October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The Ms. Blog will be publishing a series of posts detailing the impact of domestic violence, including personal essays and more, throughout the month. The impact of gun violence on victims and survivors of domestic violence cannot be overstated. The statistics are chilling: Approximately 2 out of every 3 domestic violence […]
Justice & Law
Domestic Violence Survivor Jailed for Failing to “Protect her Children” from Abuser
Domestic abuse survivor Tondalo Hall has spent the last decade behind bars in a McLoud, Oklahoma prison for “failing to protect” her children from a violent partner. Robert Braxton, Jr. was arrested in 2004 for breaking the ribs and femur of the couple’s daughter, who was 3 months old at the time. He was sentenced to 10 […]
New Study Reveals Scary Consequence of Catcalling
As if catcalling wasn’t bad enough, a new study has found that women who feel objectified may be more likely to become victims of sexual assault. The study, published recently in Psychology of Violence, found that many women who feel objectified begin to obsessively monitor their looks from an outsider’s perspective. That can lead to decreased sexual assertiveness and a higher risk […]
How to Talk to Kids About Sex and Consent
In the wake of the St. Paul’s School verdict, I want to talk about rape and responsibility. Rape is not new. Our reaction to it, though, has been evolving. In the last few years, we’ve seen a meaningful shift in the way sexual assault is discussed. That hasn’t happened on its own; the changes are […]
Blind Justice: On Law School, Misogyny and Sexual Abuse
Reprinted with permission from The Toast In my third year of law school, I began to remember things I had spent most of my life forgetting. My attention fractured into a thousand glass splinters, each one cutting. I was assailed with strange images. With the images came disconnection, as if I was watching what was in […]
God Responds to Kim Davis
Voice Male magazine, a publication chronicling the profeminist men’s movement, reports that it has come into possession of a memo from God to Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky clerk who has refused to issue marriage licenses to any couples since the Supreme Court ruling affirming gay marriage more than two months ago. She was jailed for […]
Is Your Campus Safe? 5 Ways to Know
The following is a reprint from the latest issue of Ms. To get the entire magazine in your mailbox or inbox, subscribe now! According to a 2015 Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 1 in 5 women students experience a rape or attempted rape while in college. Here are five ways to gauge your school’s sexual-violence climate. […]
From Iraq to North Dakota: The Global Sex-Trafficking Crisis
Recent reports have surfaced about the sexual enslavement of women and girls by the so-called Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL), an extremist group that has overtaken territories in Northern Iraq and Syria. Video footage appears to show ISIS men sitting around talking and laughing before they bid to purchase women and girls; price tables for […]
Ending the Rape Kit Backlog: What’s the Price of a Survivor’s Peace of Mind?
A nationwide investigation spearheaded by USA Today has found that at least 70,000 rape kits sit untested in laboratories around the country. While Detroit and other cities have made headlines for their determination to clear rape kit backlogs (in Detroit’s case, only after the Department of Justice found its police department guilty of “negative, victim-blaming beliefs” in 2008) this […]
Kimberlé Crenshaw on Sandra Bland & Why We Need to #SayHerName
The jailhouse death of Sandra Bland has her family and activists asking a lot of questions—which don’t seem to have good answers. Bland’s case is the latest example of police violence against Black women, joining many other women and girls of color who have been harassed, abused or killed at the hands of law enforcement. […]