Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson’s Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, winner of this year’s U.S. Grand Jury Prize for Documentary, is a journey through poet Nikki Giovanni’s memories and experiences—a cogent and beautiful assemblage of an artist’s life.
Iranian Human Rights Attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh Named ‘Global Human Rights Defender’ by U.S. State Department
Each year, the State Department awards 10 people the special designation of “Global Human Rights Defender.” This coveted award is reserved for individuals “who have demonstrated leadership and courage while promoting and defending human rights and fundamental freedoms; countering and exposing human rights abuses by governments and businesses; and rallying action to protect the environment, improve governance, and secure accountability and an end to impunity.”
Nasrin Sotoudeh—an Iranian human rights lawyer and long-time friend of Ms. magazine who has spent her career fighting for the rights of women and minorities in the Middle East—was one of the 10 recipients.
Columbine Survivor Asks: Why Didn’t It Stop With Us?
The first week of February is National Gun Violence Survivors Week. Let’s bring the gun industry out from the shadows, and shine a light on their reckless business practices. It’s time to hold them accountable for the nation of gun violence survivors that they have helped create over decades. A country that feels safer from gun violence is exactly the ’90s nostalgia America should be idolizing.
The Same Dark Money Groups That Helped Overturn Roe Are Also Behind Attacks on Abortion Pill
In November, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)—which has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-LGBTQ hate group—filed an unprecedented lawsuit against the FDA’s approval of the medication mifepristone.
Keeping Score: Women’s Grammy Wins (and Losses); NYC Clinics to Provide Free Abortion Pills; Navajo Nation Elects First Woman Speaker
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 Grammys saw wins (and losses) for women performers and feminist causes; Republicans in Congress call for a nationwide abortion ban; Iowa state rep compares women to cattle; Florida educators reject ban on books in classrooms; NYC city-run clinics to provide free abortion medication; Lisa Marie Presley dies at 54; Biden administration releases plan for renter’s bill of rights; Utah Governor Spencer Cox approves ban on youth gender-affirming care; and more.
Combating K-12 Sexual Harassment and Violence: How Far Have We Come?
Seven years ago, two parents whose child was sexually assaulted on a high school field trip created the nonprofit Stop Sexual Assault in Schools (SSAIS) after demanding accountability from the Seattle school district. In the website’s inaugural blog, Fatima Goss Graves, now president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, wrote: “If we do not bring a serious focus to the problem of sexual harassment and assault in elementary and secondary schools, it will be nearly impossible to make real progress at any other level of education.”
In the last decade, when it comes to stopping sexual harassment and assault in elementary and secondary schools, how far have we come?
The U.S. Is Failing Women and Girls at the U.S-Mexico Border
As asylum claims mount and U.S. immigration enforcement struggle to process them, border communities will remain overcrowded and detention centers will quickly fill up. Without deliberate humanitarian intervention, displaced Venezuelans at the U.S.-Mexico border will continue to suffer in inhumane conditions.
What can’t be overstated is the degree to which women and girls bear the brunt of this suffering.
Why Marie Kondo Failed to Spark Permanent Joy
Domestic work in America has been a long-time battleground between the sexes. Further complicating the issue is that women and women of color make up a majority of domestic workers: 90.2 percent are women and 51.3 percent are Black, Hispanic, or Asian American and Pacific Islander. There is no honest and accurate way to talk about housework and childcare without also discussing the negative effects on women.
One day, perhaps the world will act as though domestic work is a collective responsibility and effort that requires no self-help books, a product line or a Netflix series.
Thirty Years After the FMLA, Lawmakers Must Guarantee Paid Leave for People Facing Violence
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) signed into law 30 years ago this week was the first time our country’s laws recognized that working people are also family caregivers and human beings who face illness themselves. But the FMLA was not enough, then or now.
Currently, leave is not available to people facing domestic and sexual violence if they need time off to go to court or seek other protections or support, which can cost them their jobs. Every state must consider adopting what is known as safe leave — leave for a worker subjected to sexual or domestic violence to seek a restraining order, relocate to safety, or take other protective measures — or help a close family member do so. This leave must also be paid.
U.S. Senators Urge FDA Update to Mifepristone Label for Miscarriage Use: ‘Patients Should Have Access to the Most Effective Medication Available’
For years doctors have prescribed mifepristone off label for miscarriage treatment, a practice allowable by the FDA. But now, new state bans and restrictions on medication abortion has raised concerns that prescribing mifepristone could lead to criminal prosecution of healthcare providers. Reproductive health advocates are now urging the FDA to specifically label mifepristone for miscarriage treatment.
“Patients experiencing an early miscarriage should have access to the most effective medication available.”