More Than A Magazine, A Movement
By providing an explicit guarantee of sex equality in the Constitution, the Equal Rights Amendment holds the power to transform the underlying power dynamics fueling gender-based violence.
(This essay is part of “The ERA Is Essential to Democracy” Women & Democracy collection.)
For years, critics have claimed that women don’t need the Equal Rights Amendment because the Supreme Court has secured women’s rights under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
At the time it was ratified in the 19th century, no one thought that the 14th Amendment protected women; its purpose was to end slavery. Thanks to pioneering lawsuits by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the 1970s, women did gain a measure of equal rights under the 14th Amendment, but lawyers know that those victories were limited.
(This essay is part of “The ERA Is Essential to Democracy” Women & Democracy collection.)
Nasrin Sotoudeh is an Iranian human rights lawyer and activist who has consistently fought for the rights of women, children, religious minorities and others under persecution in Iran. Over the years, Sotoudeh has spent much of her time in prison, having been arrested for protesting Iran’s mandatory hijab law and resisting authoritarian rule. While in custody in 2022, Sotoudeh wrote to Ms. editors detailing the plight of women in Iran and called for global solidarity around women’s rights. Ms. executive editor Kathy Spillar spoke with Nasrin and her husband Reza Khandan last month.
“The world has gone through darker days. … We’ve made our way forward through those horrific and dark events and times, and so, why not again? As long as I’m alive, I’m just naturally an optimist.”
I’ve had bathroom anxiety since I was a kid. I always felt that using the women’s restroom was always the safest bet—until I began hormone replacement therapy in my late 20s. I remember the moment when a sharp male voice came from behind me, asking, “Excuse me—are you a guy or a girl?” My scariest moment left me unscathed. I survived. Nothing happened. I was lucky. Nex Benedict was not.
Stories of the many vigils held across the country for Nex speak to the care for our community. The story of Nex’s classmates walking out in protest of the school’s bullying policies speaks to the bravery of this next generation joining the ranks marching to the front line. To my trans and gender-nonconforming siblings: You are seen, you are loved, you are worth fighting for. There will come a day when we all can pee in peace. We continue on.
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: Alabama ruling endangers IVF; childcare costs are a significant barrier to parents having more children; Beyoncé and Olivia Rodrigo launch new charities; more than 9,000 women have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza; Biden addresses abortion access in the SOTU; new research on gender discrimination in the workplace; Kamala Harris’ visit to Minnesota abortion clinic is the first time a sitting U.S. president or vice president has visited an abortion provider; a judge ruled Fani Willis should not be disqualified from prosecuting the racketeering case against former President Donald Trump; and more.
A guidance paper produced by a U.N. human rights group on eliminating discrimination against “sex workers” actually advocates for policies that will endanger women and girls.
Prostitution is not labor (as the term “sex work” entices us to believe), but a harmful cultural practice. Its inception parallels that of other forms of gender-based violence, such as female genital mutilation or domestic violence. It is a system that relegates women to second-class status and offers men the opportunity to purchase domination. From Bangladesh to the Netherlands, from South Africa to Colombia, and every country in between, the sex trade generates significant profits for both those who exploit women and the state.
Date rape is one of the most underreported crimes on college campuses. So much silence surrounds this kind of crime that many women are not even aware that they have been raped. In 1985, Ms. conducted a three-year study among college-aged women to learn more about their experiences.
(For more ground-breaking stories like this, order 50 YEARS OF Ms.: THE BEST OF THE PATHFINDING MAGAZINE THAT IGNITED A REVOLUTION (Alfred A. Knopf)—a collection of the most audacious, norm-breaking coverage Ms. has published.)
The status of women in the United States is declining. The U.S. ranks 37th globally in terms of the best countries to be a woman compared to its ranking of 26th in 2017 on the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Index, which uses 13 indicators of women’s inclusion, justice and security to rank and score 177 countries on women’s status.
It’s been almost two years since the murder of 22-year-old Zhina “Mahsa” Amini made international headlines and sparked an uprising in Iran. All the while, the Kurdish words for “Woman, Life, Freedom” are still being chanted.
(This article originally appears in the Spring 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)
The human rights abuses of the Taliban and re-establishment of gender apartheid in Afghanistan have largely been met with silence by the international community. A trend of normalization of the regime has begun to emerge in the media and in international assessments. Recently, The Washington Post ran an article titled “Taliban vowed to change Kabul. The city may be starting to change the Taliban”, which described a Taliban enthralled with shopping, learning English, and studying abroad. A photo of Taliban enjoying a picnic accompanies the article, but neglects to mention that women are now forbidden from going to the park or anywhere else.
Taliban revels in its male-dominated society, while women languish under house arrest or in jail for daring to defy Taliban decrees. This normalization of the Taliban is devastating to the women and girls of Afghanistan, and portends danger to the rest of the world where attacks on women’s rights have intensified.
