More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Meet the Voices Bonus Content From This Episode Further Reading From the 50 Years of Ms. Collection Get a copy of the book. Further Reading From the Ms. Archives Explore our coverage of the Equal Rights Amendment, including our series on why The ERA is Essential to Democracy. More Links & Resources Episode Transcript [THEME […]
The professor and The Age of Sex Crime author explained in the latest episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward why the backlash we’re facing is proof that we’re winning—and urged feminists not to abandon their utopic visions for a world without misogyny.
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.
From reproductive rights and workplace protections, to access to education and voting, the freedoms women have fought for are under attack like never before.
This Women’s Equality Day cannot be symbolic. It must be a reckoning. Because if women’s rights continue to erode, it won’t just be women who lose—it will be democracy itself.
The time for quiet patience is over. The only way forward is louder, stronger and unstoppable.
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:
—“I am deeply alarmed by news reports that Costco is refusing to sell safe, effective, and legal medication for no other reason than to appease the politics of antiabortion fanatics,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).
—The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee called for Democrat-led state legislatures to pursue redistricting: “The DLCC refuses to allow Republicans to rig the maps to keep themselves in power.”
—“A troubling shift is underway: Women are leaving the U.S. workforce in unprecedented numbers. But this isn’t a choice; it’s a consequence,” warned Catalyst president and CEO Jennifer McCollum after a report showed 212,000 women have left the workforce since January.
—A third of college students have missed class because of their period.
—The Trump administration is planning to restrict coverage of abortion care for veterans in almost all circumstances.
—RFK Jr. takes aim at antidepressant use during pregnancy, despite American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ approving of their usage.
—Texas’ abortion ban has made miscarriages more dangerous.
—A federal court blocked the Trump administration’s restrictions on grants from the Office on Violence Against Women. Seventeen states had challenged the restrictions, and the order is a temporary win for organizations supporting survivors of domestic and sexual violence.
… and more.
Tuesday, Aug. 26, marks 104 years since the 19th Amendment was certified, recognizing women’s constitutional right to vote. But anniversaries like Women’s Equality Day are not just about looking back. They remind us of unfinished business.
The proposed SAVE Act threatens to make voting harder for students, married women, low-income voters and communities of color. Dark money is flooding state races aimed at rolling back abortion access, LGBTQ+ protections and civil rights. And without congressional recognition of the ERA, gender equality remains absent from the Constitution.
But wins are possible.
Laws, rules or regulations ban trans athletes from competing in sports consistent with their gender identity in 29 states, with 21 beginning the ban in kindergarten. The majority-conservative Supreme Court announced last month it’ll be taking on the question of the constitutionality of the bans. Meanwhile, the federal government is pressuring states without bans to change their policies in compliance with a Trump executive order that attempts to institute a nationwide ban.
These bans have been successful in part because of a toxic and ruthless ecosystem of far-right influencers, like Riley Gaines, who have formed entire careers around attacking trans athletes by prioritizing hate and misinformation.
“It can be really difficult when [trans athletes] feel like they’re doing everything right … and they still don’t belong.”
The Trump administration, 119th Congress and John Roberts-led Supreme Court are redirecting federal tax dollars from Planned Parenthood and Title X to bankroll the $2 billion unregulated pregnancy clinic industry—crisis pregnancy centers—positioning it to replace reproductive health clinics nationwide.
The antiabortion industry has long aimed to “replace” Planned Parenthood, and since Roe‘s fall, so-called pro-life operatives claim these clinics fill gaps in prenatal and postpartum care and address maternal and infant mortality. These claims are false. Their mission—to block abortion—directly conflicts with providing actual, lifesaving healthcare.
Project 2025 seeks to disqualify Planned Parenthood from Medicaid and end “religious discrimination in grant selections”—code for funneling federal dollars to crisis pregnancy centers.
“Let’s call this what it is: a calculated, coordinated attack on poor women and families,” says Debra Rosen, executive director of Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch. Low-income women are being denied care at real health centers and funneled into ideological storefronts. The hypocrisy is breathtaking, and the consequences will be deadly—a manufactured, avoidable public health crisis.
Meet the Voices Bonus Content From This Episode Further Reading From the 50 Years of Ms. Collection Get a copy of the book. Further Reading From the Ms. Archives Explore our coverage of Violence and Harassment, including reporting on violence against women and VAWA, domestic violence and sexual violence, campus sexual violence, workplace harassment and […]
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.
The Woman grew up in a small Christian town in northeastern Tennessee. Community values—kindness, compassion, love—are deeply cherished. She’s never moved; why would she? She enjoys the simplicity of her little community.
But the tide turns with a growing political movement seemingly predicated on bigotry and punitive, hypocritical morality. The news cycle churns frenetically, each day bearing more distressing confusion.
Her state representatives are unresponsive to your concerns, and she has a serious one: She’s pregnant and unmarried in post-Roe America, and cannot get care in her state. Legally, a doctor can decline to provide care for you.
She’s not trying to cause problems. But she’s terrified and she wants answers. How did we get here as a nation? And can we ever go back?
A grave truth transcends: Christian fundamentalism has insidiously inserted itself into American policy, perverting its own values to legalize discrimination.
Bigotry doesn’t always present as a Unite the Right rally or violence in our nation’s capital. Sometimes, it comes with a demure smile and a sweet, “It’s just my personal belief.” It’s still bigotry.