More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Regressive ideas about manhood underlie the anti-democracy movement plaguing the U.S. Men whose politics are to the left of center can do their part to counteract the right’s success in playing identity politics with white male voters.
Here’s where we start.
(This article originally appears in the Spring 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)
Lizz Winstead, comedian and founder of Abortion Access Front, teamed up with director Ruth Leitman to create the hilarious, heart-filled documentary No One Asked You.
“There’s nothing shameful about needing to have an abortion,” Winstead told Ms.
“It’s a medical procedure that people need to help them achieve their life goals, and to help them have the life that they want to have,” said Leitman.
Tiffany Shlain’s Dendrofemonology, presented by the National Women’s History Museum and Women Connect4Good, remakes the historical tree ring into a timeline of the story of women and power in society.
The feminist history tree ring will be on display from Nov. 1-4, 2023, at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
The Department of Justice has recently charged two men with making threats whose targets included Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel.
“Sometimes threats are enough. People don’t have to commit direct violence for there to be a real chilling environment on civic participation and these essential parts of our democracy.”
On Presidents’ Day, we reflect on the legacy of the presidents who have led our nation since our founding. These leaders have differed in their ideologies, their policies, their professional experience, their age, their marital status. But in over 230 years of United States presidents, not one of them has been a woman.
Diane Rosenfeld’s new book The Bonobo Sisterhood: Revolution Through Female Alliance is a call to action, a way forward and societal shift that can free us from the grips of patriarchy.
“The bonobos are peaceful, loving, food sharing, freely sexual and xenophilic, meaning they love strangers, they do not fear them,” because “they have nothing to fear,” she writes. In the bonobos, Rosenfeld finds proof positive that “patriarchy is not inevitable.”
Over 100 years ago, my great-great-great grandfather Fredrick Douglass advocated for Black freedom and women’s rights. He was determined to push America to be a true democracy that encompasses all Americans regardless of race or gender.
Unfortunately, the fight for equality persists into 2022 and I am fighting for the same causes along with many members of my generation.
Books provide us not only with necessary information but also with the respite we need from the constant labor of securing our rights and humanity in all the ways they are under attack.
I hope of the 33 books here, you’ll find one that inspires, relaxes or distracts you for a little while.
Political commentary on the Jan. 6 insurrection has rightly centered race. The mob was overwhelmingly white, Confederate symbols were on full display, and the mythology of a “stolen election” was fueled by racial grievance.
But this focus often obscures another critical truth: The insurrection was also a gendered act. The vast majority of insurrectionists on Jan. 6 were not only white people; they were white men.
Any serious attempt to understand what happened that day must grapple with the intersection of race and masculinity, and with the cultural meanings attached to male power, entitlement and violence. Yet media coverage routinely relies on gender-neutral language: “people,” “extremists,” “individuals” … as if the overwhelmingly male composition of the mob were too obvious to warrant scrutiny. It isn’t.
The fact that 86 percent of those charged were men offers profound insight into the MAGA movement. Political violence, like domestic violence, is rarely spontaneous. It grows out of belief systems that normalize men’s authority and justify force as a tool for reclaiming control. Until we name and challenge those beliefs, we will continue to misunderstand both Jan. 6 and the ongoing threat to our democracy.
The political earthquake that was the 2016 election sparked a dormant ember that fired up Latinas to run for office against the threat of misogynistic forces bent on rolling back hard-fought women’s rights. Now, we’re witnessing the fruits of their labor flourish.