More Than A Magazine, A Movement
“No one’s going to protect or lift up our legacy,” said Dee Barnes, the first Black woman hip-hop journalist and a member of the duo Body and Soul. “We can’t wait on the men.”
(This series is part of “Turning 50,” which recognizes the women who shaped hip-hop.)
Burnout and stress have caused approximately 100,000 nurses to leave the workforce since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This comes as no surprise to Tara Rynders, a Colorado-based registered nurse who has created a series of workshops for medical staff to address the sorrow and the joy of caring for others. The workshops—which combine movement, writing, play the arts and debriefing—also focus on how workers can provide what she calls “courageous care” to themselves.
Rydners’ workshops aim to “give nurses a way to debrief and process their feelings. … Nurses and other medical workers need to be able to stand up to power and celebrate themselves, not for being self-sacrificing, but for being able to set boundaries, say no, and not comply with every request.”
As the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s devastating decision in Dobbs v. Jackson approaches, Ms. spoke with U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who leads the Democratic Caucus on reproductive rights and has been at the forefront of the fight for reproductive freedom in Congress since she was first elected in 1992.
“Every time we have tried to do anything, we are blocked by Republicans. So, we have looked at every other way that we can try and help manage the chaos and crisis that’s been created. … We are working to come up with the best solutions for what is happening to women in this country and the healthcare impacts we are seeing.”
Written by Naomi Alderman and adapted into a TV series for Prime Video, The Power asks a deceptively simple question: What would happen if, overnight, girls and some women worldwide gained the ability to administer electric shocks at will?
Ms. spoke with Naomi Alderman about her novel and how she sees its television adaptation resonating in the years since the book’s initial release.
The pandemic brought a surge of barriers for people seeking access to reproductive care and abortion, especially among women who identify as Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI)—from increased disease severity and mortality rates, to xenophobia and acts of violence.
For Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Ms. spoke with Dr. Sophia Yen about the disparities that different racial groups face when it comes to medical treatment in reproductive health and how AAPI women and their allies can advocate for themselves and their communities.
Republicans in North Carolina enacted SB 20, which prohibits any licensed physician from performing abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy. Ms. spoke with Amber Gavin, vice president of advocacy and operations for A Woman’s Choice, about the impact of the ban, slated to take effect on July 1.
“North Carolina has been a crucial access point to care in the South because so many surrounding states have partial or complete abortion bans. I am fearful and sad about folks not having the access to make decisions that are best for their lives and their futures. It’s unconscionable to take away essential healthcare from our communities, to take away their choices and options.”
In 1987, Attorney Lynn Paltrow defended Pamela Rae Stewart, a California woman criminally charged for failing to follow medical advice while pregnant. This case was one of the first attempts to criminalize a pregnant person for their actions and argue that fetuses have constitutional rights. In 2000, Paltrow started National Advocates for Pregnant Women, now called Pregnancy Justice, to defend pregnant people against criminalization and other deprivations of their rights.
“With half the population capable of pregnancy, what we have to do is change the conversation so that it is clear we are not just defending abortion, we are defending the personhood of the people who sometimes need abortions, but who always need to be treated as full rights-bearing, constitutional persons.”
In her new book Consent Culture and Teen Films: Adolescent Sexuality in U.S. Movies, independent filmmaker and scholar Michele Meek challenges the idea of consent as a straightforward concept and questions the messages about consent and teenage sexuality reflected in films of the last 20 years.
Nana Akosua Hanson, feminist activist, journalist and founder of Let’s Talk Consent, discusses her vision for a feminist future, the importance of art and media, and activism.
“I’m an African feminist who believes deeply in the power of art and artistic expression in changing the world.”
Many people see language models, like ChatGPT and other new machine learning technologies like Meta’s Make-A-Video, as the beginning of the end. And as a woman in tech—a field dominated by men—Gabriela de Queiroz has reason to be skeptical of AI.
But when de Queiroz talks about her efforts to make artificial intelligence more inclusive, she takes a different approach to understanding the ever more influential and pervasive role of AI in contemporary societies.
