The One Good Thing About School Dress Codes

PUBLISHED 1/18/2022 by
dress code

School dress codes are agents of slut-shaming, driven by the belief that girls who don’t cover up are deviant and distracting. But the one exciting upside is that students are so disgusted and outraged by these sexist, racist regulations that they are galvanized to become feminist activists.

“The administration had been looking at my photo, and what they saw was my chest. It was concerning to me that they were basically viewing us just as bodies that were distracting. They were sexualizing us even though we’re still children.”

Black Women in Martin Luther King Jr.’s Neighborhood Will Soon Receive Monthly Cash Payments

PUBLISHED 1/18/2022 by

A new guaranteed income program will send $850 monthly payments to Black women over two years, beginning in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward, where King popularized the idea of direct cash payments half a century ago.

“Oftentimes our communities are viewed as lacking knowledge, lacking resources, lacking assets. We want to flip that narrative. Communities closest to the problem are rich with resources and insight on how to solve our deepest social issues, our deepest economic issues,” said Hope Wollensack, executive director of the Georgia Resilience and Opportunity Fund. “We want to put agency over one’s future in [women’s] hands.” 

Defamation Lawsuits: Another Tactic to Silence Survivors

PUBLISHED 1/18/2022 by

Due to a culture of stigmatization and shame, fueled by deficient laws and a criminal justice system that rarely takes victims of sexual abuse seriously, survivors are often reluctant to come forward with their experiences. Recently, a worrying trend has further raised the stakes for survivors who choose to speak out: the weaponization of defamation lawsuits. This happens when the person accused of sexual violence attempts to use the courts to punish the survivor for having spoken out about the abuse she allegedly experienced—even, in some cases, after an official confirmation of the abuse has been made.

Online Abortion Providers Cindy Adam and Lauren Dubey of Choix: “We’re Really Excited About the Future of Abortion Care”

PUBLISHED 1/14/2022 by

A range of telemedicine abortion providers are springing up in the U.S. in response to the removal of FDA restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone—like Cindy Adam and Lauren Dubey, nurse practitioners and owners of Choix, a virtual clinic offering asynchronous telemedicine abortion services to people in California, Colorado and Illinois.

“It feels really cool that I can do this on a day-to-day basis,” Dubey said. “Cindy and I are at the forefront of telemedicine abortion, teaching other people how to do it, helping more people to do it and exposing the world to this new type of care. It is incredibly fulfilling, not just being an abortion provider and not just doing it via telehealth, but being at the forefront of abortion care in a new way.”

Why Is the Senate Failing To Build Back Better? Blame Sexism

PUBLISHED 1/14/2022 by
Why Is the Senate Failing To Build Back Better? Blame Sexism

Build Back Better is not just about what’s right. It’s about what’s necessary to keep our country from falling apart at the seams. If we don’t mitigate climate change now, climate disasters will become more frequent, and more deadly and destructive. If we don’t build a strong childcare system, parents won’t be able to go to work, and we will lose skills and experience, as well as huge chunks of the labor force.

Without BBB, we’re losing not just a move toward equity, health and well-being—but also the chance at lasting prosperity.

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation; Rest in Power, Lani Guinier; NY Gov Kathy Hochul Is Shaking Things Up for Women; Black Women Are Just 6% of U.S. House

PUBLISHED 1/13/2022 by
Weekend Reading on Women's Representation; Rest in Power, Lani Guinier; NY Gov Kathy Hochul Is Shaking Things Up for Women; Black Women Are Just 6% of U.S. House

Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.

This week: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s term limit legislation could provide more women the chance to run and win; Minneapolis’s Andrea Jenkins is the first openly trans city council president in the U.S., and Seattle’s Debora Juarez marks same milestone for Indigenous people; Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick’s election brings the percentage of Black women in the U.S. House to 6 percent; Xiomara Castro, the incoming woman president of Honduras; the legacy of voting rights champion Lani Guinier, who died on Jan. 7; and more.

Coretta Scott King, a Revolutionary Woman (January 2006)

PUBLISHED 1/13/2022 by
From the Vault: Coretta Scott King, a Revolutionary Woman

While Coretta Scott King has been celebrated as a civil rights icon, her vision of “the beloved community” was bolder and more revolutionary than her husband Martin’s. When we retell the story of radical African American activism in the 20th century, we can finally embrace Coretta Scott King as the truly revolutionary figure she was.

*This article was originally published in the Spring 2006 issue of Ms.—a few months after Coretta Scott King’s death on January 30, 2006.*

It’s 100 Seconds To Midnight! Can We Reverse The Doomsday Clock?

PUBLISHED 1/12/2022 by

“We are perilously close, closer than we’ve ever been, to a man-made point of no return,” said Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin. “But setting the Doomsday Clock each year is meant to carry a message of hope and remind us we have the ability to reduce these seemingly insurmountable threats and of our responsibility to future generations. It tells us we can beat the odds.”