Herstory

Ms. Magazine Wins Gold at the Anthem Awards for FEMINIST 250, a Celebration of the Women Who Shaped America

PUBLISHED 11/6/2026 by

Ms. is thrilled to announce that FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists has won Gold in Special Projects, Belonging and Inclusion at the 2026 Anthem Awards.

Presented by the organization behind the prestigious Webby Awards, the Anthems are considered the premier international honors for social impact, recognizing the world’s most innovative and influential work advancing social change.

Launched during Women’s History Month to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary, FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists is sweeping, beautifully illustrated collection of essays, historical research, art and multimedia storytelling that challenges the familiar story of America’s founding.

Among the project’s most compelling stories:
—In “Haudenosaunee Governance: The Matrilineal Democracy That Shaped America,” Michelle Schenandoah, a member of the Oneida Nation Wolf Clan, explores an Indigenous system of governance in which women have long held political, economic and spiritual authority—and whose democratic traditions influenced the United States.
—Historian Vanessa M. Holden’s “She Wanted to Be Free: Black Women’s Revolutionary Resistance” tells the story of Ona Judge, a woman enslaved by George and Martha Washington who escaped to freedom, and the countless other Black women who resisted slavery long before the nation’s founding ideals were extended to them.
—In “Queer Possibilities in Revolutionary America,” historian Jen Manion challenges the notion that transgender and gender-nonconforming people are a modern phenomenon. She uncovers the lives of people who defied gender expectations centuries before today’s language for LGBTQ+ identities existed.

… and more.

Ms. Global: South Korea Approves Abortion Pills; Anti-Femicide Protests in Cameroon; 50K Women and Girls Killed or Injured in Gaza in Three Years; and More

PUBLISHED 11/4/2026 by and

The U.S. ranks as the 31st most dangerous country for women, 55th in maternal mortality, 43rd in closing the gender pay gap, 84th in women’s political representation, and painfully lacks paid family leave and equal access to healthcare. But Ms. has always understood: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the U.S.’ most intractable problems. Ms. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.

This month:
—South Korea is set to approve abortion pills for public use the first time next year.
—Women political prisoners face torture and other abuses in Myanmar, warns Human Rights Watch.
—Nearly 50,000 women and girls have been killed or severely injured in Gaza in the past three years.
—Somalia approves bill to strengthen rights for abuse victims after a decade of negotiations.
—Gen Z is helping organize India’s pro-democracy protests.

… and more.

The Marcia Ann Gillespie I Remember: A 60-Year Friendship Forged at the Dawn of Two Journalism Careers

PUBLISHED 11/4/2026 by

Marcia and I first met in 1966 at Time-Life Books, our first jobs after college. We didn’t know each other, because we worked in different research departments at opposite ends of the same floor in the big Time-Life Inc. building.

One day I was exploring the territory, and I stumbled upon this young Black woman hard at work at her desk. “Hello,” I said tentatively. Marcia looked up with surprise and a smile broke out on her face as we introduced ourselves. We were no longer “the only ones.”

From that day, we became close friends.

Marcia’s mother, Ethel Gillespie, was a successful caterer on Long Island, and at our annual Christmas dinner gathering, Marcia could be counted on to proudly share her mother’s cherished recipes. Marcia learned to prepare her food with the same meticulous legacy that she applied to life—no shortcuts.

Marcia Ann Gillespie Was My Hero. Then She Became My Friend.

PUBLISHED 11/4/2026 by

Marcia Ann Gillespie was my dear friend for 40 years, but long before that, she was my inspiration.

She is rightly remembered as an influential political and social critic, a women’s and civil rights advocate, and the provocative editor-in-chief of Essence and Ms. magazines. To me, Marcia was all of that and—as she would say—a bag of chips.

In 1970, when Marcia joined Essence magazine as managing editor, I was an undergraduate at the University of Missouri in Columbia. At the time, Black students were an unwelcome bit of chocolate in a very large vat of vanilla. In response, we organized the Legion of Black Collegians. Our goal was to compel the university to hire Black faculty, introduce courses addressing the historical and contemporary lives and concerns of Black people, and confront the racism and bigotry we frequently experienced from both teachers and fellow students.

We raised our fists, marched and chanted, but many of us had not yet learned how to apply “I’m Black and I’m Proud” to ourselves as women. Then came Marcia Ann Gillespie and Essence magazine.

Rest in Power, Marcia Ann Gillespie: The Trailblazing Editor Who Transformed Women’s Media

PUBLISHED 11/3/2026 by

Marcia Ann Gillespie, an innovator and pathbreaker in media who lifted up the voices of Black women in a field dominated by men, died on Saturday, Oct. 31. She was 82.

Heralded for breaking barriers in journalism, she was an inspiring writer, revered editor and thought leader. She came of age in media leadership in the wake of the horrific assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., amid the lingering Vietnam War. It was an era defined by the rise of Black power and Black love movements, but also by the killings of student protesters at Kent State University.

Gillespie was born on July 10, 1944, in Rockville Centre, N.Y., to entrepreneurial, hardworking parents. After graduating from Lake Forest College in Illinois, she returned to New York to work at Time-Life Books, which was bustling and rapidly expanding at the time, with publications spanning nature, art, food and more.

Her remarkable path at Essence began in 1970, when she joined the new magazine as managing editor. Just a year later, in 1971, she became editor-in-chief at age 26, shortly after a group of Black entrepreneurs invested in the idea that Black women were eager for a magazine that would embrace their culture, lifestyle and experiences.

After a decade at Essence, she joined Ms. magazine in 1980, first as a contributing writer and editor, then as an executive editor, before taking the helm as editor-in-chief from 1993 to 2001. She became the first Black woman to lead the magazine.

Before the Gender Gap Had a Name, Ms. Saw Women’s Political Power Coming: Six Stories From the Archives on the Power of Women Voters

PUBLISHED 11/3/2026 by

A record 590 women filed to run for the U.S. House during the 2026 election cycle. Women candidates are also poised to make history in gubernatorial races across the country: Deb Haaland could become the nation’s first Native American woman governor in New Mexico, while Keisha Lance Bottoms could become the first Black woman governor in U.S. history if elected in Georgia.

Yet women still hold only about 28 percent of seats in Congress. And the stakes of this election—from reproductive freedom and immigration enforcement, to voting rights and the future of constitutional equality—extend far beyond the number of women elected.

For more than five decades, Ms. has documented the growing power of women voters, candidates and elected officials. We’ve tracked the gender gap, challenged the barriers facing women in politics and explored what it would mean to build a democracy that represents all of us.

These six selections from the Ms. Archive trace that history—from the earliest predictions of women’s political power, to today’s calls to fundamentally remake American democracy. (Full access to these selections and the entirety of 50+ years of issues of Ms. is available via the Ms. Magazine Archive on ProQuest, from Clarivate.)

The Rise of Pronatalist Horror in an Age of Reproductive Control

PUBLISHED 10/28/2026 by

Alex Goyette’s new psychological horror film Breeder, opening in U.S. theaters Wednesday, Oct. 28, explores the terrifying ambitions of Patti (Dot-Marie Jones), a poodle breeder who lures young men to her remote ranch with promises of research funding. Russell (Daniel Doheny), a cash-strapped researcher working to save endangered bees, however, finds that Patti is keeping men trapped as breeding stock as part of her own eugenics-style program.

“I’m actually moving on from dog breeding,” Patti says in the trailer, “Now, I’m doing something more important: I’m breeding people.” Patti will force Russell to breed with her daughter, and warns that if he fails, he will face a fate like all of the other studs who failed: He will be put down.

Contemporary filmmakers and artists who grew up under the Reagan, Bush and Trump administrations are confronting Americans’ reproductive anxieties through stories about reproductive coercion, bodily autonomy and the consequences of treating human beings as instruments of reproduction.

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, P.D. James’ Children of Men and Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby represent the earliest examples of the subgenre.

Breeder (2026) will likely be another powerful example.

Rest in Power, Dolores Huerta. She Never Waited for Permission—and Neither Should We

PUBLISHED 10/28/2026 by and

We lost Dolores Huerta on Wednesday, Oct. 28. She died at home in Bakersfield, Calif., surrounded by family. She was 96.

You know the words she left us: “Sí, se puede”—“Yes, it can be done.” People print them on T-shirts now. Dolores never meant them as a slogan; she meant them as an instruction.

Before the strikes, before the boycotts, before the contracts and the awards, she taught school in Stockton, Calif. The children came to her hungry, and some came in clothes too thin for the season. Their parents worked long days in the fields for wages that covered neither.

After watching this for a while, she reached a conclusion most people would have kept to themselves: She could do more for those children by organizing their parents than by teaching them. So she left the classroom. That was the first time she declined to stay where she had been put—but it was not the last.

She helped build what became the United Farm Workers. When she negotiated, growers signed contracts that covered healthcare, retirement and safer working conditions. When she organized the grape boycott, 17 million Americans stopped buying grapes. (Seventeen million!)

We first heard her speak at a convention of the National Organization for Women in the late 1980s. By then, Dolores had spent three decades as the woman nobody had planned for. We asked her to join us in a new venture: a national effort to put more women in elected office. Dolores said yes. She stayed nearly 40 years, becoming an adviser to Ms. magazine after the Feminist Majority Foundation took over publishing it in 2001.

The election is six days away. For 70 years, Dolores knocked on doors to tell people one thing: Democracy works only when you show up. If you want to honor her this week, do what she would have asked. Vote. Then bring someone with you. She would have preferred that to flowers.

Her Abortion as a Teen in an Abusive Relationship Was ‘the Best Decision I Could Have Made.’ Nevada’s Question 6 Would Protect That Freedom.

PUBLISHED 10/19/2026 by

Beth Osborne, a Las Vegas writer and activist, had an abortion as a teenager. Now, she is working to convince Nevadans to approve Question 6 on their November ballots, which would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution and preserve safe, legal abortion in the state.

A Farewell to L7, the Band That Rocked for Choice and Refused to Play Nice

PUBLISHED 10/15/2026 by

No band has been louder about its feminism—and braver in putting their bodies where their mouths are—than L7, the Los Angeles rock band who recently launched their farewell world tour, despite a year marked by tragic loss.

L7’s farewell tour plans almost came crashing to a halt in July, when bassist Jennifer Finch was diagnosed with brain cancer. Mere days after the announcement of her illness with a GoFundMe campaign, Finch died at age 59.

Jennifer Finch’s death was widely mourned in feminist and music circles. But Sparks doesn’t want to—can’t, really—talk much about it. The show has gone on: Janis Tanaka, who played bass in L7 in the late ‘90s, has rejoined the group.