More Than A Magazine, A Movement
While the United States has a long way to go to achieve intersectional, gender-balanced governance, progress was still made in 2021. From historic appointments to record-breaking elections, women reached new milestones at every level of government this year.
So as difficult as it may be to find cause to celebrate in challenging times, here are 10 reasons to have hope for a more gender-inclusive future.
They used Minecraft to fight for their reproduction rights, T-shirts to protest censorship, Instagram to bring an end to sexual assault and state law to reform environmental curricula in schools. The teen girls profiled in this year’s The Future is Ms. series dug deep into their activists toolbox to create change in their communities and make the world a better place for girls and women. Here’s a roundup of articles written by teen girl journalists.
As abortion restrictions increase, clinics close, and the cost of abortion goes up, more and more women are ordering abortion pills online and taking them safely at home, with and without telehealth support. Traffic has spiked on the website of the abortion pill advocacy group Plan C, which shares information about how to buy abortion pills online and get them by mail in all 50 states. Over the last several months, Plan C’s website has had over 200,000 visitors with 88 percent new visitors. A quarter of them have come from Texas.
But is it legal to purchase abortion pills online?
On Dec. 16, dozens of brave Afghan women in Kabul staged a rally against the spread of poverty calling for food, work, equality and full participation in all social, economic and political spheres. The women marched through Kabul holding banners that demanded women’s political participation and the release of Afghanistan’s frozen assets by the international community.
“Our children are dying from starvation. Our families are struggling to find bread for their children. International community: Please hear our voice—don’t abandon Afghanistan and its people,” said one protester.
In the midst of the holiday season, the pressure on parents to select the perfect gift for every member of their family can feel overwhelming. What’s harder is when companies have developed a tendency of blaming accidents of shocking children’s deaths on parents, even if their unsafe products are the real culprits.
This is a feminist issue. The more the government encourages industry self-monitoring and consumer educational campaigns over regulation and federal oversight, the more the management of risk is transferred to individual families, and the gendered labor of mothers in particular.
In a confounding move, Sen. Joe Manchin decided to derail the Build Back Better bill in a Fox News appearance Sunday night. It’s not difficult to prove how wrong Manchin and the 50 GOP senators opposed to Build Back Better are. But how do we enact progress when 51 people can stand in the way of what the majority of us want?
Women and girl survivors of gender-based violence have essentially been abandoned in Afghanistan. Their network of support has been dismantled, and their places of refuge have all but disappeared.
After 18 months of fighting for clean air, Alexandra Collins thought that she could leave ethylene oxide behind. But then, she found that the pollutant is an ingredient in many cosmetics that women and girls use today. She combined her computer science skills and her advocacy work and partnered with a friend to create an app that reviews cosmetics products with the mission of keeping girls and women safe from the harms of EtO.
The National Women’s Studies Association mourns the passing of Dr. Gloria Jean Watkins, Ph.D./bell hooks—genius, scholar, cultural critic, author, professor, truth speaker, a lover of words and of us. She challenged us, taught us, spoke to and sometimes for us. She gave us the words to say and the courage to say them. bell hooks never gave up. She never gave in. She was more than we could have asked for and gave us more than we could have ever imagined. As someone said, our heroes are dying, and our enemies are in power.
As NWSA marks this moment, I reached out and asked some of our former presidents to join with me and share their reflections and stories to add their voices to our collective of love.
As families hope Democratic leadership will find a different path to pass Build Back Better policies like childcare or paid leave, another revolutionary policy is just beginning to enter mainstream awareness: guaranteed income.
Guaranteed income involves regular payments directed to specific marginalized groups, as a way to address economic inequities caused by systemic racism and sexism. Economic justice organizations like the Magnolia Mother’s Trust argue that a federal guaranteed income program would not just help low-income families pay their bills, but also reduce financial stress and set their families up for long-term success.