Activism

Activism is action for a political or social purpose that can take many forms, like protesting, petitioning representatives, voting, writing and educating members of your community, boycotting, striking and speaking out. It can be big or small, independent or through a network.

After a Long Campaign, California Finally Banned Child Marriage. Survivors Made It Happen.

PUBLISHED 10/14/2026 by

I grew up around women who were wed while they were still children. My grandmother was married at just 10 years old and my aunt at 16. At school, friends of mine married. I watched their schooling stop, pregnancies that came too soon, choices made for them rather than by them. Relatives would ask, gently but pointedly, when I intended to do the same, as though delaying it only put off something inevitable.

What haunted me then still haunts me now is how ordinary everyone around us made it seem.

That ordinariness is how child marriage has survived for so long in the United States. California has now banned it.

On Sept. 30, Governor Gavin Newsom signed bill AB 1267, setting 18 as the minimum age for marriage with no exceptions.

California has just shown that what was once treated as ordinary does not have to remain inevitable. Eighteen states have now drawn a clear line.The rest of the country should follow. No child’s right to safety, freedom and a future of their own choosing should depend on the state in which they happens to live.

Why Women Need a Hormonal Bill of Rights

PUBLISHED 10/12/2026 by

For too long, midlife symptoms of women have been minimized; our concerns dismissed, our suffering normalized and our voices overlooked. We reject the notion that hormonal decline is simply something to endure.

Everyone has the right to connection, support, shared knowledge, honest conversation free from shame and community in search of quality of life.

To ask questions.
To demand answers.
To require equal research.
To expect better healthcare.
To defy patriarchal control.
To hormonally radicalize the world.

The Difference Between His Safety and Hers

PUBLISHED 10/7/2026 by

I recently saw a social media post that I can’t stop thinking about: “If a man was severely intoxicated around seven women, he would actually be in the safest place he could possibly be. He’d be taken care of on every level. He’d be hydrated, fed, given meds and a cozy place to lay down. I can’t stop thinking about that difference.”

Neither can I.

I am tired of women being hurt, watched, harassed, questioned and doubted. I’m tired of women being handed an ever-growing list of precautions, then asked what we did wrong when we’re harmed.

Women don’t need another lesson in how to protect ourselves. We’ve had a lifetime of them.

Imagine if instead of teaching our daughters how to stay safe from men, we could trust men not to harm them and to help keep them safe. Isn’t that the world we want—one where our daughters won’t have to think about this difference at all? It’s time for men to step up and take responsibility.

Abortion Belongs in Pregnancy Care—And Your Insurance Should Cover It

PUBLISHED 9/30/2026 by

In the fall of 1977, Rosie Jimenez, a 27-year-old single mother in McAllen, Texas, needed an abortion. Just months earlier Medicaid would have covered the procedure. But the Hyde Amendment, a new rule banning Medicaid coverage for abortion, had just taken effect. Unable to afford the more than $200 cost of an abortion from a licensed clinician, she turned to a midwife who was technically unlicensed to preform abortions.

Jimenez died from that unsafe procedure. She is widely known as the first documented death from the Hyde Amendment.

Fifty years later, countless women across the U.S. have had their lives forever changed by this archaic, racist, sexist and classist amendment.

No Liberation Without Community: In One of Her Final Interviews, Gloria Steinem on Her New Memoir, Chosen Family and the Future of Feminism

PUBLISHED 9/24/2026 by

“Feminism is positive, widely embraced and global. It is spreading and growing. That gives me hope.”

In one of her final interviews, the late Gloria Steinem discusses her new memoir and the optimism that fueled her feminism.

“The written word has always been magic to me,” Gloria Steinem—celebrated writer, feminist activist and cofounder of this magazine—observes in her charming new memoir, An Unexpected Life. “One of my greatest pleasures has always been opening a book and finding a friend.”

In this posthumous release, she gives us exactly that: a volume that is wise and witty, intimate and inspiring. It’s a chance to get to know her not as an icon, but as a friend.

Gloria and I chatted about the book the month before her death.

Activists Have Fought for Disability Justice. So-Called ‘Sickfluencers’ Still Face Medical Sexism.

PUBLISHED 9/16/2026 by

Mainstream legacy media in the U.K. has found a new target: young disabled women.

Last week, Telegraph editor Poppy Coburn published “How having a disability became cool,” arguing so-called “sickfluencers” are “turning chronic illness into a lifestyle trend.” Just a month earlier, Times of London columnist Kathleen Stock suggested the disproportionate number of Gen Z women diagnosed with what she called “vague syndromes” may be experiencing “social contagion.” Both pieces cast suspicion on young disabled women and the ways they discuss chronic illness and use mobility aids, reflecting a growing strain of far-right rhetoric that treats disabled women’s accounts of their own bodies with suspicion.

Iranian Women’s Rights Activist Nasrin Sotoudeh Remembers Gloria Steinem: ‘Our Fate and Fortune Is Tied Together’

PUBLISHED 9/11/2026 by

Nasrin Sotoudeh is an Iranian human rights lawyer and activist who, along with her husband Reza Khandan, has been repeatedly arrested for her women’s rights activism and spent six years in prison. In the wake of Gloria Steinem’s passing on Sept. 2, Soutoudeh shared these words with Ms.

“Gloria Steinem’s extraordinary life and activism has touched, elevated and inspired women all over the world.

“I can attest to her deep influence on me and countless other women’s rights activists here in Iran, including my husband, Reza Khandan.

“As women, we know that whether we are in America or India, Europe or Africa, Iran or Afghanistan, our fate and fortune is tied together. The rights that we achieve or lose in one corner of the world have a direct bearing on another. In a very real sense, when it comes to persecution or emancipation, our minds, bodies and spirits are one.”

Rest in Power, Robin Morgan—Ms. Editor, Poet, Feminist and Architect of the Women’s Movement

PUBLISHED 9/5/2026 by

Longtime Ms. editor and “architect of the contemporary women’s movement,” Robin Morgan died peacefully in her sleep on Sept. 5, 2026, just days after her friend and feminist partner Gloria Steinem.

Morgan called Ms. “a real family,” citing the depth and longevity of the relationships many people established through it. She would go on to found the Women’s Media Center alongside Ms. cofounder Gloria Steinem and actor and activist Jane Fonda in 2005.

“Robin Morgan was one of the architects of the contemporary women’s movement,” said Julie Burton, president and CEO of the Women’s Media Center. “Her global leadership for justice and equality, her work as a pioneering journalist who gave voice and visibility to women, and her fierce artistry as an internationally recognized poet and author of more than 20 books—these all constitute the legacy she has forged over decades of creative, cultural, and political work. 

Dispatches From Daisy Chain: Olivia Rodrigo’s Feminist Festival Brought Together Music, Reproductive Freedom and the Power of Women

PUBLISHED 9/1/2026 by

On Saturday, Aug. 29, more than 45,000 music fans traveled to Irvine, Calif., for the first-ever Daisy Chain Fields music festival, organized and headlined by Olivia Rodrigo, where 100 percent of the proceeds went to organizations supporting women and girls. Under the sweltering SoCal sun, an all-women lineup—including sets from Mitski, Doechii, Garbage, Chappell Roan and others—fundraised for 10 nonprofits: Baby2Baby, Black Mamas Matter Alliance, Center for Reproductive Rights, FreeFrom, Jhpiego, Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health, National Domestic Workers Alliance, National Institute for Reproductive Health National Women’s Law Center and Planned Parenthood.

The all-day festival, inspired by Sarah McLachlan’s Lilith Fair of the 1990s, raised $10 million in ticket sales. Then, during her set at the end of the day, Rodrigo announced (to massive applause) that Melinda French Gates was matching every dollar raised—bringing the festival’s total donation to $20 million for diverse nonprofits supporting sexual and reproductive health, children in need, Black mothers, gender-based violence survivors, Indigenous communities and more.

I was lucky enough to go to Daisy Chain Fields and cover the festival for Ms. In the “Daisy Chain Reaction Village,” I spoke with several of the organizations that will receive Daisy Chain Fields funds.

“We wanted to come to the festival because we feel really passionately about connecting with new audiences on the issue of reproductive rights, particularly younger audiences who may not be as aware or knowledgeable about the national and international state of reproductive rights and bodily autonomy,” said Esme Lowe from the Center for Reproductive Rights. “It’s just super exciting because we’re engaging with people we might not [otherwise] even get to talk to.”

In line outside the Daisy Chain Reaction Village, sisters Madison and Mackenzie Wong said they were excited to attend the festival in their home city of Irvine, and happy to see a lot of younger fans of Olivia Rodrigo there to learn about the causes Daisy Chain Fields was supporting. 

“I think it’s important for big artists who have a platform to use their voice,” Mackenzie said. “They have so much influence anyway, so no matter what they say, it’s going to have a broader impact.”

‘If We Didn’t Do It, Who Would?’: Meet the N.C. College Students Leading the Fight for Campus Voting Access

PUBLISHED 8/31/2026 by and

Republicans on the Wake County Board of Elections voted 3-2 earlier this summer to remove North Carolina State University’s Talley Student Union as an early voting site. The student center had served as an early voting location during the 2012, 2018, 2020 and 2024 general elections.

This year, early voting will instead take place at the Business Services Center, about 1.7 miles from campus. Republican board member Donna Williams says the new location is “very easily accessible for everybody.” But turnout data suggests the student union was far more convenient for voters: During the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, more than 21,000 people voted early there, compared with about 11,000 at the Business Services Center.

The move is the latest in a series of decisions eliminating on-campus polling locations across the state.

One of the schools losing their on-campus polling location, North Carolina A&T State University, has a long history of activism: Four NC A&T freshmen launched the Greensboro sit-in movement in 1960, helping ignite a wave of nonviolent civil rights protests across the South. 

When election officials refused to approve an early voting site on campus ahead of the 2026 primary, students drew on that history—packing government meetings, organizing transportation and ultimately leading a march to an off-campus polling place.

Kennedy Bozeman, Khadijah Barry and Tatiana James were among the women at the center of that student organizing. They spoke with Ms. about the difference between nominal and meaningful access to the ballot, what political leaders misunderstand about young voters, and why they see their work as part of a much longer fight.

“Having a polling site on campus makes everything 10 times easier and more accessible.”

“This work can be emotionally draining. But there is joy in it, too, because I am fighting for what my ancestors fought for …”

“A big part of my motivation is John Lewis. He was 21 when he began his fight for civil rights, and we are all around that same age. That shows me I’m in the right place and doing what the leaders who came before me did.”