Violence & Harassment

War on Women Report: ICE Lost Count of Detained Women’s Miscarriages; Sexual Assault Still Rampant on College Campuses; Post-Dobbs Ectopic Pregnancy Deaths on the Rise

PUBLISHED 10/2/2026 by , and

MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide: the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.”

We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—On Wednesday, Sept. 2, Gloria Steinem, feminist, social activist and cofounder of Ms., died in her New York City home. She was 92.
—The family of Tierra Walker, who died in 2024 after she was refused a medically necessary abortion under Texas’ abortion ban, is suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and several of Walker’s doctors and nurses in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit.
—House Republicans have formally censured Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) for his documented inappropriate conduct toward women staffers, including excessive unwanted attention and gifts ranging from flowers and purses to personalized handguns.
—Trump’s FCC chair, Brendan Carr, spent a decade as part of a cult that trafficked and sexually exploited children and young women, former members allege.
—Almost 200 women have died in the U.S. due to an ectopic pregnancy between 2020 and 2025.
—“Jane Doe,” a former Cornell University student, has filed a lawsuit alleging she was coerced into taking incapacitating drugs, then gang-raped by seven Chi Phi fraternity brothers over a period of several hours at their fraternity house in October 2024. The plaintiff is suing Cornell University, several fraternity and sorority organizations and the seven Chi Phi members: Matthew Ingalls, Johnathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar.
—A jury in Lima, Ohio, has indicted a 22-year-old woman for “abuse of a corpse” after she was arrested in February when she suffered a miscarriage and placed the fetal remains in the trash.
—The same month the details of the Cornell case emerged, a student at Louisiana State University is seeking criminal charges against a student football player for allegedly sexually assaulting her in October 2025. A Title IX investigation at the university level has found that the student-athlete is “responsible” for “sexual assault” and “forcible rape.” However, an appeals judge reduced his punishment from suspension to probation.

… and more.

‘Not One More Jane Doe’: From Kavanaugh to Cornell, Enough Is Enough

PUBLISHED 10/1/2026 by

“For the past week, all I can see is red—for the naked distrust and disgust in which women are regarded, and the willingness to believe, vouch for, and dig hard for any rationale to excuse wealthy, privileged men from any shred of accountability.”

I did not write these particular words about The Cornell 7, the fraternity brothers who are the subject of a civil lawsuit and renewed criminal investigation for allegedly raping a fellow student over the course of several hours two years ago and posting in a group chat to invite others to do the same. Among the comments allegedly in their chain: “Free p*ssy upstairs,” “you can walk in and whip it out,” and “shop still open?”

No, the opening paragraph of my column is pulled from a Ms. essay I wrote exactly eight years ago as I watched the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

In 2018 and again in 2026, the country must reckon with establishment-level failure in a sickening pattern of gender-based violence and unabashed patriarchal entitlement—in this case, the university’s tepid response, which included assigning essays to some of the men as part of their punishment, the district attorney’s decision not to prosecute, and the re-opening of the investigation now because of public outrage.

My fury is swelling right now too, but it has a somewhat different flavor than that of 2018. It is the badge of a degraded democracy that the power of certain men will not be held to account.

Who Cares if Political Candidates Associate With Sex Offenders?

PUBLISHED 9/30/2026 by

Republican candidates in two pivotal North Carolina races are being taken to task for their public association with convicted sex offenders who served time for taking indecent liberties with children.

Former North Carolina GOP chair Michael Whatley—the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate—and GOP Supreme Court candidate Sarah Stevens have been called to account in the leadup to the midterm elections for accepting support from one or more individuals either formerly or currently on the state sex offender registry. That support includes campaign work, financial contributions and even public prayers.

North Carolina state Rep. Sarah Stevens (R), who resigned from the state House of Representatives in June to run for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court, attended and accepted a donation from a fundraising picnic last year at the home of convicted sex offender Harvey West. Though Stevens said she “didn’t even know” West, she had appeared on his wife Kim West’s podcast to promote the picnic and was Facebook friends with Harvey West, a former police officer who served six years in prison after being convicted of five counts of indecent liberties with a child in 2000.

This month it was also reported that Pastor Daimon L. King, a registered sex offender “twice sentenced to prison for convictions involving children,” according to ABC, who led the opening prayer at a recent campaign stop for Whatley. King, who leads the Christian church New Beginnings Celebration, declared his church members “fully support and are behind” Whatley’s U.S. Senate candidacy.

‘To Catch a Predator’ at Cornell

PUBLISHED 9/28/2026 by

Feminists on the internet are erupting in rage and recognition after a former Cornell University student filed a lawsuit alleging she was pressured to take ketamine and was subsequently gang-raped for seven hours at a Cornell fraternity house.

At the same time, A24’s new blockbuster Primetime just hit theaters. And as pedophiles and predators continue to occupy the highest echelons of the U.S. government and walk free at universities across the country, Primetime captures why public exposure can feel like the only recourse left when institutions fail to act.

The Cornell case now has a consequential new development: This week, Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten says his office is reopening its investigation and acknowledged his office relied on campus police’s investigation rather than conducting its own.

Public outrage helped bring the case back into view, but it cannot be the primary way that we seek justice. What matters now is whether Cornell and law enforcement answer the questions raised by Doe’s lawsuit … and whether the next student who comes forward has to wait for the Internet to demand those answers.

Russia’s War on Ukraine, Recorded by the Women and Queer Journalists Living Through It

PUBLISHED 9/24/2026 by

The city of Kharkiv lies 19 miles from Russia’s western border. Nestled within this historic and cultural urban center is a small news outlet that symbolizes so much of what Putin intends to erase: the truthful recounting of Russian war crimes and the lived experiences of everyday Ukrainians. The journalists of Gwara Media are determined not to let that happen.

As world leaders gather for the U.N. General Assembly, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is in New York seeking support against Russia’s attacks. In Kharkiv, Gwara’s journalists are documenting the war as they contend with danger, discrimination and dwindling funds.

This is the story of how a small, award-winning independent media platform supports the diverse identities of their reporters who—in the words of Gwara’s mission statement—“ask uncommon questions, and listen to voices of the unheard.”

Interviews with three of the publication’s journalists reveal how the “voices of the unheard” have affected the journalists’ own lives and why what they have to say resonates far beyond Ukraine’s own borders.

A Restraining Order Is Not Enough When an Abuser Has a Gun

PUBLISHED 9/22/2026 by

Nearly 2,400 women were killed by men in 2024, according to a recent Violence Policy Center report. Nearly nine out of 10 knew their killer, and firearms were used in 63.4 percent of these homicides. When an abusive partner has access to a gun, a domestic violence victim is five times more likely to be killed.

A recent Los Angeles Times investigation illustrates the deadly consequences when legal protections fail: Former partners or close relatives were charged in the deaths of at least 63 women killed in Los Angeles County in 2024 and 2025. At least 10 of those women had sought restraining orders, but only four received them.

One was Nora Villanueva Campanor, whose abusive husband stalked her for months before abducting and fatally shooting her, despite the restraining order she had secured.

For far too long, gun violence and domestic violence have been dismissed as two separate issues. They must be examined as two interwoven public health crises. Efforts to address firearm violence must center the voices of women, particularly Black women and other communities disproportionately affected by intimate partner violence.

As World Leaders Gather at the U.N., the Push to Recognize Gender Apartheid Gains Ground

PUBLISHED 9/21/2026 by

Nearly 130 heads of state and government are expected to attend the United Nations General Assembly’s high-level week in New York. From Sept. 22 to 28, world leaders will gather for the General Debate of the 81st session under the theme, “Restoring trust, managing transformation: a United Nations that delivers for all.”

For Afghan women and girls living under the Taliban’s systematic oppression, whether the United Nations can deliver is not an abstract question. It requires the international community to recognize gender apartheid for what it is: a crime against humanity.

The support for recognizing forced marriage and reproductive violence, while stopping short of naming “gender apartheid,” presents an opportunity for feminist organizations to continue advocating for the full breadth of gender-based oppression to be recognized by the United Nations.

Keeping Score: Texas GOP Candidate Brandon Herrera’s Vile Attack on Mothers and Children; Rest in Power Gloria, Dolly, Robin Morgan, Annie Dillard and More

PUBLISHED 9/20/2026 by

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:
—The Trump administration proposed a rule that would eliminate quality standards for the Head Start preschool program.
—Todd Blanche was confirmed as attorney general, after promising to remove abortion rights nationwide.
—Democrats in the Senate call out Trump administration’s attacks on Title IX and mark its 54th anniversary with a bicameral resolution: “They will fearmonger about trans kids until the sun comes up, but the fact is this administration has all but decimated the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education, leaving egregious instances of sexual harassment and assault, and so much else, totally unaddressed.”
—Kindergartener Liam Tadeo and his father, Victor Martinez Nieto, both Austin residents, were detained by ICE on their way to a soccer game and later deported together to Mexico after being held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center.
—The six recipients of the 2026 Goldman Environmental Prize are all women.
—Voters in battleground states say it’s important that lawmakers protect access to reproductive healthcare.
—At least 152 ICE or CBP agents have faced disciplinary action or criminal penalties for violent crimes.
—Women make up 35 percent of non-acting Emmy Awards, matching the record high.
—Actor Anne Hathaway, currently pregnant with her third child at age 43, faced social media hate and rumors that she faked her pregnancy, after showing her bump on a red carpet.
—Florida professor Vinita Prabhakar was fired for assigning a “political” short story in a freshman English class. The story “Bettering Myself” focuses on an alcoholic teacher at a Catholic school and is commonly taught at colleges across the country. Prabhakar is now suing to uphold her First Amendment rights.
—Aisha Wahab won the special election to replace former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), who resigned after sexual assault allegations. Wahab is the first Afghan American elected to Congress, and will be on the ballot for a full term in November.

… and more.

The Perfect Victim Is a Dead Woman

PUBLISHED 9/17/2026 by

This is a story about choices that are not really choices. It is a story about impossible circumstances propelling us down pathways we believe unimaginable. You always believe it could never happen to you, until it does.

“Our last encounter was him trying to choke me, and me stabbing him.” Naomi sighs and leans against the passenger seat of my car, ending the story of the night she killed her abuser.

A grand jury indicted her for second-degree murder. A year later, she pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter. Initially facing five to 25 years in prison, her sentence was reduced under New York state’s Domestic Violence Survivor Justice Act to three years’ incarceration, with five years of post-release supervision. Even the District Attorney’s office acknowledged Naomi was a victim of domestic violence, which “was a significant contributing factor” to her behavior.

When the options available to her were kill or be killed, why was she even indicted?

We live in a world that punishes survivors and creates more victims with generous latitude inexplicably afforded to men who have proven themselves dangerous to society. It seems that the only perfect victim is a dead one, a woman who can’t talk back.