More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Sabrina Carpenter’s “sexual revolution” is not unprecedented; in fact, it has been paved for her. Yet, there is still something refreshing—and controversial—about her sexual expression that uniquely contributes to the constant effort of normalizing and embracing female sexuality through art. And perhaps it boils down to a simple truth: Carpenter is making it explicitly clear she enjoys sex, and she’s having fun with it.
In movie roles, we want women—even when they are tough or funny or sassy—to always be vulnerable, to open themselves up to our judgment and our sympathy.
From Anora to Enilia Perez to Wicked, this year’s Oscars reflect what we value in women’s performances.
Sean Baker’s Anora invites our capacities for feelings, not judgment, to accompany one young, female sex worker through a few roller-coaster, genre-defying weeks in her life. Like all of Sean Baker’s films, it refuses an ending that tells us what to think. It doesn’t tie things up and lead us to a morally unambiguous conclusion but to the perfect, emotionally right one. And the magic of it is that it does it without much being said.
While the comic parts of the movie, like classic screwball comedies, are full of characters whose talk bumps into each other, jostling for our attention and laughter, the last movement has hardly any dialogue at all. And it will stay with you for a long time.
Black Box Diaries is a powerful, Oscar-nominated documentary that follows journalist and survivor Shiori Ito’s fight for justice after being raped by a powerful media figure in Japan. Using cinéma vérité techniques, surreptitious audio recordings and intimate self-documentation, Ito exposes the systemic failures that silenced her while capturing the emotional toll of her struggle.
The film highlights the global reach of the #MeToo movement and the stark realities of patriarchal impunity, culminating in a historic victory: the 2023 inclusion of consent in Japan’s rape law.
With all the upheaval, just two weeks in, that has accompanied the second term of the current presidential administration, the 67th annual Grammy Awards show came and went Sunday night like a welcome distraction. Even calling the event a “distraction” misses the serious work of art and its purpose in troubled times: to mobilize the masses, reaffirm our values and spread joy and light amid the darkness.
The big night, however, went to pop star Beyoncé, who not only made history as the first Black woman to win Best Country Album, but finally earned Album of the Year for her politically salient album Cowboy Carter, after previously losing in the category. The album, which opened with a “requiem” for America and closed on a prayer that “we’ll be the ones to purify our fathers’ sins,” calls on all of us to witness this nation’s history and its present, to reckon with its “sins” of exclusion and discrimination and demand that we purify it toward the democratic promise it has always held out for all of us and not just a select few determined to set us back on a backward course.
Roxanne Shanté made history once as the first solo female MC in hip-hop, and now she has made history again. On Feb. 1, 2025, the Recording Academy honored her with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, making her the first solo female rapper to receive this recognition. She received the award at the Special Merit Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles, just one day before the official Grammy Awards.
As she reflected on receiving one of the most prestigious honors in music, Shanté opened up about her career, her impact and her ongoing mission to support at-risk youth in this exclusive interview.
Much ink has been spilled on the extraordinary series Baby Reindeer, especially its refusal to be reductive in depicting complex and charged sexually subjects and the groundbreaking nature of its portrayal of male-on-male sexual assault and its consequences. What gets overlooked: Baby Reindeer is a vivid, visceral lesson in how to film a rape scene.
The filming of episode four—the construction, the point of view, the relentless focus, the utter absence of sensationalism and exploitation—can serve as a valuable lesson in how to film a rape scene: steering difficult scenes away from the abuser’s point of view, placing them in a space that allows the audience to understand, defend and respect the survivor.
This special edition of Ms.‘ “Keeping Score” highlights the feminist wins and milestones at the 2025 Golden Globes. From Nikki Glaser’s sharp, solo-hosted monologue that tackled sexism in Hollywood, to historic wins by women like Demi Moore, Karla Sofía Gascón and Fernanda Torres, the event marked a notable shift in celebrating diverse and older female talent. With awards for films like Emilia Pérez and Wicked, the night underscored progress in recognizing women’s contributions across genres.
The year 2024 had promised an era of women rising to the top. This was spectacularly highlighted by the historic presidential run of Vice President Kamala Harris, who had mounted an unprecedented campaign in just over 100 days. Sadly, Harris fell short of the necessary votes.
2024 nonetheless demonstrated that women still hold powerful sway across our popular culture, even as they struggle for the highest political position. We continue to hold onto hope for a feminist future with more opportunities for gender and racial breakthroughs, which are still possible because they have been imagined and envisioned in our pop culture. Here are our picks for the year’s top 10 feminist moments.
In Wicked, there are many parallels to our own universe: the rise of fascism in Oz; the vilification of a powerful woman (whose laugh some incidentally described as a “cackle”) concerned about the well-being of the most marginalized among us; a media enabling propaganda to villainize said powerful woman and prop up an empty shell of a man specializing in elaborate cons; and the failure of solidarity between women.
Part 1 ends with Elphaba’s ostracism from Oz, but the cinematic pan of her ascension in the sky looks less like tragedy and more like triumph. In times that require moral clarity, a perpetual outsider coming to self-actualization, freed from systems of power because she’s found her own, highlights that we have to look to different skies and different lenses to find a new kind of heroism.