It’s Not Nice to Mess With Mother Nature: Ecofeminism 101 (Jan/Feb 1989)

From the January/February 1989 issue of Ms. magazine:

“One of the most interesting (and least reported on) developments of the last few years has been the integration of feminist and ecological concerns. … In an ecofeminist society, no one would have power over anyone else, because there would be an understanding that we’re all part of the interconnected web of life.”

Arizona ‘Medical Students for Life’ Chapter Threatens Patient Health: ‘This Contradicts What We Are Taught in Our Curriculum,’ Say Students

Despite student government’s vote, anti-abortion group Medical Students for Life is now fully operational on Midwestern University Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine’s campus. 

What’s happening at Midwestern University illustrates the anti-abortion movement’s larger strategy: disseminate misinformation to confuse, deter and scare pregnant people out of getting abortions.

Keeping Score: Michelle Yeoh Is First Asian to Win Best Actress Oscar; Progress on Male Birth Control; Parenthood Harms Mothers’ Earnings But Benefits Fathers

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: Biden’s new budget excludes Hyde Amendment but protects other abortion coverage bans; Michelle Yeoh becomes first Asian woman to win the Oscar for best actress; Weill Cornell Medicine rolls out research on non-hormonal male birth control alternatives; Jennifer McClellan is the first Black woman elected to represent Virginia in Congress; South Carolina approves an all-male state supreme court; fathers’ salaries benefit from parenthood, while mothers are penalized; Gen Z women have lower salary expectations than men; and more.

Why Women Are More Likely to Be ‘Citizens of Nowhere’

More than 10 million people are stateless around the globe, with no “home” country to call their own—and women and children are most likely to fall outside citizenship laws.

For stateless women, their very existence—and the right to live a life as a full citizen of a country—has been blotted out by geopolitics and sexism.

What Clinicians Want You to Know About Getting Abortion Pills in Anti-Abortion States

Women living in states restricting or banning abortion are finding creative ways to access abortion pills. Ms. spoke to telehealth abortion clinicians across several states to ask them what they wish their patients knew about mail forwarding.

“We want to help you, but we can’t know that you’re doing mail forwarding,” said one telehealth clinician. Another summed it up concisely: “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Girl Scout Thin Mints Are Putting Our Planet on Thin Ice

In an effort to squeeze profits from cookie sales, the Girl Scouts national headquarters has opted for cheap ingredients, cheap packaging and cheap prizes to incentivize sales. The real cost of these decisions comes at a high price—and in the end, we will all pay for the environmental damages.

The unsustainable choices of today’s Cookie Program undermine the purpose of a beloved, long-standing American custom.

Toward an Inclusive Artificial Intelligence: The Ms. Q&A With Gabriela de Queiroz

Many people see language models, like ChatGPT and other new machine learning technologies like Meta’s Make-A-Video, as the beginning of the end. And as a woman in tech—a field dominated by men—Gabriela de Queiroz has reason to be skeptical of AI.

But when de Queiroz talks about her efforts to make artificial intelligence more inclusive, she takes a different approach to understanding the ever more influential and pervasive role of AI in contemporary societies.