Can Beyoncé’s Foray into Country Music Change the Genre’s Conservative Views?

Beyoncé’s much-anticipated country album, Cowboy Carter, drops on Friday, March 29. Beyoncé’s immense success in country music is a clear signal that there is a huge audience for country music around the world, but that audience won’t settle for the music’s often conservative conventions. Black music and musicians are at the heart of country music, and recognition of Black women’s music on this scale is long overdue.

Beyoncé doesn’t need country music. But, if it’s going get the global traction the CMA and other parts of the industry desire, country music needs artists like Beyoncé.

As U.S. Faces a Rising Tide of Abortion Bans and Restrictions, France Enshrines Freedom of Access in the Constitution

In 2023, seeking “to avoid a U.S.-like scenario for women in France, as hard-right groups are gaining ground,” President Emmanuel Macron promised a constitutional amendment affirming women’s right to abortion and to control over their own bodies. The amendment subsequently passed by a crushing majority of 780 to 72 votes and was inserted ceremoniously into the French Constitution on March 8, 2024, International Women’s Day.

Meanwhile in 2022, the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Supreme Court decision overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade that held abortion as a protected right under the United States Constitution

How do we explain the radically different trajectories on this critical dimension of women’s rights between two countries with strong feminist and anti-abortion movements that decriminalized abortion within a few years of one another?  

The Militarization of U.S. Culture 

Since Sept. 11, publicly criticizing militarization has been widely viewed as an act of disloyalty. Militarization, in all its seductiveness and subtlety, deserves to be bedecked with flags wherever it thrives—fluorescent flags of warning. 

(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.)

Lessons from Bosnia to Gaza and the Urgency for Change

As someone who lived in a war zone for over five years, north of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital, Sarajevo, I have borne witness to the horrors inflicted upon innocent souls women and children, my own community torn apart by violence and despair. Yet, in the face of such darkness, I have also seen the flicker of resilience, the unwavering spirit that refuses to be extinguished.

The failure of the international community to support a timely intervention in Bosnia has been well documented, but as I witness new conflicts across the globe in the three decades since, I see that we did not learn anything about protecting humanity. We cannot ignore the cries of innocent lives, including all the hostages caught in the crossfire of this conflict. Now is the time for decisive action; advocating to end relentless fighting and supporting urgent adequate delivery of humanitarian aid and medical assistance.

Lost Women: Aphra Behn—Novelist, Spy and the First Woman to Earn a Living as an English Writer

This Women’s History Month, we’re reviving the iconic “Lost Women” column—diving into the archives to make these histories more accessible to our new age of Ms. readers.

For any writer to have produced 19 plays and 13 novels, plus 11 volumes of letters, translations and miscellaneous prose and verse, is remarkable. For a 17th-century woman to have done so is phenomenal. That was the literary output of Aphra Behn (1640-1689), the first woman to earn her living as a writer in the English language. 

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation: The Fair Representation Act Can Improve U.S. Elections; Mexico May Get Its First Jewish President

Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation. 

This week: the reintroduction of the Fair Representation Act, which would help solve the problems of partisan gerrymandering and uncompetitive elections for U.S. House; rest in power, Dorie Ann Ladner, a prominent figure in the civil rights movement; women’s representation in Florida’s state legislature has crossed 40 percent; as the presidential race in Mexico continues, Claudia Sheinbaum, a physicist of Jewish descent, holds a significant lead over her closest rival, Xóchitl Gálvez; a missed opportunity to increase women’s representation in Philadelphia; and more.

Supreme Court Is Considering Nationwide Restrictions on Most Common Abortion Method: Medication Abortion

Not content with overturning Roe v. Wade, the anti-abortion movement now wants to restrict medication abortion—even in states where abortion remains legal.

But a decision to place more restrictions on medication abortion will not stop people from getting abortion pills—it will merely reshape, not extinguish, the landscape of access to abortion pills.

The Ms. Q&A with Nasrin Sotoudeh: The Iranian Activist on Global Solidarity, Her Time in Prison and Being an Optimist  

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.”