Harness the Power of Your Vote: A Young Voter’s Guide for 2024

PUBLISHED 10/11/2024 by | UPDATED 10/22/2024 at 7:07 A.M. PT

As the Nov. 5 election approaches, young voters have a unique opportunity to shape their future. This election is a chance to amplify our voices on the issues that matter most to us. For many, this will be our first presidential election, and while the excitement is palpable, the process can feel overwhelming. Between registering to vote, researching candidates, and determining how to cast our ballot, it’s easy to feel lost. As we navigate these steps, this guide is here to empower you in making your voice heard.

(This essay is part of a Women & Democracy multimedia package focused on Gen Z and student voters. The future envisioned by young leaders is bright—it’s built on reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, sustainability, freedom from violence and economic opportunity. Explore essays, a brand-new podcast, videos and more from some of your most loved [or soon to be!] influencers and writers, brought to you by Ms., DoSomething, the nonprofit that helps make volunteerism “cool,” and The Anthem Awards, the social impact arm of The Webbys.)

The Size of Discrimination: Racism and Bias in the Fight Against the ‘Obesity Epidemic’

PUBLISHED 10/11/2024 by , and

The thread of social stigmatizing and racism has long woven through the fabrics of science and medicine. Sarah Baartman, an indigenous South African woman born in 1789, was subjected to profound cruelties, specifically associated with her body size and shape—placed at first in a cage alongside a rhinoceros, and later in circuses and so-called “freak-shows” throughout Europe under the name Hottentot Venus.

To this day, women experience weight discrimination at significantly higher rates than male peers.

Addressing the Sexism and Racism Aimed at Kamala Harris, Transcending Leadership Stereotypes and More: The Ms. Q&A with Anita Hill

PUBLISHED 10/11/2024 by

I first interviewed Anita Hill over 10 years ago for my book What Will It Take to Make a Woman President?: Conversations About Women, Leadership and Power, where we discussed the various factors involved in why the U.S. had not yet elected a woman president and what could be done to move us closer to this milestone, as well as pave the way for more women leaders.
Now, as the U.S. is poised to possibly elect Kamala Harris as not only its first woman president but its first Black and South Asian woman president, I wanted to talk to Hill again to get her insights on this potentially history-making moment.

Ending Child Marriage—For Good: The Ms. Q&A With Clay Dunn, CEO at VOW for Girls

PUBLISHED 10/10/2024 by and

Oct. 11 is International Day of the Girl, an annual celebration that promotes advocacy for the rights, education and empowerment of girls across the globe. This year’s theme is “Girls’ Vision for the Future.” Child marriage, a practice that robs millions of girls of their childhoods, opportunities and dreams, prevents girls from realizing their own vision for the future. Each year, an estimated 12 million girls are married before the age of 18, perpetuating cycles of poverty and inequality. 

We got the chance to speak with Clay Dunn, CEO of VOW for Girls, an organization that partners with brands, individuals, and the wedding industry to raise money for local partners working to end child marriage in their community.

‘The Chronicler, the Microphone, the Billboard’: Jessica Valenti’s ‘Abortion’ Book Arms Us to Face the Violence of Abortion Bans

PUBLISHED 10/10/2024 by

In her recently released book, Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies and The Truths We Use to Win, Jessica Valenti details the future. But, her gift is not prophecy, but clarity of facts. She is clear that the question of abortion access is a question of personal autonomy. She is clear that conservatives are carefully crafting a world where women who have the audacity to want sex on their own terms must be punished by a pregnancy. She is clear that conservatives want to take personhood from a person with a uterus and assign it to the embryo or fetus within it.

As Valenti writes, it is those who would “force children to give birth … make devastated women carry dead and dying fetuses, and make women raped by men prove their attacks really happened before receiving health care” that are the problem. 

Explainer on Proposal 1, the New York Equal Rights Amendment on the Ballot

PUBLISHED 10/10/2024 by | UPDATED 11/6/2024 at 10:27 A.M. PT

A New York ballot measure to create constitutional protections for abortion and create explicit protections for people who experience discrimination, passed overwhelmingly on Tuesday.

How will the New York ERA change the state Constitution? How can the New York ERA address structural and systemic discrimination? Will the New York ERA protect reproductive rights? Will the New York ERA undermine or weaken parental rights?

October Reads for the Rest of Us

PUBLISHED 10/10/2024 by

Each month, we provide Ms. readers with a list of new books being published by writers from historically excluded groups.

This month, our Ms. book editor recommends Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win by Jessica Valenti, Doll Seed by Michele Tracy Berger, Humans in Shackles: An Atlantic History of Slavery by Ana Lucia Araujo, and more.

Do You Remember the First Time You Voted?

PUBLISHED 10/9/2024 by

The first year I could vote, the choices for president were Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater or the incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson. LBJ won—the largest landslide in U.S. history. Voting for him as a first-time voter felt consequential.

This year, I’ll be voting with two very special first-time voters: my twin granddaughters, in the swing state of Georgia. Our daughters’ and granddaughters’ future is in danger.

‘That’s My Dad!’: Helping Men Find Purpose in an Angry World

PUBLISHED 10/9/2024 by | UPDATED 10/22/2024 at 7:07 A.M. PT

Young men in the U.S. are in an existential crisis, and from even the most casual browsing of their online spaces, their anger and loneliness are obvious. For these male biological challenges, we need empathy and understanding. For the social constructions of masculinity, the way we raise boys and socialize men, we need a bold, new social project. As grandiose as it may sound, men are seeking purpose. 

(This essay is part of a Women & Democracy multimedia package focused on Gen Z and student voters. The future envisioned by young leaders is bright—it’s built on reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, sustainability, freedom from violence and economic opportunity. Explore essays, a brand-new podcast, videos and more from some of your most loved [or soon to be!] influencers and writers, brought to you by Ms., DoSomething, the nonprofit that helps make volunteerism “cool,” and The Anthem Awards, the social impact arm of The Webbys.)