
With just 3.5 percent of the population engaged in sustained, strategic resistance, history shows democracy can prevail over authoritarianism—starting right where you live.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC, is a Democratic U.S. representative for New York’s 14th congressional district. Serving since 2019, Ocasio-Cortez has been a fierce supporter of abortion rights, climate justice, and social, racial and economic justice.
Each instance of gendered and sexualized narratives against high-profile women—and even ordinary people, including students like myself—serves as a warning to thousands of other women and those close to us. Witnessing these attacks often leads them to reconsider their own participation in public discourse.
The message is clear: Speak out, and your sexuality will be weaponized against you.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is second in line to the presidency, has long been the focus of negative political ads and campaign rhetoric. But the attacks have become more layered with threats of violence and misogyny, and social media has allowed them to spread more easily.
“It’s about people saying, ‘We want to keep women from getting to a position of power.’ And in the long term, it will have a deeply chilling effect.”
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 in this biweekly round-up.
This week: Activists fear the Supreme Court will come after same-sex and interracial marriage next; House passes bill protecting same-sex marriage, requests testimony from major gun manufacturers; Biden administration challenges states on enforcement of abortion bans; women participate in the Tour de France after 33 years; and more.
Comparing the poltiical fashion statements of AOC’s “Tax The Rich” dress to Lauren Boebert’s “Let’s Go Brandon” dress reveals that the Trumpist message seems to be whatever gets attention and supposedly makes liberals mad. There’s no substance to their style: no policy agenda or plans to make America greater—just trolling, fame seeking and self-enrichment.