It’s been quite a week. I’m guessing, like me, you saw a connective thread in the headlines: Accountability rarely arrives on its own. It comes because people refuse to stay silent.
Violence & Harassment
Poems Wherein the Bullet Speaks: A Review of Heidi Kasa’s ‘The Bullet Takes Forever’
Consider the title of Heidi Kasa’s first book of poetry, published by Mouthfeel Press: The Bullet Takes Forever. In seven syllables, Kasa’s title conjures a wide swath of loss, both vertical and horizontal, the catastrophic consequences of gun violence, robbing us of time and life itself.
The way the title lands is a fine indicator of the way Kasa’s poems will strike the courageous reader, the reader willing to dwell for a time in this space dedicated to examining violence, often delivered upon the most vulnerable among us.
Reading these poems, I realized how little narrative Kasa actually needs to provide. We already know the story. We have lived it, watched it unfold again and again in schools and communities across this country. At a moment when the Trump administration is rolling back gun regulations, Kasa’s poems remind me that policy debates can never capture what violence leaves behind: grief, fear and lives forever altered. Her collection asks us not simply to read, but to remember.
“Back to School Shopping List
“1. backpack (big enough to hide behind)
“2. notebook (for reunification records)”
“7. spelling test (words: tourniquet, instructions, wound, direct, manual, pressure).”
The Mask Is the Message
Most of us have seen the photograph by now.
I keep coming back to the masks.
Masks have always carried meaning. A surgeon wears one to protect a patient. Someone recovering from an illness wears one to protect themselves and others. A firefighter wears one to survive long enough to save someone else.
But when someone covers their face while intimidating another person, threatening a community, or committing a crime, the purpose isn’t protection. It’s concealment. It’s a way of saying: I want to do this, but I don’t want anyone to know it was me. That’s why Patriot Front marches with their faces covered.
Federal immigration agents carrying out arrests in public places wear face coverings for the same reasons: They create anonymity. They make accountability harder. They allow participants to disappear back into ordinary life once the march is over. They make denial easier.
I’ve participated in protests and marches over the years alongside hundreds—sometimes thousands—of people. Not one of us wore a mask. We stood behind our words and convictions. We accepted that our names belonged with our beliefs.
A Rape-Survivor-Turned-Prosecutor Is Teaching Women How to Heal
One of us is a doctor, the other a lawyer. We’re also members of a club that no woman ever asks to join, but too many are forced into, often by men they loved and trusted.
JoDee Neil, a Texas attorney and former prosecutor, has spent her career seeking justice for survivors of sexual violence. Now, in her new book Outcry Witness, she tells her own story—one shaped by rape, trauma and the long, uneven path toward healing. As survivors ourselves, we recognized something familiar in each other: the understanding that comes without explanation, and the belief that when institutions fail us, women often become each other’s lifeline.
An “outcry witness” is the first person a survivor tells about their abuse, and that response can shape the course of healing. Neil argues that being believed is not a small act of compassion—it is the foundation on which survivors rebuild their lives.
In an era when powerful men continue to evade accountability, Outcry Witness offers something the legal system too often cannot: validation, community and hope.
Our conversation became more than an interview. It became a reminder that storytelling is itself an act of resistance—that women speaking honestly to one another can challenge shame, expose violence and create the conditions for healing.
“We are at the precipice of the dam breaking,” Neil told me. “We’ve never been able to communicate in real time with each other, to really put the pieces together. … I am so full of excitement to be a part of this movement for humanity.”
Her book is an invitation for survivors to do exactly that.
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Keeping Score: Abortion Bans Cost $140B Per Year; Federal Courts Protect Trans Youth and Incarcerated Trans Women; Feminists React to FBI Raid on Ohio Voting Rights Organization
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:
—Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas) is working to get Republicans on the record on the Right to Contraception Act.
—ICE has already reported the deaths of 18 detainees this year, on pace to surpass the highest number of deaths in decades.
—Abortion restrictions could cost the U.S. economy $140 billion annually in lost earnings.
—”I love the inflation,” says Trump.
—The EEOC will no longer require federal agencies to report on race, ethnicity, sex or gender identity.
—83 percent of American voters agree that emergency contraception should be easily accessible.
—Abortion ban states are slowly losing a generation of women medical students and doctors.
—More than 770,000 children have already lost access to SNAP benefits after last year’s funding cuts.
—A new study found trans women athletes have no significant physical advantages over cis women.
—Missouri has restored access to medication abortions after a Jackson County judge struck down key state restrictions, allowing clinics to resume providing the service and marking the first time medication abortion has been available in Missouri since 2018.
—Republicans passed a reconciliation bill that provides roughly $70 billion for ICE and CBP, sending it to President Trump’s desk. (This is on top of more than $140 billion Republicans already provided for those agencies last year.)
… and more.
‘Protesters Spit on Us’: Why This Wisconsin Abortion Clinic Escort Won’t Back Down
Molly (last name withheld for privacy), a 35-year-old clinic escort, says they will not be deterred from helping patients get the care they need at a Milwaukee clinic that provides abortions.
Molly outlines the current landscape of threats facing providers, the history that informs this moment, and what is at stake when violence against reproductive healthcare workers is minimized or ignored.
“Being an abortion escort appealed to me because I would be able to interact with people who were coming to the clinic to receive an abortion and give them support. …
“Abortion clinic escorts are doing de-escalation with radicalized people, and we have no weapons. We are a unique group of people with strong de-escalation training. … When I train new escorts, I tell them the names of some of our regular protesters: ‘This is Joe. This is Sam.’ I think names hold a lot of power, and if you know someone’s name, it takes away some of the fear. …
“I tell new escorts to approach a car slowly. Sometimes people arrive early and want to sit and take a breath. Sometimes they have children with them and are getting situated. … Then as they walk into the clinic, stand between them and the people shouting on the sidewalk to act as a physical sound barrier.
“What’s kept me coming back to this work is the other clinic escorts, who are all passionate about reproductive rights. You make incredible friends and build strong bonds when you spend so much time together. I advise other escorts, especially new people, to practice self-care after a shift. It’s not normal to be yelled at for hours. We get called ‘harlots,’ ‘jezebels’ and ‘sinners,’ so I encourage decompression time. Everybody has their own post-clinic ritual for self-centering. … I usually come home and do some baking. …
“I think the protesters believe we escorts have very sad lives. But I get to go home to a happy, loving place and a freshly cooked meal with my husband and two dogs.”
When it Comes to Consent, ‘Yes Means Yes’ Is Not Enough
In 1993, Saturday Night Live parodied a new affirmative consent policy at Antioch College with a sketch starring Mike Myers who asks explicit consent for each intimate act such as, “May I elevate the level of sexual intimacy by feeling your buttocks?” The joke landed because the policy seemed absurd—the punchline signaling political correctness run amok.
Decades later, affirmative consent policies like Antioch’s are now standard at universities across the country.
The arc from national ridicule to national norm was driven by survivors, educators, researchers and students themselves who pushed for a shift from “no means no” toward “yes means yes.” Advocates sought to articulate that women are not merely gatekeepers—survivors are not culpable for not articulating “no” (i.e. silence doesn’t equal consent). Instead, it’s on everyone to make sure they have a clear “yes.” This movement simultaneously sought to emphasize women’s sexual agency, empowering them to actively express “yes” to desired sexual encounters.
Yet despite widespread adoption of affirmative consent policies on campuses, not much has changed. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, rates of sexual violence on college campuses remain high, with one in five women and one in 16 men experiencing assault, and over 40 percent experiencing sexually harassing behavior.
This persistence suggests that consent alone cannot bear the weight we place upon it.
Forced to Face the Facts… 3.5 Million Files of Them: A Look Inside the Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room
The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room—a traveling exhibit—opened in a Tribeca gallery from May 8 to 24. Located a few blocks from where Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his cell, the library saw over 10,000 visitors during its 16-day run.
The Institute for Primary Facts (IPF), a nonprofit focused on government transparency and teaching civic literacy through educational exhibits, organized the 3.5 million pages of DOJ’s released Epstein files into 3,437 bound books that lined the walls on the first floor of the exhibit. For many, the gallery was important to understand the sheer volume of the files and the harm within them.
Ms. Global: Women Make Up Two-Thirds of Ebola Cases in DRC, Families Mourn Fishers Killed in Trump’s Boat Strikes and More
The U.S. ranks as the 19th most dangerous country for women, 11th in maternal mortality, 30th in closing the gender pay gap, 75th 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.’s most intractable problems.
Ms. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.
This month: news from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India, Denmark, Mexico and more.
Carré Otis Has Opened a Door for Survivors of Abuse in the Modeling Industry. Will Others Walk Through It?
A new legal door opened earlier this month in the fight for survivor justice. But it’s not in the United States, where survivors and advocates continue to press for transparency and investigations into Jeffrey Epstein’s larger network and the modeling industry’s potential role in it. It’s in France.
Carré Otis, a U.S.-based former supermodel and board member of the Model Alliance, filed a criminal complaint in French court alleging rape of a minor and human trafficking by Gérald Marie, a former giant of the modeling industry who led Elite Model Management’s European operations from 1985 to 2010.
The complaint alleges that Otis was 17 when Elite sent her to Paris in 1986 and housed her in Gérald Marie’s apartment, where she “mistakenly believ[ed] that he wanted to support her modeling career.” While living there, Otis alleges that Marie raped her on multiple occasions and later arranged for her to be “provided to other wealthy men across Europe.” The complaint also says Otis was never paid for her modeling work.
Marie has denied Otis’ allegations, and because of France’s statute of limitations, cannot be criminally prosecuted for these particular allegations.
Still, Otis’ recent filing could prove consequential well beyond her own case.