AAPI Women

Asian American and Pacific Islanders are the fastest growing racial group in the U.S. Yet, they remain underrepresented in almost every industry, including politics.

However, in 2024 Vice President Kamala Harris made history as the first Black American woman and first Indian American woman to be a presidential nominee.

The Most-Read Stories of 2024

Every day of 2024, Ms. writers and editors set out to create content that empowered, informed and infuriated readers. We sought out the truth, sounded alarms, asked tough questions, mourned feminist losses (and feminists we lost), looked to gender justice advocates abroad, and handed the microphone over to experts. Dear reader: As we enter a new year and a new era of the movement, we promise you more of this.

Explore the 30 most popular articles published this year on MsMagazine.com—the articles feminists most clicked, shared, studied, bookmarked and passed out at marches.

Japan’s Far-Right ‘Jokes’ About Forced Hysterectomies as Trump’s Authoritarian Playbook Goes Global

As Americans grapple with the shadow of Trump’s second term, they’d do well to watch what’s happening in Japan, Hungary, Brazil and beyond. When satire is weaponized as a tool for authoritarianism, it’s not just rhetoric—it’s strategy.

Japan’s Conservative Party leader Naoki Hyakuta sparked outrage on a Nov. 11 YouTube broadcast with “solutions” to Japan’s declining birthrate that sound more like a dystopian nightmare than public policy. His proposals—banning women from university after the age of 18, legally preventing women over 25 who are single from ever marrying, and, most chillingly, surgically removing the wombs of women once they turn 30—were framed as “science fiction by a novelist” intended to “spark debate.” But in a country still grappling with gender equality, many Japanese citizens see through the thin veneer of satire. 

‘Critical as We Move Forward’: Reproductive Rights and Voter Advocacy Leaders Reckon With 2024 Election

Dr. Lauren Beene was still processing the election outcome when she spoke with Ms. magazine the morning after Donald Trump had been declared the winner of the 2024 presidential election. Dr. Beene, co-founder and Vice President of Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights, had successfully led the fight a year ago to pass an amendment that enshrined the right to abortion in the state’s constitution. Yet Dr. Beene now worried that under Trump, a national abortion ban may be in the not-so-distant future, and Ohio’s win to protect abortion rights could be in jeopardy.

What Kamala Harris *Still* Means to Me as Young Indian American Woman

In her concession speech, Vice President Harris spoke of an old adage: “Only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars. I know many people feel like we are entering a dark time, but for the benefit of us all, I hope that is not the case. But here’s the thing, America, if it is, let us fill the sky with the light of a brilliant, brilliant billion of stars.”

Hearing this after Diwali, the Hindu celebration of the triumph of good over evil, of light over dark, gave me chills. 

The Best Lines from Kamala Harris’ Concession Speech: ‘Sometimes the Fight Takes a While’

“We will continue to wage this fight in the voting booth, in the courts and in the public square. We will also wage it in quieter ways, in how we live our lives, by treating one another with kindness and respect, by looking in the face of a stranger and seeing a neighbor, by always using our strength to lift people up.”

After an electric 107-day campaign that made history, challenged traditional norms of political leadership and centered equality for all Americans, Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a concession speech at Howard University, acknowledging the outcome of the election was not what she had hoped for but emphasizing the enduring promise of America.

Some of the Hardest Questions Kamala Harris Has Been Answering Lately, ICYMI

and

Two weeks before the election, with early voting already ongoing in a majority of U.S. states, Vice President Kamala Harris is making her way through interviews, explaining her positions and taking tough questions on her validity as a candidate, abortion rights, the Supreme Court and the preservation of democracy.

We have listened and read through five of these tough interviews—Alex Cooper’s podcast Call Her Daddy; Charlamagne Tha God’s The Breakfast Club podcast; the Univision Town Hall; a Fox News interview with Bret Baier; and Howard Stern’s show—so you don’t have to.

Here are some of the toughest questions she faced, and her frank answers, in her own words.  

Kamala Harris and the Political Power of Black Women: The Ms. Q&A with Kimberly Peeler-Allen

As we stand poised to potentially elect our first female president who is also a woman of color, we know this moment builds on a long history of other women and Black women trailblazers who have helped to pave the way.

Kimberly Peeler-Allen is the co-founder of Higher Heights, the nation’s leading organization dedicated to building Black women’s collective political power from the voting booth to elected office. Higher Heights has helped drive the national narrative about the power of Black women voters and has inspired countless Black women to step into their power whether as voters, activists or elected leaders. We discussed what it would mean to elect our first woman president who is multi-racial, why it is important to elevate Black women’s leadership, what issues are mobilizing Black women in this election, what biases and barriers women candidates face, the significance of the ERA on the ballot in New York and more.

Addressing the Sexism and Racism Aimed at Kamala Harris, Transcending Leadership Stereotypes and More: The Ms. Q&A with Anita Hill

I first interviewed Anita Hill over 10 years ago for my book What Will It Take to Make a Woman President?: Conversations About Women, Leadership and Power, where we discussed the various factors involved in why the U.S. had not yet elected a woman president and what could be done to move us closer to this milestone, as well as pave the way for more women leaders.
Now, as the U.S. is poised to possibly elect Kamala Harris as not only its first woman president but its first Black and South Asian woman president, I wanted to talk to Hill again to get her insights on this potentially history-making moment.

South Asian Representation Will Not Liberate Us. South Asian Solidarity Will.

and

The United States has entered into a cyclone of “historic firsts” for Indian Americans—from the GOP presidential bids of businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, to the whirlwind Democratic nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris.

But these moments of mainstream attention offer a unique opportunity for the American public, and specifically South Asian Americans, to move past celebrating identity politics and to invest in liberation politics.