Gender-Based Violence Is Everywhere. What Will It Take to Break the Cycle?
In the fourth episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward, advocates and experts name the sociopolitical factors that fuel gender-based violence, and outline what it will take—in the courts, legislatures and our communities—to finally break the cycle.
“What does it mean that so many women, in particular, have to shoulder the burdens of violence and abuse in our day-to-day lives?”
“We’re in the middle of this terrible backlash because patriarchy does feel so threatened … It’s terrible, and it’s getting worse, but it’s because we have been so successful so far.”
Listen to the latest episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward, “How Feminists are Breaking the Cycle of Gender-Based Violence and Harassment (with Ellen Sweet, Jane Caputi, Vanessa Tyson, Victoria Nourse, and Debra Katz)” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
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How Feminists are Breaking the Cycle of Gender-Based Violence and Harassment (with Ellen Sweet, Jane Caputi, Vanessa Tyson, Victoria Nourse, and Debra Katz)
Ms. made history when it put domestic violence and sexual harassment on the cover, commissioned the first national survey on campus sexual violence, and instigated a successful campaign to change the FBI’s definition of rape. But 50-plus years since Ms. hit newsstands, women are still being impacted every day by gender-based violence and harassment—and survivors of violence continue to be blamed and disbelieved.
This episode traces the impact of feminist writing and advocacy focused on naming, confronting, and preventing sexual harassment, rape culture and intimate partner violence—and the urgency of acknowledging the violence of patriarchy, white supremacy and other social forces in our everyday lives and building a future without fear.
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What About the Men? Analyzing the Public Health Crisis Affecting Men and Boys
We can’t talk about the health crisis among men and boys without asking deeper, more uncomfortable questions—ones that go beyond the usual grievance-driven narratives.
During a visit to the Franklin County coroner’s office, I was struck by the fact that over 70 percent of the bodies they investigate are male—victims of overdose, suicide, homicide and accidents. This data doesn’t just signal a crisis; it reflects a profound societal failure to understand men’s suffering through a critical, feminist lens.
Feminist scholars have long argued that the way men are socialized—into silence, risk-taking and emotional suppression—contributes directly to their declining health outcomes. And the burden of this crisis doesn’t fall on men alone: Women, particularly women of color, are often left to carry the emotional and financial weight of caring for the struggling men in their lives.
Healing men is not about restoring old hierarchies, but imagining new, more just forms of connection, care and masculinity.
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A Trump Cabinet Member Endorsed a Pastor Who Wants the 19th Amendment Repealed, and the Danger Is Growing
Once a fringe warning, the threat to women’s right to vote is now out in the open—and in the halls of power.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reposted a video on Aug. 7 with the endorsement “All of Christ for All of Life,” in which a far-right conservative pastor, Doug Wilson, co-founder of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), argued that women should not have the right to vote.
As Wilson told the Associated Press, “He was, in effect, reposting it and saying, ‘Amen,’ at some level.”
But a deeper dive into CREC reveals troubling gender politics where women cannot hold church leadership positions and married women are expected to submit to their husbands.
