme Court.
—In 2025 the number of abortions in the U.S. remained stable, but more patients in states with bans turned to telehealth services instead of traveling out of state.
—The Department of Justice announced plans to expand the use of the federal death penalty.
—An Epstein-Maxwell survivor, who asked to remain anonymous, laments, “I kept my identity protected as Jane Doe. I woke up one day with my name mentioned over 500 times. While the rich and powerful remain protected by redaction, my name was exposed to the world.”
—The Trump administration launched a Moms.gov site on Mother’s Day that refers pregnant people to unregulated crisis pregnancy centers.
—A Ms. piece on solitary confinement by Kwaneta Harris and her daughter Summer Knight won Kwaneta second place in the Collaboration category of the Stillwater Awards for prison journalism.
—Liberation, a play about 1970s feminism by Bess Wohl, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. It was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. Wohl was inspired by her own life: Her mother, Lisa Cronin Wohl, was an early Ms. contributor.

… and more.

Trump Administration Launches a Legally Bogus Investigation into Smith College

PUBLISHED 5/8/2026 by and

The Trump administration claims its investigation into Smith College is about defending women. In reality, it is an attack on the rights of women at Smith to define their own community, values and mission without political interference from Washington.

The Department of Education argues that by admitting transgender women and allowing them access to campus housing and facilities, Smith may have violated Title IX. But that argument collapses under even a basic reading of the law. Title IX simply does not apply to admissions at private undergraduate colleges like Smith.

The administration’s complaint is also striking because it is not based on evidence that Smith students have been harmed or excluded from campus life. There is no public record of students filing complaints about the college’s housing, bathrooms or locker rooms policies. Instead, this investigation grew out of pressure from a conservative advocacy group determined to use federal power to impose its ideological agenda on colleges and universities.

Smith’s campus policies were shaped over years by students, faculty and administrators themselves—including cisgender women students who pushed the college to open admissions to transgender women more than a decade ago.

At its core, this investigation is about far more than one women’s college. It reflects the Trump administration’s broader campaign against trans rights, higher education and liberal arts institutions that encourage critical thought, inclusion and intellectual independence.

Congress passed Title IX to expand educational opportunities for women. Now, the administration is attempting to weaponize that same civil rights law to undermine women’s education and bully colleges into abandoning their own principles.

From Smith College to Florida’s New College: MAGA’s Campaign Against Universities, Women’s Studies and Liberal Arts

PUBLISHED 5/6/2026 by

As a professor at Smith College and chair of the Program for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality, I have closely followed the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education—and on my field in particular.

This week, those attacks landed squarely on my own campus: The Department of Education has opened a civil rights investigation into Smith’s policy of admitting transgender women, arguing the college may be violating Title IX by recognizing gender identity rather than “biological sex.” The probe—prompted by a complaint from a conservative advocacy group—questions whether a women’s college can remain legally “single sex” while including trans women, and raises the possibility of federal penalties or loss of status.

This move is not an isolated action. It is part of a broader campaign to redefine civil rights protections in ways that exclude transgender people, and to pressure colleges and universities into compliance with that vision.

It is also one of many recent attacks on higher education—especially liberal arts institutions—by Republican lawmakers and the Trump administration, aimed at universities they view as out of step with a conservative, anti-feminist agenda. In a 2021 speech titled “Universities Are the Enemy,” JD Vance declared, “We must aggressively attack the universities in this country. … Maybe it’s time to seize the endowments, penalize them for being on the wrong side of some of these culture war issues.”

Women’s, gender and sexuality studies teaches students to think critically, to question the status quo and to understand how power shapes our lives across gender, race, class, sexuality and more. These are precisely the kinds of questions that have made the field a target. Rather than engage with this work, critics have increasingly sought to discredit or dismantle it altogether. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 provides a roadmap for doing just that—but many of these strategies have already been tested at the state level.

At Rikers, a Book Club Is Helping Women Imagine Life Beyond Bars

PUBLISHED 4/23/2026 by

In 2024, comedian Nora Fried started the Rosebuds Reading Collective, a monthly book club for women incarcerated at Rikers Island, New York City’s island jail.

“I was looking forward to this all month,” Fried recalls multiple women telling her. “This is the only thing I had to look forward to.”

The women read Down the Drain, a memoir by actor Julia Fox. After the discussion, Fried tagged Fox on Instagram. Fox, whose brother was incarcerated at Rikers at the time, agreed to visit the group.

Fox learned that her book was a particularly hot commodity and that one woman’s copy had been stolen. Still, all were curious about how a girl like them had become a published author. The room resonated with laughter, from both the incarcerated women and the guards.

“It made me think to myself, I would do this every weekend. I want to come back. I love these girls,” Fox says. “They are amazing, remarkable, intelligent young women [who] made mistakes. We’ve all made mistakes. Some of us are lucky enough not to get caught.”

For Women Leaving Prison, Education Can Be a Way Out

PUBLISHED 4/21/2026 by

Standing at the bottom of the steps at Tulane University, waiting for her name to be called, Stephanie King took a deep breath. At 63, after nearly three decades in prison, she was about to receive her college diploma—something she had never imagined possible.

For King, who left high school as a pregnant teenager and earned her GED while incarcerated, the moment marked more than a personal milestone. “I just wanted to walk across that stage,” she told me. But beneath that was a deeper realization: Education could be the way out of the cycles that had defined her life.

That belief drives programs like Operation Restoration’s partnership with Tulane, which brings college and job training opportunities to women inside and beyond prison walls. Founded by formerly incarcerated advocate Syrita Steib, the organization helps women build stability through education, employment and support systems often denied to them. The path is rarely easy—students face limited resources inside prison and steep barriers upon release—but again and again, women point to the same truth: Education offers not just opportunity, but a chance to rebuild their futures on their own terms.

(This story is part of “Breaking the Cycle,” a three-part Ms. series on how women impacted by incarceration are building new futures—from education and job training, to debate teams and book clubs inside jails. Later this week: how women behind bars are finding their voices in public debate, and building community through literature.)

A Public Syllabus on Feminist Resistance Across U.S. History: Books, Films, Archives and Tools to Rethink America’s Origins

PUBLISHED 4/16/2026 by

This curated public multimedia syllabus spans the Revolutionary era and the long afterlife of feminist resistance—from the 19th century to the present. It includes works by series authors, books and articles, podcasts, films and television, primary-source collections, a Google Map of sites across the U.S. relevant to women’s histories, and a Spotify playlist tracing the legacy of protest music.

Many of these works center marginalized communities and are organized under the themes of Revolution, Resistance and Reclamation.

Black Feminist Visionary Beverly Guy-Sheftall to Discuss New Book ‘Black! Feminist! Free!’ @ LA Ms. Mag HQ, April 23

PUBLISHED 4/14/2026 by

A leading voice in Black feminist scholarship will take center stage in Beverly Hills later this month, as Beverly Guy-Sheftall joins professor and dean emerita Bonnie Thornton Dill for a public conversation on her new book, Black! Feminist! Free!

The event, hosted at Ms. magazine headquarters in Los Angeles on Thursday, April 23, from 6 to 8 p.m., is free and open to the public. Attendees can expect an evening of reflection, dialogue and community, with light refreshments provided. Copies of Guy-Sheftall’s book will be available for purchase on site, followed by a signing hosted by Reparations Club. RSVP today!

Educating Women: A History of Access, Exclusion and Backlash

PUBLISHED 4/13/2026 by

The war against “radical gender ideology” has been staggering. The ascent of President Trump brought calls for the elimination of women’s and LGBTQ centers, rollbacks on Title IX protections, the exclusion of trans women from college sports and the purging of gender and sexuality studies from college curricula across U.S. higher education. These actions signal a massive backlash against decades of progress—and are inseparable from a broader assault on civil rights-era protections for people of color.

However, this moment is nothing new. It echoes an earlier race- and gender-based backlash over a century ago, when growing numbers of white middle-class women began to attend college. Against the backdrop of Black emancipation, increased migration and the expanding feminist movement, women’s education was cast as a threat—not just to patriarchy, but to the future of the white race.

Today’s backlash is the latest attempt to restore the status quo—to draw boundaries around who is entitled to higher education and to reinforce a racial and gender hierarchy that has always shaped access to learning in the United States.

(This essay is part of the FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists series, marking the 250th anniversary of America by reclaiming the revolution through the women and gender-expansive people whose ideas, labor and resistance shaped U.S. democracy.)