Category: Violence & Harassment

Keeping Score: Childcare Costs Top Pre-Pandemic Levels; Sharp Rise in Texas Maternal Mortality; Oct. 3 Marks Latina Equal Pay Day

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: a Georgia judge strikes down the state’s six-week abortion ban; JD Vance and Tim Walz debate; childcare costs rise after pandemic-era grants expire; Senate Republicans again block IVF protections; school superintendants are overwhelmingly male; Kentucky governor bans conversion therapy; nonbinary adults face violence and discrimination at work; Aisha Nyandoro, founding CEO of Springboard to Opportunities, is on the TIME 100 Next list; University of Pennsylvania professor Dorothy Roberts (host of the Ms. podcast Torn Apart) has won a prestigious MacArthur Foundation “genius” award; and more.

There Can Be No Debate Over Asylum

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Tuesday’s vice presidential debate brought exchanges over the question of asylum and border security, with Sen. JD Vance lying—without real-time fact-checking—about the ease of obtaining asylum. He offered a baseless assertion that people can be “granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand.”

Winning asylum is extremely difficult, and the horrific conditions forcing women to seek protection from gender-based violence in Central America and Mexico show no signs of abating.

Survivors Know Donald Trump’s Type

As someone who has worked in the field of intimate partner violence for 30 years, Donald Trump has felt familiar to me—and not in a good way.

When you are good, you are in a wonderful romance: (“Women love me.”)

When you step out of line, you are crazy and no one will believe anything you say. (“Kamala Harris is mentally disabled.”)

If you leave, you’ll be sorry. (“If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath.)

War on Women Report: More Women Die From Abortion Bans; Senate Republicans Block IVF Bill; Texas AG Sues Biden Over Teen Birth Control Access

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U.S. patriarchal authoritarianism is on the rise, and democracy is on the decline. But day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. The fight is far from over. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report… Former Rochester police officer Shawn Jordan, convicted of raping a 13-year-old girl, was sentenced to just 10 weekends in jail; at least 11 states will ask voters to weigh in on abortion and reproductive healthcare access by way of ballot measures; a scarcity of research on tampon safety reveals a lack of women’s health prioritization in medicine and law; Taysha Wilkinson-Sobieski, a 26-year-old woman in Indiana, died in October 2023 after being unable to access timely care for her ectopic pregnancy; the gender pay gap has widened significantly for the first time in 20 years; and more.

We Can’t Keep Sidelining Survivor Justice

In the crowded landscape of gender justice, survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) are often neglected. While gender issues like abortion rights, pay equity and childcare frequently dominate discussions, survivor justice—particularly for those impacted by GBV—struggles for recognition.

The epidemic proportions of GBV demand a new approach: creating a survivor justice movement, an independent space that focuses on the healing, support and visibility of survivors.

From Springfield, Ohio, to the Debate Stage: The Fight Against Anti-Black Rhetoric

From the presidential debate stage, Trump falsely claimed that immigrants were killing and eating pets, further fueling the anti-Black frenzy. Since then, he’s vowed to enact large-scale deportations of Haitian immigrants in an effort to cleanse the city of its supposed threats. Meanwhile, the real threat was not the Haitian immigrants but the Neo-Nazi hate group that marched through Springfield, hurling insults and curses at residents enjoying a blues music festival.

I fear that no matter the outcome of the election, the real winner will be anti-Blackness.

It’s Time to Protect People With Albinism and Their Right to Live Safely

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Albinism is a non-contagious, genetically inherited condition that affects people regardless of race, ethnicity or gender. The condition is characterized by a lack of melanin in the hair, skin and/or eyes. This lack of melanin makes people with albinim susceptible to ultraviolet rays, increasing their risk of developing deadly skin cancer. Although it is a relatively rare condition, albinism disproportionately affects people in poverty and those facing multiple and intersecting forms of stigma, discrimination and violence.

This summer marked a decade since the creation of International Albinism Awareness Day. Ten years on, we reflect on the challenges faced by individuals with albinism and to celebrate the significant strides made to advance their human rights.

Not a ‘Groom,’ but ‘Grooming’: It’s Past Time to End Child Marriage in the United States

There’s no romance in being a child bride. And whether the “groom” is R. Kelly, with his marriage to 15-year-old Aaliyah, your great-grandmother, or Justine (name changed for protection)—a minor married to a man twice her age in the state of Maryland—more often than not, these marriages are a form of child abuse … government-sanctioned child abuse, in some states.

Child marriage remains legal in well over half of all U.S. states, with over 300,000 minors married between 2000 and 2018. Every year, hundreds of children of every gender, ethnicity and religious background are married, with no regard for their consent. “Groom” might be the technical term in these marriages, but “grooming” is more accurate.

What Does the ‘Pro-Life’ Movement Care About?

When the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health and overturned Roe v. Wade, there was a lot of talk, mostly from “compassionate conservative” abortion opponents, about what was next. It would be necessary, these abortion opponents argued, for the pro-life movement and perhaps even the Republican Party to finally turn its focus to actually helping women and babies. The country would be remade into one reflecting a broader “culture of life.” We were going to get a bipartisan pro-family agenda. Abortion wouldn’t just become illegal; the nation would be so welcoming to pregnant women that abortion would simply be unthinkable.

None of that has happened.