The Best and Worst States for Family Care Policies

, , , and

In 2021, the Century Foundation published its first care policy report card, “Care Matters,” which graded each state on a number of supportive family policies and worker rights and protections, such as paid sick and paid family leave, pregnant worker fairness, and the domestic worker bill of rights. The 2021 report card revealed the tremendous gaps in state care policies and a fragmented and insufficient system of care workers and families in most states.

This year’s update, co-authored with Caring Across Generations, takes another look at how states are doing.

Women and Caregivers Face Too Many Barriers Running for Office—Here’s How the ‘Help America Run’ Act Can Help

Parents, especially parents of young children, must bring children on the campaign trail—with all the difficulties that entails—or rely on vanishing childcare slots.

Currently, federal law permits candidates to use campaign funds for a limited number of personal expenses—such as childcare—incurred only because they are campaigning with each state having their own restrictions, too. The Help America Run Act formalizes and guarantees to help level the playing field for federal candidates. Without this standard, working parents, caregivers and the candidates from marginalized communities face barriers to campaigning resulting in a Congress that does not look like the United States.

Celebrating First Lady Betty Ford and Her Work for the Equal Rights Amendment

On Friday, April 5, the United States Postal Service (USPS) will issue a commemorative Forever stamp and hold an event to celebrate the life and legacy of Betty Ford, who served as first lady of the United States from 1974 to 1977. 

As first lady and wife of a Republican president, Betty Ford carved out a role for herself that included advocating for issues she cared about—including ratification of the ERA.

Merle Hoffman’s Post-Roe Abortion Rights Manifesto: ‘Anger Is Our Sacred Fuel’

In her new book Choices: A Post-Roe Abortion Rights Manifesto, Hoffman shares her 50-plus year fight for abortion access, including co-founding the first professional organization of abortion providers in the U.S. in 1976, the National Abortion Federation, and in 1985 founding the New York Pro-Choice Coalition. Part memoir, part call to arms, Hoffman’s book offers an engaging and thought-provoking assessment of how we lost the right to abortion and what we need to do today to achieve “legal abortion on demand nationwide.”

Beyoncé’s Country Accent in ‘Cowboy Carter’

Beyoncé’s voice of discontent resonates strongly, as does her once-considered “too country” accent, on Cowboy Carter. This, her eighth studio solo album, is a brilliant and genre-bending album rooted in country music that transcends the genre through its audacious, boundary-pushing and aggressive remixes and interpolations that have honored the hybrid space that is Southern culture. 

Education Is Under Attack. Here’s 13 Feminist Educators on How to Fight Back

Educators advance the spirit of teaching by encouraging inquiry, engagement, and investigation of diverse perspectives. Many carry the torch forward by addressing critical issues affecting our lives and communities. Education challenges entrenched thinking, not by telling students what to think, but by offering lessons on how to think critically. That is why education is under attack. 

Here’s an inspiring sample (in alphabetical order) of wise women cultural critics, philosophers, theorists, scholars and professors from among many who inspire social justice education.

Advocates Ask Supreme Court to Overturn Dobbs, Citing ‘Tragic Consequences’

On March 29, the Pennsylvania-based Women’s Law Project filed the first-ever amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that reversed Roe v. Wade. The brief argued that Dobbs is “unworkable” because the decision has “subjected people in need of reproductive healthcare to immense suffering and grave danger” and has “ushered in an era of unprecedented legal and doctrinal chaos.”

“It is vitally important to challenge Dobbs at every turn and send a signal that it is not set in stone,” said David Cohen, a constitutional law professor at Drexel Kline School of Law and co-author of the brief. “We will not rest until this terrible decision is overturned.”

April 2024 Reads for the Rest of Us

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

Here are 25 fantastic books releasing this month that we recommend you dig into. There are stunning debuts, masterful historical fiction, kaleidoscopic short stories, thoughtful manifestas, moving memoirs, groundbreaking nonfiction, and so much more.

The Comstock Act Is a Backdoor Approach to a National Abortion Ban—And Justices Alito and Thomas Are Interested

A general consensus seems to have emerged after last week’s oral arguments in the case against the abortion pill that the Supreme Court is likely to rule that the anti-abortion physicians and their umbrella group, the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, lack sufficient legal grounds to challenge the FDA’s loosening of restrictions on mifepristone.

While dismissal based on a lack of standing would be a welcome result, it is not a guarantee given the Court’s anti-abortion supermajority. But even if this occurs, the apparent zest manifested by Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas towards the Comstock Act from 1873 brings a lurking danger fully out into the open.