National

Respectability Politics and the Making of a Menopause Justice Movement

PUBLISHED 9/23/2026 by

After generations of silence, menopause has entered mainstream conversation with remarkable speed, thanks in part to Gen X’s insistence and the emergence of older millennials navigating perimenopause. People are finding language for once-isolating experiences, and researchers and clinicians are paying closer attention.

But this cultural reboot demands that we ask whose stories are treated as authoritative, whose leadership is recognized and resourced, and who can access the care and knowledge being produced. Paid memberships, subscription communities, influencer content, concierge care, exclusive events and information behind paywalls are rapidly turning menopause into a marketplace. Who gains power as the conversation grows?

What may once have operated as a strategy for surviving racial terror has hardened, in many contemporary institutions and marketplaces, into an entrance requirement: Prove you are polished, palatable, professionally credentialed, “properly” gendered, sufficiently resourced and nonthreatening before your suffering can be believed or your leadership affirmed.

We are therefore being asked to interrogate more than whose voices, stories and activism are championed and pushed to the forefront. We must also examine whose knowledge is treated as credible, whose testimony becomes evidence, and whose experiences are permitted to define the full breadth of menopause. If legitimacy still depends on proximity to whiteness, wealth, cisgender identity, able-bodiedness, professional status or institutional approval, then the table has not been transformed. It has simply diversified its guest list.

(This essay is part of the latest Women & Democracy installment, in partnership with Black Girls’ Guide to Surviving Menopause. Menopause is not only a physical transition—it is also cultural, social and political. Recognizing its full scope is essential to advancing true health and civic equity.)

What Rights Should the Constitution Protect? Alicia Keys and Leigh Blake Are Asking You to Decide

PUBLISHED 9/23/2026 by

On Saturday, Sept. 26, Alicia Keys will use a special performance at the Global Citizen Festival in New York City’s Central Park to amplify the People’s Bill of Rights 250, a civic initiative asking Americans to help define the rights the Constitution should protect during the country’s next 250 years.

During her “Alicia Keys & Friends” performance, Keys will bring the People’s Bill of Rights’ message—“WE THE PEOPLE. AGAIN.”—to tens of thousands of festivalgoers.

“The People’s Bill of Rights 250 is about … passing the mic,” says Keys, “making sure every voice gets heard, and giving people the power to shape what comes next.”

It asks Americans to participate in small online deliberations and ultimately vote on which ideas should move forward. Current deliberations ask Americans to consider whether healthcare, reproductive freedom, equality for women and girls, housing, education and environmental protections should be constitutional rights. You can add your own idea (if you feel like typing), or just swipe right or left on others’ ideas.

Leigh Blake, a longtime activist who has spent decades using music and culture to mobilize people around social causes, co-spearheaded of the People’s Bill of Rights 250. The project is an extension of a decades-long philosophy of activism: that ordinary people have more in common than they are told, that rights are inseparable from human dignity, and that meaningful changes come through collective action and service.

“There’s always going to be people on the fringes,” she says, “but I don’t think we’re divided as a country in the way we’ve been led to believe we are.”

Blake describes the initiative as operating almost like “politics without politicians.” Instead of waiting for elected officials to decide which issues deserve attention, Americans can propose their own ideas and vote on the proposals of others.

A Restraining Order Is Not Enough When an Abuser Has a Gun

PUBLISHED 9/22/2026 by

Nearly 2,400 women were killed by men in 2024, according to a recent Violence Policy Center report. Nearly nine out of 10 knew their killer, and firearms were used in 63.4 percent of these homicides. When an abusive partner has access to a gun, a domestic violence victim is five times more likely to be killed.

A recent Los Angeles Times investigation illustrates the deadly consequences when legal protections fail: Former partners or close relatives were charged in the deaths of at least 63 women killed in Los Angeles County in 2024 and 2025. At least 10 of those women had sought restraining orders, but only four received them.

One was Nora Villanueva Campanor, whose abusive husband stalked her for months before abducting and fatally shooting her, despite the restraining order she had secured.

For far too long, gun violence and domestic violence have been dismissed as two separate issues. They must be examined as two interwoven public health crises. Efforts to address firearm violence must center the voices of women, particularly Black women and other communities disproportionately affected by intimate partner violence.

Decades of Male-Focused Medical Research Could Bias Healthcare AI

PUBLISHED 9/21/2026 by and

Many people will learn CPR using a flat-chested manikin. A 2024 study of 20 models of CPR manikins sold worldwide found that three-quarters were described as male or had no sex specified. Of the 20, only one offered a breast overlay.

The manikins reflect a wider tendency in medical teaching and research to treat the male body as standard. The terms “male and female” and “men and women” in this article reflect the sources, which often fail to distinguish sex from gender or say whether gender-diverse people were included.

The lack of female representation can have consequences. In a U.S. study of 19,331 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, 39 percent of women who collapsed in public received bystander CPR, compared with 45 percent of men.

Medical research is becoming more representative, but much of today’s evidence was collected when male bodies were more often treated as standard. Careful design could help AI identify patterns that older research missed.

As tomorrow’s healthcare is built from yesterday’s records, researchers must ask whether an apparent difference reflects biology or the way patients encountered healthcare. Otherwise old assumptions could become embedded in new technology.

As World Leaders Gather at the U.N., the Push to Recognize Gender Apartheid Gains Ground

PUBLISHED 9/21/2026 by

Nearly 130 heads of state and government are expected to attend the United Nations General Assembly’s high-level week in New York. From Sept. 22 to 28, world leaders will gather for the General Debate of the 81st session under the theme, “Restoring trust, managing transformation: a United Nations that delivers for all.”

For Afghan women and girls living under the Taliban’s systematic oppression, whether the United Nations can deliver is not an abstract question. It requires the international community to recognize gender apartheid for what it is: a crime against humanity.

The support for recognizing forced marriage and reproductive violence, while stopping short of naming “gender apartheid,” presents an opportunity for feminist organizations to continue advocating for the full breadth of gender-based oppression to be recognized by the United Nations.

Keeping Score: Texas GOP Candidate Brandon Herrera’s Vile Attack on Mothers and Children; Rest in Power Gloria, Dolly, Robin Morgan, Annie Dillard and More

PUBLISHED 9/20/2026 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:
—The Trump administration proposed a rule that would eliminate quality standards for the Head Start preschool program.
—Todd Blanche was confirmed as attorney general, after promising to remove abortion rights nationwide.
—Democrats in the Senate call out Trump administration’s attacks on Title IX and mark its 54th anniversary with a bicameral resolution: “They will fearmonger about trans kids until the sun comes up, but the fact is this administration has all but decimated the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education, leaving egregious instances of sexual harassment and assault, and so much else, totally unaddressed.”
—Kindergartener Liam Tadeo and his father, Victor Martinez Nieto, both Austin residents, were detained by ICE on their way to a soccer game and later deported together to Mexico after being held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center.
—The six recipients of the 2026 Goldman Environmental Prize are all women.
—Voters in battleground states say it’s important that lawmakers protect access to reproductive healthcare.
—At least 152 ICE or CBP agents have faced disciplinary action or criminal penalties for violent crimes.
—Women make up 35 percent of non-acting Emmy Awards, matching the record high.
—Actor Anne Hathaway, currently pregnant with her third child at age 43, faced social media hate and rumors that she faked her pregnancy, after showing her bump on a red carpet.
—Florida professor Vinita Prabhakar was fired for assigning a “political” short story in a freshman English class. The story “Bettering Myself” focuses on an alcoholic teacher at a Catholic school and is commonly taught at colleges across the country. Prabhakar is now suing to uphold her First Amendment rights.
—Aisha Wahab won the special election to replace former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), who resigned after sexual assault allegations. Wahab is the first Afghan American elected to Congress, and will be on the ballot for a full term in November.

… and more.

Why Blaming Sydney Sweeney Misses the Point

PUBLISHED 9/19/2026 by

If you follow the mainstream press and social media, you would assume that Sydney Sweeney is an amazingly powerful 29-year-old woman. With her new hypersexualized ad for Novig, she stands accused of single-handedly debasing women, especially female athletes, and has, according to The New York Times, reversed decades of progress.

But if Sydney Sweeney refused to do the ad, thousands of other women would have happily taken her place.

It’s much easier to blame the individual woman—as we see in the media frenzy against Sydney Sweeney—than the real culprits: the violently misogynistic porn industry.

LaTosha Brown’s Case for America’s First Department of Democracy

PUBLISHED 9/18/2026 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:
—The Kettering Foundation honors Black Voters Matter cofounder LaTosha Brown, and her brilliant idea: “a Department of Democracy: a durable, people-powered, enforcement-capable institution designed to protect voting and civic rights, monitor the conduct of all three branches of government, hold states accountable, and serve as a permanent firewall against the erosion of democratic participation. It would be built to hold regardless of who’s in power.”
—A record number of women have earned nominations for state legislative elections this year.
—Data suggests a close Texas governor’s race this year.
—U.S. House incumbent Sarah McBride has been an influential voice in Congress in her first term in office.

… and more.