More Than A Magazine, A Movement
People in states with restrictive abortion laws are finding creative ways to obtain abortion pills online.
“There is absolutely no reason why modern telehealth abortion care should be restricted based on your zip code, and these folks are finding effective workarounds to get the care they need,” said Elisa Wells, co-director of Plan C.
Recent headlines about Vice President Harris are part of a troubling pattern regarding how the press reports on women in positions of power. There’s the buildup, with flattering interviews and gushing features filled with overwhelming positive quotes from friends, colleagues and admirers. There’s the anointment, with the magazine covers and prime-time interviews and accolades.
And then comes the tear down.
The United Nations has raised concerns over the arrests and detentions of civil society activists, journalists, former government and security forces personnel in Afghanistan. For example, on Jan. 19, a video circulating on social media showed Tamana Zaryab Paryani, an Afghan women’s rights activist and journalist, pleading for help moments before armed men claiming to be Taliban intelligence broke into her apartment and abducted her and three of her sisters. Paryani recorded the video on her phone while the men were pounding on her door, “Help, please, the Taliban have come to our home … only my sisters are [here].”
The documentary TikTok, Boom. by Shalini Kantayya persuasively argues that TikTok’s curation results in viewers finding themselves in narrower and narrower silos, where they only see videos that confirm their biases and undergird their beliefs, with little regard for fact, accuracy or diverse perspectives. On the other hand, the app has a potential democratizing effect.
Ultimately, Tiktok, Boom. functions as an edifying look at the experiences of digital natives, Generation Z and beyond, and how these young people try to make meaning in the world.
Windswept: Walking the Paths of Trailblazing Women acknowledges the concurrent dreams and fears of women to experience the world with the privilege given to men—that privilege of power in the natural world. That privilege to do whatever it is we wish to do, see what we wish to see, for whatever our purpose, in safety, without being limited by our vulnerabilities or worrying for our lives.
The layers of history here arise from Abbs’s perspective that rivets for the richness of her inquiry, her persistence, her interaction with the works of her chosen women—and the fact that she walks their walks.
In this excerpt from “The Care We Dream Of,” author Zena Sharman interviews intersex activist, visual artist and public health researcher Sean Saifa Wall on intersex justice.
“The crux of intersex justice is recognizing the harm that has befallen intersex individuals who are born with atypical bodies and have been harmed by the medical establishment. But it’s also about allowing people who are intersex to be in their bodies and to be free.”
Anti-immigrant politicians and pundits continue to accuse Biden of promoting open borders, even as he pursues the most restrictionist border policies in recent history. This is not a constituency the president will likely ever satisfy.
It is long past time for the Biden administration to honor its promises and establish a safe, fair and humane asylum process for people fleeing danger.
“How could I, a highly-trained physician, not recognize the symptoms I taught trainees everyday?”
Society has convinced women we have to do it all: be successful in the workplace while fulfilling the lion’s share of care work at home. Women overcompensate by outperforming in both their fields and families—but the cost many face to their personal well-being is not worth it. Women must forgo this illusion and work to find balance in their life that works for them, accepting that they themselves have to be their own top priority.
When one assesses who has seats at the table—predominantly wealthy white men—it is no surprise that the issues that matter to so many everyday Americans are not lifted up.
This won’t change unless the country collectively acknowledges the literal concentration of American power among white men, decides it is not ideal, and takes affirmative steps to remedy it. The Supreme Court is a great place to start.
“Framing Agnes,” a documentary about transgender women and men who were interviewed in the 1960s as part of a ground-breaking UCLA gender health research project, is one of the most captivating documentaries I’ve seen in quite a while.
Directed by Chase Joynt, the doc uses the relatively well-known case of “Agnes,” a trans woman who worked the system to her advantage in order to receive surgeries that were usually denied to transgender patients, as a jumping off point.