Politics

White Femininity Is Still the Poster Girl for American Capitalism

PUBLISHED 8/13/2025 by

In July, American Eagle released a jeans campaign with Euphoria actor Sydney Sweeney, and there’s a lot to unpack. The ad is her clad in a Canadian tuxedo, whilst her gestures and mannerisms indicate a level of seduction.

When marketing to the male gaze sex sells, and it is used as a persuasive attempt to influence consumerism, but it does not stop there. Her blonde hair and blue eyes being the selling point and the center of this advertisement with the punchline, “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.” This (not so) subtle play on words becomes explicit when she describes how genes are passed down by “offspring,” affecting things like eye color that make her “jeans blue.”

From Alligator Alcatraz to National Guard Patrols: What Is the Cost of the Trump Administration’s Cruelty?

PUBLISHED 8/13/2025 by

Reserve forces of the U.S. Army, 800 National Guardsmen, and for some reason, 120 FBI agents, are being newly assigned by El Presidente to patrol our national capital—citing crime as his motive, though it’s dropped by a third in recent (Biden) years. He’s already done this in Los Angeles for the last 60 days and predicts other cities are on his list: Baltimore, Chicago, Oakland, New York City—all places that just happen to vote blue.

Early on, the Pentagon testified it would spend about $134 million for the LA deployment, which sounds like a low-ball figure to anyone who’s recently shopped for groceries to feed 5,000 hungry young men three meals a day. And now, California’s governor is asking for the total cost to taxpayers of this “unlawful” deployment—because whether it’s political theater or not, we’re the ones footing the bill.

A Trump Cabinet Member Endorsed a Pastor Who Wants the 19th Amendment Repealed, and the Danger Is Growing

PUBLISHED 8/13/2025 by

Once a fringe warning, the threat to women’s right to vote is now out in the open—and in the halls of power.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reposted a video on Aug. 7 with the endorsement “All of Christ for All of Life,” in which a far-right conservative pastor, Doug Wilson, co-founder of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), argued that women should not have the right to vote.

As Wilson told the Associated Press, “He was, in effect, reposting it and saying, ‘Amen,’ at some level.”

But a deeper dive into CREC reveals troubling gender politics where women cannot hold church leadership positions and married women are expected to submit to their husbands.

Trump’s Anti-Voter Agenda Crystallizes

PUBLISHED 8/11/2025 by

Will voters have the final say in 2026?  

In recent years, despite the pandemic, violence and intense pressure, American elections were secure and their results were reported accurately. Election officials worked together across party lines. The system held.

This year, however, a new threat to free and fair elections has emerged: the federal government itself.

It’s now clear that the Trump administration has launched a campaign to undermine American elections. An important new Brennan Center analysis uses the facts to connect the dots. All of this is unprecedented. It’s often illegal. It’s alarming. And it has begun to unfold in plain sight.

Ultimately, it will be up to voters. It’s harder to rig an election when people are watching—and shouting. High turnout can overwhelm chicanery.

Texas’ Abortion Law Forced This Woman to Choose: ‘Watch My Baby Die or Flee My Home for Medical Help’

PUBLISHED 8/11/2025 by

Eighth-generation Texan Megan Bond recounted the stories of her dangerous pregnancies to Courier Texas writer Bonnie Fuller. Here’s what happened, in her own words:

“I was 15 weeks pregnant and had just had my anatomy scan. As my husband, Kevin, and I watched the technician, we could see for ourselves on the ultrasound screen that our baby boy, Teddy, had no amniotic fluid around him inside my womb. … The sound that came out of my mouth was not human. It was such a loud scream, like a banshee or something. … Our second desperately wanted baby was suffering from the same fatal fetal anomaly, bilateral renal agenesis, as our first baby. … This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“I asked my doctor if, in our case with this diagnosis, I could end the pregnancy in Texas and she said, ‘No, in Texas your only option is to carry to term.'”

Sacrificing Women for the Church of Men: Medical Conscience Rights and Christian Hypocrisy

PUBLISHED 8/9/2025 by

The Woman grew up in a small Christian town in northeastern Tennessee. Community values—kindness, compassion, love—are deeply cherished. She’s never moved; why would she? She enjoys the simplicity of her little community.

But the tide turns with a growing political movement seemingly predicated on bigotry and punitive, hypocritical morality. The news cycle churns frenetically, each day bearing more distressing confusion.

Her state representatives are unresponsive to your concerns, and she has a serious one: She’s pregnant and unmarried in post-Roe America, and cannot get care in her state. Legally, a doctor can decline to provide care for you.

She’s not trying to cause problems. But she’s terrified and she wants answers. How did we get here as a nation? And can we ever go back?

A grave truth transcends: Christian fundamentalism has insidiously inserted itself into American policy, perverting its own values to legalize discrimination.

Bigotry doesn’t always present as a Unite the Right rally or violence in our nation’s capital. Sometimes, it comes with a demure smile and a sweet, “It’s just my personal belief.” It’s still bigotry.

What Happens When Doulas Write the Law? New Mexico’s Medicaid Win Shows How to Fight Back 

PUBLISHED 8/8/2025 by

As abortion bans sweep the U.S., clinics shutter and gender-affirming care is criminalized, New Mexico accomplished something radical: It passed a law to pay doulas—because doulas save lives.

In 2025, the state unanimously enacted HB 214, the Doula Credentialing and Access Act, creating the nation’s most comprehensive Medicaid coverage for full-spectrum doula care, including for abortion, miscarriage, pregnancy, birth, postpartum and loss.

This victory was decades in the making, a fight led by Black, Indigenous, Latinx, LGBTQ+, immigrant, disabled and community-based doulas. These care workers have long provided essential, unpaid labor in a healthcare system that overlooked them. Now, for the first time, their labor is recognized as essential health infrastructure.

Still, as this vision takes root under HB 214, federal funding threats loom, including cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and reproductive health access—all part of a national strategy to defund care and increase control. Believe in this future? Help protect it. Urge your state to follow New Mexico’s lead. Support local doula collectives. Push for policies that center care over control. The path forward is here—let’s walk it together.

(This essay is part of a collection presented by Ms. and the Groundswell Fund highlighting the work of Groundswell partners advancing inclusive democracy.)

Tackling Structural Barriers—60 Years of the Voting Rights Act

PUBLISHED 8/8/2025 by

Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation in politics, sports and entertainment, judicial offices and the private sector—with a little gardening mixed in!

This week:
—Sixty years have passed since the Voting Rights Act was passed on Aug. 5, 1965. The success of intentional policies like the Voting Rights Act grounds my belief that systems change is not only possible but necessary.
—This month marks the swearing in anniversaries for Supreme Court Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Ginsburg.
—Detroit City Council President Mary Sheffield will advance to the general election this November.
—Women won nearly 20 percent of seats in the Lower House in Jordan’s 2024 parliamentary elections, up from 13.8 percent.
—Women hold just 8 percent of negotiator roles, 9 percent of mediator roles, and less than 5 percent of peace agreement signatories in major conflict resolutions since 1990, despite evidence that their inclusion improves outcomes dramatically.

… and more.

‘It Was Never Mine’: August, Autonomy and the America We’re Losing

PUBLISHED 8/7/2025 by

Welcome, August! When my kids were young, I used to refer to it as the juiciest month of the year, loving its bloated days, all sunshine and sweat.

In 2025, I have to admit this month is yet another joy I am doing my best not to let the relentless news-and-doom cycle ruin. Curating a round-up of breaking headlines about gender and democracy is surely not for the faint of heart or spirit.

I’ll be doing all I can to channel Taylor Swift (Trump only wishes he could) and trying to salvage August so that it is “sipped away like a bottle of wine.”

France Must Not Be Complicit in U.S. Effort to Destroy Contraceptives

PUBLISHED 8/7/2025 by

As the grandson of Lucien Neuwirth, the French parliamentarian who championed the 1967 law legalizing contraception in France, I feel a deep, personal and civic responsibility to speak out against an unfolding international scandal—one that threatens not only women’s health but also the legacy of reproductive rights and justice we hold dear.

The Trump administration is attempting to incinerate $9.7 million worth of United States-funded contraceptives, primarily long-acting reversible methods such as implants and intrauterine devices (IUDs), which were purchased under the Biden administration through USAID. These devices are not expired—many are viable for up to five more years—and were meant for women in some of the world’s poorest countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.

In response, I issued an open letter to President Emmanuel Macron, urging him to intervene. “Mr. President, do not let France become complicit in this scandal,” I wrote, reminding him of our nation’s responsibility to uphold sexual and reproductive rights—a legacy rooted in the very law my grandfather fought to pass, the Loi Neuwirth.

We cannot allow France to become an accessory to injustice. The world is watching.