More Than A Magazine, A Movement
In a year when women seemed to dominate both culturally and economically, it was not hard to find many feminist moments in pop culture that defined 2023.
Here are our top 10 favorites—including Rihanna’s historic Super Bowl performance; breakthroughs for women in TV, film and music; iconic moments in women’s leadership, and more.
Chants of “not one more year” filled downtown D.C. as equal rights activists marched from the White House to the Capitol on Dec. 13—the 100-year anniversary of the ERA’s introduction in the House of Representatives. Activists, led by the ERA Coalition, demanded that not one more year pass without rights being protected by the Constitution on the basis of sex.
Abortion does not harm women’s mental health: Ninety-five percent of women who had an abortion say it was the right decision for them five years later, according to the Turnaway Study, groundbreaking research that documented the outcomes for women who received and were denied an abortion.
“Our failure as a society to acknowledge the sacrifice that pregnant people make when they have a baby is misogyny, ignorance and misogyny,” said Diana Greene Foster, the study’s lead researcher.
After a resounding win for abortion rights in Ohio, one would hope that the issue had at last been put to rest in the state. But now, the city of Lebanon, Ohio, is debating whether or not to retain its status as a sanctuary city for the unborn.
It’s all in service of anti-abortion activist Mark Lee Dickson’s vision: “outlawing abortion, one city at a time.”
Five years after the Trump administration separated nearly 5,000 children and families in an attempt to deter migration, the Department of Justice has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit, Ms. L v. ICE, brought on behalf of those families by the ACLU. What began as a lawsuit representing one mother and one child quickly grew, as initial discovery in the case revealed that the scope of separations was far greater, and started far earlier, than May and June 2018, when the bulk of the separations took place.
“All of the consequences of such a horrific policy came, in part, because we don’t have an immigration system that actually centers the welfare of the child in decision-making.”
Right now, political leaders, corporate representatives and climate activists are gathered in Dubai for the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference—COP28—to discuss approaches to mitigating the climate crisis. We caught up with feminist climate activists in the Caribbean on what climate justice means to them and what their expectations are of COP28.
Democrats in Congress, students and LGBTQ+ advocacy groups are growing frustrated with the Biden administration’s slow pace to finalize proposed updates to Title IX, the federal civil rights law prohibiting sex discrimination in schools. More than 60 House Democrats sent a recent letter to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, calling on the agency to act.
“So for the last three years, and now fourth school year, student survivors have fewer rights. Now it’s getting close to 2024 and we don’t know when a final rule will come out. So students are frustrated, and we’re frustrated as advocates.”
On the floors of state legislatures over the past year, doctors detailed the risks their pregnant patients have faced when forced to wait to terminate until their health deteriorated. Women shared their trauma. Some Republican lawmakers even promised to support clarifications.
But so far, few efforts to add exceptions to the laws have succeeded.
In the many tributes written since Rosalynn Carter’s death on Nov. 19, one word often is used to describe her: trailblazer. Indeed, Rosalynn Carter was like no other first lady. She testified before Congress on mental health issues; made policy proposals on caregiving and established the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers in 1987; worked to advance women’s rights; and helped in the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.
Carter’s own words are the most powerful about her belief and commitment to equality. “Although there has been progress, women still struggle to take their full, rightful places in politics, the media, business and athletics. … I would like for people to think that I took advantage of the opportunities I had and did the best I could.”
Construction is complete on the Enbridge corporation’s Line 3 pipeline, which was dug under the Mississippi River to carry expensive, dirty tar sand oil from Alberta, Canada, to be refined in Wisconsin. In Aitkin County, Minn., the trial of Mylene Vialard (aka Ocean) reveals a pipeline of injustice—the structural violence of white settler-colonial capitalist patriarchy. Vialard’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Monday, Nov. 20.
