Category: Herstory

The Women’s Basketball Team’s Path to the Olympics Was Paved by Title IX

From Caitlin Clark’s success this season, to the Women’s Basketball Team shot at The Olympics this week, the history of women’s basketball has been paved by Title IX.

“It’s now over 50 years since Title IX was passed and it’s amazing how great U.S. women athletes are doing [at the Olympics]. Finally hearts and minds are getting closer to matching the law. People are investing in women’s sports as a business, not a charity,” said Billie Jean King.

(This article originally appears in the Summer 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation: Kamala Harris Takes the Torch; Rest in Power, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee; Will D.C. Get Ranked-Choice Voting This November?

Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation. 

This week: remembering U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s leadership in protecting women from domestic violence and recognizing Juneteenth as a national holiday; For the first time in history, parent athletes competing in the Olympics now have access to a nursery in the Olympic Village; Alice Milliat was a pioneer who championed gender equality in the Olympics; Kamala Harris is the best candidate to compete against former President Trump; and more.

Trump’s Appeal to Nostalgia Deliberately Evokes America’s More Racist, More Sexist Past

There’s a reason Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign is working hard to evoke nostalgia: People who are nostalgic—meaning, people who long for America’s “good old days”—were more likely to vote for Republican candidates in the 2022 midterm elections.

Trump’s nostalgia is more than simple retrospection. Trump’s appeal isn’t just about a better economic past or a more stable society. It serves as an evocation of a time in America when women and minorities had less power.

What the 3.2 Million-Year-Old Lucy Fossil Reveals About Nudity and Shame

Fifty years ago, scientists discovered “Lucy,” a nearly complete fossilized skull and hundreds of pieces of bone of a 3.2-million-year-old female specimen of the genus Australopithecus afarensis, often described as “the mother of us all.”

Though Lucy has solved some evolutionary riddles, her appearance remains an ancestral secret.

Popular renderings dress her in thick, reddish-brown fur, with her face, hands, feet and breasts peeking out of denser thickets.This hairy picture of Lucy, it turns out, might be wrong.

Remembering the Late Faith Ringgold—the Black Feminist Artist Who Knew Who She Was

The late Faith Ringgold was a feminist, an activist, a teacher, a mother and an artist known for her innovative use of mediums, ranging from the more traditional oil on canvas, murals and mosaics, to story quilts, protest posters and soft sculptures.

(This article originally appears in the Summer 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)

‘My Journey From Guerilla to Grandmother’: The Ms. Q&A With Katherine Ann Power

In 1970, college student Katherine Ann Power became involved with a revolutionary anti-war guerilla group. Power was the getaway driver when the group attempted to rob a Massachusetts bank to help finance the anti-war movement.
For years, Power lived as Alice Metzinger: baker, cook and eventually— mom. As she reflected on her own responsibility for the officer’s death, she concluded that she needed to turn herself in to begin the long process of redemption and restitution.

Power has just written a memoir about her experience, Surrender: My Journey from Guerilla to Grandmother. She recently talked with Ms. about her involvement in the anti-war movement, the killing of police officer Walter Schroeder, her time in prison and her reflections on it all. 

‘The Other Roe’: Abortion Documentary Spotlights Atlanta Attorney Margie Pitts Hames

Most people are unaware that Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton were both argued on the same day before the Supreme Court and upheld in the 1973 decision that legalized abortion. Roe legalized the right to abortion, while Doe ensured its availability and accessibility.

After nearly 50 years, both decisions were overturned in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case in June 2022, leading to a fragmented legalization of abortion across the country. Ironically, the Jackson clinic that brought the suit was started by Susan Hill and me in 1995.

I was puzzled that the Doe decision and the lawyer who argued it, Margie Pitts Hames, did not have a more prominent place in the history of abortion rights. So I’m making a documentary about her and the case, called The Other Roe.