Search Results for: 1970

‘The Strong Do What They Please’: Dr. Judith Herman on Trump, Trauma and Tyranny

Feminist writers have long argued that there is an intrinsic relationship between patriarchy, rape and colonialism. The seizure of land by force is comparable to the seizure of a woman’s body—and historically rape and war have often gone hand-in-hand. 

In order to get a better understanding of how Donald Trump’s attitudes towards women might be related to his foreign policy, I reached out to Dr. Judith Herman, a world-renowned expert in trauma studies.

“The rules are pretty straightforward: The strong do what they please because they can. The weak submit because they have no other choice. And the bystanders are either complicit or too terrified to intervene, or just don’t care. These are the same rules whether we are talking about international relations or whether we’re talking about intimate personal relations.”

Trump Administration Slashes Reproductive Healthcare Funding for Millions

On March 31, the Trump administration sent letters to Planned Parenthood affiliates and other reproductive health clinics in 20 states announcing a freeze of close to $35 million in federal Title X funding as of April 1. Title X is a federal program that provides affordable birth control, cancer screenings and other sexual and reproductive healthcare to low-income women. 

“President Trump and Elon Musk are pushing their dangerous political agenda, stripping health care access from people nationwide, and not giving a second thought to the devastation they will cause,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

The Senate Wives Club and Carter’s ERA Extension: Four Decades Later, ‘Equality of Rights Under the Law’ Has Yet to Be Guaranteed

This Women’s History Month, we remember President Jimmy Carter’s role in establishing this official observance of women’s achievements, his related support for the Equal Rights Amendment, and some unsung heroes in the Senate Wives Club who were instrumental in gaining Carter’s support for an ERA milestone that advanced, but ultimately failed to achieve, ERA ratification.

The contributions of Senate wives in the 1970s, particularly their efforts to help delay the ERA’s ratification deadline, often go unrecognized even today.

Pauli Murray: The American Hero You Never Learned About (and the Federal Government Doesn’t Want You To)

A few years ago, I went searching for Pauli Murray. By that point, the poet, civil rights activist and pioneering legal scholar had been dead for 35 years. But in researching her life for the book I was working on, I’d learned about the profound impact that her work had had on the very fabric of America and particularly on the country’s legal system. I was convinced that because of everything Murray had done—the extent to which she had shaped movements and laws and lives—she would have to be remembered prominently and publicly. It was probably just my own fault, I reasoned, that I hadn’t previously heard of her.

Like millions of others around the world, I have spent the last few weeks oscillating between fear, anger and sadness as I’ve watched the new U.S. administration neglect the core values of democracy and wreak havoc with the systems that have propped up this country for centuries. With no way of changing the mind of a morally bankrupt megalomaniac, I’m concentrating on what I can do. Since I’ve learned of her remarkable life, I’ve loved telling people about Murray; about the unlikely against-all-odds battles she faced head-on—public wars she waged while simultaneously grappling with her own often-debilitating private troubles. If the federal government chooses to ignore those upon whose shoulders we all stand, those of us who recognize the indignity of this will simply have to make up for it by telling their stories loudly, telling their stories often and then repeating them over and over and over again. It is, after all, what Pauli Murray would do.

On America’s 250th Anniversary, Let’s Remember Women’s Stories: The Ms. Q&A with Jill Hasday

The United States’ 250th anniversary in 2026 presents an opportunity to include women in the stories America tells about itself, according to Jill Hasday, author of the important new book, We the Men: How Forgetting Women’s Struggles for Equality Perpetuates Inequality.

We the Men tells the stories “of so many women who deserve to be remembered,” said Hasday. It also explores the ways in which forgetting women’s ongoing struggles for equality has perpetuated injustice and promote complacency. Remembering women’s stories more often and more accurately can help the nation advance toward sex equality.

Trump Attacks Queer Communities Using Nazi Symbolism

Earlier this week, President Trump shared an article on his Truth Social platform celebrating his elimination of trans and queer people from military advertising. The opinion piece published by reporter Jeremy Hunt of The Washington Times, featured a crossed out upside down pink triangle. The inverted pink triangle was a symbol used by Nazis to identify LGBTQ+ prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. In response, LGBTQ+ Americans and allies are expressing fear surrounding the post—marking the third time that someone within or associated with the Trump administration has used Nazi symbolism.

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation: Women’s Rights Face Global Backlash 30 Years After Beijing Declaration; Washington Post Loses Ruth Marcus, a Leading Voice for Women

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

This week: Ruth Marcus details her decades-long history with The Washington Post and the deteriorating environment on the editorial page as its owner Jeff Bezos curried favor with Donald Trump; City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams launches campaign for New York City mayor; with Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) not seeking reelection, the U.S. will lose two women U.S. senators after the 2026 elections; women serve as heads of state in only 25 countries, make up only 27.2 percent of Parliament, and hold 22.9 percent of Cabinet positions internationally; and more.

Women’s History Month Is a Time for Optimism

Dispatches from Week 2 of Women’s History Month:

It’s Week 2 of Women’s History Month, and just knowing the federal government might well ban those three words in sequence—along with “gender,” “female,” “feminism” and about 250 others—you can bet I’m feeling extra rebellious as I write this column.

I am back from celebrating International Women’s Day (March 8) at South by Southwest. Among the festival keynotes, Chelsea Clinton urged that optimism is fundamentally a moral and political choice. Remaining optimistic, she remarked, is like “saying we do not have to accept the status quo. … We do accept that we may not be able to do everything all at once, but we can always do something.”

Women’s History Month is a solemn reminder that our reaction—and our commitment to action—also requires that we hold tight to the optimism our foremothers possessed.

USAID’s History Shows Decades of Good Work on Behalf of America’s Global Interests

The Trump administration’s sudden dismantling of nearly all foreign aid, including the work carried out by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has upended the government agency’s longtime strategic role in implementing American foreign policy.

USAID is a government agency that, for more than 63 years, has led the United States’ foreign aid work on disaster recovery, poverty reduction and democratic reforms in many developing and middle-income countries. USAID’s budget has always been small—but USAID’s projects have had an outsized effect on the world.