Global

We Need a Word for What’s Happening to Jewish Women

PUBLISHED 3/27/2026 by

Ever since I’ve been writing about slut-shaming, I’ve been called a slut and a whore.

In the 1990s, the age of doorstopper phone books (the kind with white pages and yellow pages), I received alarming letters delivered to my mailbox. In the early 2000s, the letters morphed into emails. And when I began posting on Instagram, the insults followed me there, too.

Over three decades, the insults were consistent: I was called various synonyms for prostitute and vagina, and an ugly pedophile for good measure. The hatred was misogyny—targeted, specific and designed to put me back in my place.

Then Hamas brutally attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel retaliated in a devastating war in Gaza. The insults changed. I am no longer a regular slut and a whore; I am a “Jewish whore,” a “chosenite supporting the porn industry,” and a “whore” whom everyone could agree was bad apart from “tribes who hate Jesus.” 

I call it “misogynam” (mih-SAH-jih-NAHM)—the intertwined violence of anti-Semitism and misogyny directed at Jewish women.

Sinead O’Connor Was Right: It’s Time to Revisit Some of Pop Culture’s Most Maligned Women

PUBLISHED 3/24/2026 by

An excerpt from Allison T. Butler’s The Judgment of Gender: How Women Are Centered and Silenced in Pop Culture, published March 8, 2026:

While Sinead O’Connor was roundly criticized for ripping up the picture of the pope, the passage of time has revealed: She was right.

O’Connor was labeled a pop star, but she never saw herself that way. From Rememberings: “Everyone wants a pop star, see? But I’m a protest singer. I just had stuff to get off my chest. I had no desire for fame.”

The Trump Administration Wants the Supreme Court to Permanently Close the Border to Asylum Seekers

PUBLISHED 3/23/2026 by

On Tuesday, March 24, the government will ask the Supreme Court to declare that asylum law does not apply at the border. The case—Noem v. Al Otro Lado—was brought by asylum seekers to challenge Trump’s turnback policy.

If the Supreme Court succumbs to Trump’s twisted logic, he will likely consider it carte blanche to keep the border closed permanently to asylum seekers and other people in need of protection. In other words, only people who already have permission to enter the United States could ask for protection.

As the Trump administration has shuttered virtually all other avenues to obtain protection in the United States, this effectively would violate non-refoulement and expose people seeking asylum at the southern border to danger and death.

The Noem v. Al Otro Lado case is both an effort to preserve the right to asylum and a step towards holding the administration accountable for ignoring the human cost of its border policies.

Juliana Stratton’s Big Senate Win, Kristi Noem’s Next Steps and the Origins of Women’s History Month

PUBLISHED 3/21/2026 by

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation in politics, on boards, in sports and entertainment, in judicial offices and in the private sector in the U.S. and around the world—with a little gardening and goodwill mixed in for refreshment!

This week:
—Illinois primaries feature a big U.S. Senate win for Juliana Stratton.
—The IPU/U.N. Women Report on Women in Politics presents a sobering global snapshot.
—Mississippi will remain the only state that has never sent a woman to the U.S. House.
—Ranked-choice voting is being used for student elections at over 100 colleges and universities.

… and more.

They Dare, They Can, They Will: The History of Iceland’s Decades-Strong Women’s Strike Movement

PUBLISHED 3/21/2026 by

On Oct. 24, 1975, 90 percent of the women in Iceland refused to go to work, care for their children or cook for their families. Instead, thousands gathered in Reykjavík and villages nationwide to demand gender equality.

Schools closed. Flights were canceled. Businesses shuttered. Factories came to a standstill. Phone service was off.

Men called it “The Long Friday.” Organizers called it Kvennafrídagurinn: Women’s Day Off.

How U.S. Tried but Failed to Wipe Out 70 Years of Global Consent on Women’s Rights

PUBLISHED 3/19/2026 by

The United States set a new precedent at the United Nations annual women’s rights meeting by requesting a recorded vote on the draft conclusions. The U.S. action culminated after weekslong negotiations on this year’s theme, “Ensuring and Strengthening Access to Justice for All Women and Girls.”

The move—which failed drastically—reflects the continuing assault of the Trump administration on gender equality worldwide, yet resistance from across the world couldn’t be more profound.

The Latest Cache of Epstein Files Haven’t (and Won’t) Spark Wall Street’s #MeToo Moment

PUBLISHED 3/19/2026 by

In 2010, a 28-year-old woman working at the London branch of a Wall Street bank was leaving the office around 10 p.m. when a colleague pushed her against a wall and tried to forcibly kiss her. “A cab driver saw what was happening and physically pulled him off me,” the woman, who asked not to be named for fear of repercussions, told me. She reported the incident the next day to her manager, who told her she “should dress for the job I want” and not “like a stripper.” The women quit a month later. “I just wanted out,” she said. “I was mortified.”

What is notable about this story is how common it is. Even now, she said, you can speak to almost any woman who has spent time working in finance and she will know someone who has been harassed or assaulted. Often she has her own story.

That culture, and Wall Street’s willingness to perpetuate it, is back in the spotlight after the latest release of emails linked to Jeffrey Epstein, which are reviving scrutiny of his extensive connections across the industry.

Keeping Score: Trump Attacks Iran, Pressures Senate Republicans to Pass ‘Show Your Papers’ Voter Registration Bill; States Expand Access to Childcare and Paid Leave

PUBLISHED 3/19/2026 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:
—Dolores Huerta breaks her silence at 96: “I have never identified myself as a victim, but I now understand that I am a survivor.”
—Trump pressures Senate Republicans to pass the SAVE America Act, a “show your papers” policy that would require U.S. citizens to show a passport or birth certificate in order to register to vote.
—A performative personnel exchange at DHS: from Kristi Noem … to Markwayne Mullin?
—The U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran, killing at least 1,332 people.
—March 10 is Abortion Provider Appreciation Day.
—DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was fired, as ICE reports 32 deaths in detention facilities in 2025.
—Access to early prenatal care is declining in the U.S., especially in states with abortion bans.
—A record one-third of American workers not have access to government-mandated paid leave.
—The U.S. deported a gay woman to Morocco, where her sexuality is illegal and she faces violence from her family.
—Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claimed gender-affirming mental healthcare for trans youth is “child abuse.”
—New Mexico and New York take steps towards free universal childcare.
—Jessie Buckley took home the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her role in Hamnet. The film was directed by Chloé Zhao, one of nine women to ever be nominated for the award of Best Director and the only woman nominated this year.

… and more.

Every Man Has a Critical Role to Play in Ending Violence Against Women

PUBLISHED 3/18/2026 by

(An excerpt from Jackson Katz’s Every Man: Why Violence Against Women Is a Men’s Issue, and How You Can Make a Difference, out March 19 from Bloomsbury Publishing.)

In 2024, a mass rape scandal rocked France and reverberated around the world. Fifty men in a small town in the southern part of the country were convicted of raping Gisèle Pelicot, a woman who had been secretly drugged by her husband and set up to be assaulted. The shining light of this horrific case was the courage and dignity of Gisèle, who became an international feminist icon when she insisted on being present and highly visible throughout the spectacle of the trial. She made it clear that she wanted to appear in the courtroom to stand up for survivors and send an unmistakable message: “Shame must change sides.”

But this epochal story had another major angle: the 50 men. A brief glance at their bios revealed most of them to be otherwise ordinary men.

The concept of “every man” suggests there is growing recognition among the broader public that this enormous problem has deeper societal roots, and is not primarily about the deviant behavior of pathological individuals.”

Men from every walk of life have a critical role to play on this issue. But first we have to break through some of the layers of denial and resistance that have impeded progress for far too long.