A Year of Guaranteed Income Means ‘Freedom’ for This Single Mom and Her Son

PUBLISHED 7/10/2024 by

Front and Center offers first-person accounts of Black mothers living in Jackson, Miss., receiving a guaranteed income. First launched in 2018, the Magnolia Mother’s Trust (MMT) is the longest-running guaranteed income program in the U.S. Across the country, guaranteed income pilots like MMT are finding that recipients are overwhelmingly using their payments for basic needs like groceries, housing and transportation.

“MMT has given me more freedom. Freedom of mind, freedom from stress. Freedom from thinking, ‘I know I have this bill coming but I don’t know if I’m going to have the money to pay.’ It’s a relief to know that I can just go to bed and wake up and know that at the end of the day, it’s going to be taken care of.”

A Call to Protect Mexico’s Women Climate Leaders

PUBLISHED 7/10/2024 by and

Exactly 12 years ago, Mexico enacted the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists law, a legislative promise to protect activists and reporters from violence and repression. Today, this promise remains unfulfilled.

Mexico remains one of the most dangerous places for human rights defenders, particularly for women climate leaders—who face targeted violence, threats, and attacks, with little to no effective protection from the state. Just last month, Mexico elected its first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum, an environmental scientist who has led on climate change throughout her career. While this election may mark a shift towards better protection and support for women climate leaders, there is a tremendous amount of work to be done to protect them—not only for their sake but for the future of our planet. 

What Do Tradwives Have to Do With Democracy?

PUBLISHED 7/10/2024 by , and

The tradwife movement is more than just eye-catching images of open land, barefoot kids, chickens and sourdough perfectly cultivated for an Instagram grid. It’s a cultural movement to influence young women to willingly check out of the workforce and give up their rights and agency.

And if progressives are too “burnt out” to check back in, these forces will win the culture war and the political movements to take away birth control, end no-fault divorce and take away a woman’s choice whether to go through with an unwanted pregnancy.

Tennessee Is the Second State to Criminalize Minor ‘Abortion Trafficking.’ Activists Are Pushing Back.

PUBLISHED 7/10/2024 by

In May 2024, following Idaho’s lead, Tennessee became the second state in the country to criminalize the ‘abortion trafficking’ of minors, making it a class A misdemeanor.

Late last month, Nashville Democratic Rep. Aftyn Behn and abortion rights attorney and activist Rachel Welty brought a lawsuit in federal district court challenging the trafficking law on constitutional grounds and asking to have it permanently enjoined. 

Under Gender Apartheid, Taliban See Afghan Women as ‘Child-Bearers, Child-Rearers and as Objects Available for Exploitation’

PUBLISHED 7/9/2024 by

Gender apartheid, the most extreme form of gender discrimination, has left Afghan women feeling like the walls are closing in.

At the center of this issue is the question of justice. Because the spaces for women are so slender and the oppression of women so pervasive and institutionalized, almost any act can be characterized as an act of resistance in Afghanistan today.

Ms. Global: Increasing Access to Contraceptives in Sub-Saharan Africa, Taliban Demands Afghan Women Be Left Out of U.N. Conference, and More

PUBLISHED 7/9/2024 by and

The U.S. ranks as the 19th most dangerous country for women, 11th in maternal mortality, 30th in closing the gender pay gap, 75th in women’s political representation, and painfully lacks paid family leave and equal access to health care. But Ms. has always understood: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the U.S.’s most intractable problems. Ms. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.

This week: News from Afghanistan, South Korea, Bulgaria, Serbia and more.

Ahead of the Election, Get a Year of Ms. Magazine for Just $20.24

PUBLISHED 7/9/2024 by

Our reporters are working now on the next issue of Ms., where you’ll find vital information about the upcoming elections—like races that will significantly impact abortion, including state legislative and Supreme Court races, and the races for Congress, the Senate and, of course, the presidency.

To get the fall election issue delivered straight to your mailbox, join today at our special offer price of just $20.24—a 42 percent discount off the regular membership price.

Keeping Score: States Threaten Church-State Separation; Doctors Avoid States With Abortion Bans; N.Y. ERA Will Be on November Ballot

PUBLISHED 7/9/2024 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 Supreme Court ruled on the EMTALA abortion case, presidential immunity and criminalizing homelessness; Louisiana requires public classrooms to display the 10 Commandments; medical residents are avoiding states with abortion bans; Gen Z swing voters care about the cost of living, healthcare and housing; college-educated women now outnumber college-educated men in the workforce, but women’s wages still lag behind; and more.

The First National Data on Birth Control Post-Dobbs Is Here, and the News Is Not Good

PUBLISHED 7/9/2024 by

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 2022 Dobbs decision, as dozens of abortion clinics shut down in states with total or near-total abortion bans, reproductive justice advocates warned that the closures wouldn’t just affect patients seeking to terminate their pregnancies.

Now, in the first research to look at national trends in the use of birth control pills and emergency contraceptives in the post-Roe era, a USC study has found states with the most draconian abortion policies saw significant declines in the number of birth control prescriptions filled, especially for emergency contraception. 

Whether Abusers Like Zackey Rahimi Should Be Able to Have Guns Should Have Never Reached the Supreme Court

PUBLISHED 7/9/2024 by and

For 30 years, federal law has disarmed domestic abusers who are subject to domestic violence protection orders. Last month, in United States v. Rahimi, the Supreme Court rejected the gun lobby’s effort to upend that status quo.

But make no mistake: this Supreme Court, along with lower courts attempting to follow its flawed precedents, remains a grave threat to the health and safety of women and countless others.