National

Misogyny Isn’t Just About Women—and the Killing of Alex Pretti Proves It

PUBLISHED 1/29/2026 by

The Trump administration has made misogyny a governing principle, deploying it not only to control women but to enforce a rigid hierarchy of power that punishes anyone who disrupts it. The killing of Alex Pretti makes that unmistakably clear.

Pretti—a 37-year-old ICU nurse—was not threatening law enforcement. He was doing what the administration endlessly romanticizes and selectively rewards: stepping in to protect a woman who was being shoved and pepper-sprayed by federal agents. For that, he was tackled, disarmed and shot 10 times. The violence that ended his life did not contradict the administration’s worldview—it followed it to its logical conclusion.

Misogyny functions as a system, not a personality trait. It relies on domination masquerading as protection, and it turns lethal when its myths are exposed. Pretti shattered two of them at once: the fantasy of the “good guy with a gun” and the claim that this administration acts as a protector of women. His calm, visible effort to shield someone else left no room for reinterpretation, only denial. When authoritarian power cannot reconcile what we have seen with what it insists we believe, it chooses force. We know what happened in Minneapolis. We know who tried to protect whom. And we should be clear about what kind of politics requires us to look away.

‘I Needed to Know I Was Not the Only One’: Talking Honestly About Pregnancy Loss and Reproductive Grief

PUBLISHED 1/29/2026 by and

Award-winning cartoonist Chari Pere and award-winning author and psychologist Dr. Jessica Zucker are on a mission to normalize talking about the complexities of reproductive grief in order to help people feel less alone.

Reproductive grief encompasses the range of emotional, psychological and even physical responses that can follow experiences like miscarriage, stillbirth, infertility, termination for medical reasons or other disruptions in a person’s reproductive journey. It is a kind of loss that is often invisible to others but deeply felt—an ache shaped not only by what happened, but by what could have been. Despite how common it is, reproductive grief remains largely unspoken, shrouded in silence and shame.

Federal Civil Rights Protections for Students Are Being Hollowed Out

PUBLISHED 1/28/2026 by

At least 25,000 unresolved civil rights complaints involving race, gender and disability discrimination are currently stalled as the Trump administration moves to dismantle the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights—leaving students in K-12 schools and colleges with few viable paths to federal protection.

At the same time, new Title IX guidance has shifted federal priorities away from survivors of sexual violence and toward expanded due-process protections for the accused—further eroding accountability in school environments already struggling to respond to gender-based harm.

Taken together, these changes represent a sweeping redefinition of equal access to education—one that disproportionately harms women, students of color, disabled students and survivors of sexual assault.

Last semester, after I published a piece in Ms. critiquing Charlie Kirk and violent masculinity, South Carolina politicians—including Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and Rep. Ralph Norman—publicly suggested I should be fired. In a climate where ideologically driven attacks on funding and governance threaten the very survival of colleges and universities, I ultimately resigned my full professorship. The message from state lawmakers was unmistakable: Even private institutions are no longer insulated from direct government interference, regardless of stated commitments to academic freedom.

When in Doubt, Blame Young Women: The Evergreen Electoral Existential Crisis of Young Women in U.S. Politics

PUBLISHED 1/28/2026 by

While the right-wing media ecosystem views young women as an affliction, the Democratic Party risks taking this group for granted and overlooking their real-life concerns.

Women are more likely to support Democratic candidates than their male counterparts. This pattern, coined the “gendergap” by Ellie Smeal, has remained a fixture of American politics in every presidential election since 1980. That support shows that women’s Democratic support is consistent and can be politically decisive. Still, this support should not be taken for granted.

‘She Rubbed Me the Wrong Way’: Why Trump Punished a Woman Head of State for Saying No

PUBLISHED 1/27/2026 by

Under the Jan. 21 headline “‘She Just Rubbed Me the Wrong Way’: Trump Suggests Swiss Tariffs Were Personal,’” The New York Times quotes Trump quoted as saying, she was “’so aggressive.”

Seeking to make sense of the existential anomie that flooded me after reading the article, it quickly became apparent that that much more was at play here than a clash of personalities, as suggested by Times’ headline. Accordingly, as I began envisioning the article I would write, my initial aim was to locate Trump’s remarks within the broader context of his administration’s attacks on women and the LGBTQ+ community. 

How Misogyny and White Nationalism Converge in ICE Enforcement

PUBLISHED 1/27/2026 by

The brutality we are witnessing in Minnesota, at the hands of thousands of poorly trained, heavily armed and trigger-happy men who have full reign to hunt and harass anyone who is non-white, is nothing short of state-sponsored terror. It is a horrific illustration of what unfettered power does in the hands of leadership that celebrates and demands violence, especially from men. 

As thousands of amped up men are deployed in the streets and taught there are no consequences for killing anyone who refuses to submit to their authority, we should anticipate more violence to come.

After all: The violence is the point.

At Home and Abroad, MAGA’s Politics of Force Try to Reassert White Male Power

PUBLISHED 1/27/2026 by

The connective tissue of Donald Trump’s takeover of Venezuela, his threats to invade Greenland, the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by masked federal agents in Minneapolis, and the EEOC’s encouragement of white men to bring claims of discrimination against them is this: All represent increasingly desperate efforts by Trump and MAGA to forcefully put white men back in charge.

The Cruel and Unusual Killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti

PUBLISHED 1/27/2026 by | UPDATED 2/2/2026 at 12:53 P.M. PT

Barely two weeks apart, two American citizens have been slain in Minnesota by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the Twin Cities. Their deaths raise important questions—not just about the violation of First Amendment freedoms, but also the trampling of Eighth Amendment protections that bar the government from inflicting “cruel and unusual punishment.” 

After Decades of Institutional Silence, Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse Deserve More Than the Catholic Church’s PR

PUBLISHED 1/27/2026 by

When the archdiocese of New York announced plans to raise at least $300 million toward a potential global settlement with childhood sexual abuse survivors, headlines framed it as progress. For those living with the trauma, it landed as a mix of relief, anger, exhaustion and deep skepticism shaped by decades of abuse of power, institutional denial and calculated delay. 

The story isn’t the dollar amount; it’s the decades survivors have waited for justice. They had to fight just to be heard by the very institution that failed to protect them and now must watch that same institution frame overdue negotiations as moral penance. 

Any willingness by the church to engage in meaningful talks is better than silence, but this moment should not be mistaken for accountability. It signals the start of a process survivors should never have had to force through legislation, litigation and relentless public pressure. 

U.S. Turns Its Back on Global Efforts for Women and Children Terrorized by Violence and Conflict

PUBLISHED 1/26/2026 by

The Trump administration’s recent announcement that it is withdrawing from 66 international organizations and treaties is another blow to the global system where all countries unite to share concerns, agree on rules of conduct and determine agendas for collective action.

With the White House already defunding the foreign assistance that supported many of these organizations and the U.N. system, regardless of congressional appropriations, this stated withdrawal is unlikely to alter much for these organizations in the short term.

The loss is likely greater for America.

Foreign policy experts assert that leaving the U.S. seat empty at the table will result in an increasingly isolated America and enable its adversaries, such as China, to fill the void.

U.S. withdrawal from these organizations also risks undercutting lasting peace and human rights accountability, especially for women and children terrorized by violence and conflict.