‘She Rubbed Me the Wrong Way’: Why Trump Punished a Woman Head of State for Saying No

Under the Jan. 21 headline “‘She Just Rubbed Me the Wrong Way’: Trump Suggests Swiss Tariffs Were Personal,’” The New York Times quotes Trump quoted as saying, she was “’so aggressive.”

Seeking to make sense of the existential anomie that flooded me after reading the article, it quickly became apparent that that much more was at play here than a clash of personalities, as suggested by Times’ headline. Accordingly, as I began envisioning the article I would write, my initial aim was to locate Trump’s remarks within the broader context of his administration’s attacks on women and the LGBTQ+ community. 

At Home and Abroad, MAGA’s Politics of Force Try to Reassert White Male Power

The connective tissue of Donald Trump’s takeover of Venezuela, his threats to invade Greenland, the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by masked federal agents in Minneapolis, and the EEOC’s encouragement of white men to bring claims of discrimination against them is this: All represent increasingly desperate efforts by Trump and MAGA to forcefully put white men back in charge.

Move Over, Childless Cat Ladies—The Right Has a New Woman to Hate

The right-wing manosphere has quickly absorbed the lexicon of AWFUL: “Affluent White Female Urban Liberals.” Move over childless cat ladies, there is a new broad in town.

The movement hell-bent on extolling the virtues of tradwife life has now set its sights on “organized gangs of wine moms us[ing] Antifa tactics to harass and impede” ICE, according to the talking heads at Fox News.

Sigh, MAGA. There you go again, mangling the plotline. Don’t you know? Motherhood has always been political, embedded in acts of resistance, from Reconstruction to women’s suffrage through the rise of the Civil Rights Movement.

Women Are Being Priced Out of Health Coverage—and Congress Knows It

With the 2026 Affordable Care Act (ACA) open enrollment period now closed, millions of Americans are facing an uncomfortable new reality: higher monthly costs for the health coverage they already struggled to afford.

When health insurance becomes unaffordable, women don’t just absorb the cost. They make sacrifices—often at the expense of their health. They end up skipping preventive services, delaying medical tests, forgoing mental healthcare, and leaving prescriptions unfilled. The consequences can be severe: delayed diagnoses, worsened health outcomes, poorer quality of life, and higher costs down the road for families and the health system.

Unable to wait for Congress to act to extend the credits, the vast majority of Americans have already made their health insurance decisions for 2026. With the enrollment deadline passed, women have had to make decisions based on what they can afford right now—not on promises that may never materialize.

Keeping Score: Renee Good Fatally Shot by ICE; Women Work Longer and Are Paid Less Worldwide; N.Y. Fights Back Against Federal Childcare Freeze

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.

This week:
—”We had whistles. They had guns,” said Becca Good, wife of Renee Good, who was killed in Minneapolis by ICE agent Jonathan Ross.
—In central Texas, five months after the Sandy Creek flooding, “many are still homeless, and only 36 percent of FEMA claims in our area have been approved,” said survivor Brandy Gerstner. “FEMA must be independent, fully funded and strengthened—because when it fails to function, real families pay the price.”
—Anti-Muslim and anti-South Asian hate increased around the election of NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
—The Department of Veterans Affairs announced new abortion bans.
—Meta has removed the social media accounts of dozens of reproductive health and LGBTQ groups.
—Women worldwide earn just a third of what men do when unpaid domestic labor is taken into account.

… and more.

Hockey’s Cultural Renaissance Can’t Ignore Domestic Violence

HBO’s recent juggernaut, Heated Rivalry, has blasted to the front of seemingly everyone’s consciousness over the last few months. While the press tour of the two lead actors promoting the show is, in a word, delightful, the attention being paid to fictional hockey players’ relationships off-the-ice is, unfortunately, a stark reminder of the reality of the state of gender-based violence in the sport.

Countless players for the National Hockey League (NHL), as well as the junior and minor leagues, have been accused of domestic and sexual violence. Yet many of those same players are retained on lucrative professional and semiprofessional contracts, and some have been able to keep playing even while under investigation for criminal sexual and domestic assault.

The NHL remains the only of the four major professional sports leagues (which also includes the NFL, NBA and MLB) that lacks a formal and specific domestic violence policy when players are accused of sexual or domestic violence.

Oscar-Shortlisted Film ‘Belén’ Exposes the Injustice That Helped Transform Argentina’s Abortion Laws

Belén didn’t know she was pregnant until she miscarried in a hospital. She’d gone to the emergency room suffering excruciating abdominal pain. Instead of receiving care, she awoke from surgery handcuffed to her hospital bed and accused of having an illegal abortion.

This is the true story behind Belén, a powerful new Argentine film directed by, written by and starring Dolores Fonzi. It is based on the ordeal of a young woman from northern Argentina, chronicled in Ana Correa’s nonfiction book What Happened to Belén: The Unjust Imprisonment That Sparked a Women’s Rights Movement, the prologue of which was written by Margaret Atwood.

Despite a lack of evidence, Belén was charged with aggravated homicide and sentenced to eight years in prison.

After two years, Belén was freed, thanks to the legal work of activist and lawyer Soledad Deza and the sustained support of women’s organizations and women’s rights activists and movements, such as “Ni Una Menos” (Not One Less). Her case became a rallying cry for reproductive rights, with thousands taking to the streets under the banner #LibertadParaBelen (“Freedom for Belén”), paving the way for Argentina’s historic legalization of abortion in 2020.

Recognizing Movements and Watching Elections: How We Build Lasting Political Power

Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation in politics, sports and entertainment, judicial offices and the private sector—with a little gardening mixed in!

This week:
—New York City’s council speaker Adrienne Adams offers an account of what changes when representation reaches governing power.
—2026 elections across the globe will be a big year for the health of democracy.
—Ohio joins the growing national effort to honor women’s political history.

… and more.