Black Women

Black women experience a unique intersection of patriarchal and white supremacist oppression, leading to statistics like disproportionate maternal mortality in the U.S. and foundational feminist theory like the writing of Audre Lorde. Black women are not a monolith, however, and include women from all around the world who are a part of the African diaspora. They have often led social movements for a wide variety of causes because of the intersectional oppressive structures on their lives.

Trump Is Gutting Healthcare—But Women’s Health Was Already Disastrously Underfunded

For the past few decades, women’s healthcare has been under increasing attack across the country. Even states like New York, often perceived as a beacon of women’s healthcare, are backsliding, increasingly unable to address women’s health challenges adequately. Indeed, the lack of funding and legislative support isn’t limited to rural areas or red states; it is everywhere.

As the Trump administration threatens to accelerate this decline even further, we must come to terms with how little our cities, states and federal government have valued and prioritized women’s health for more than 30 years and begin fighting back against this renewed assault.

‘It’s Always Been Me and the Boys’: How Guaranteed Income Is Helping Black Mothers Build Stronger Families and Futures

Now in its fourth year, Front & Center is a groundbreaking Ms. series amplifying the voices of Black women navigating poverty—highlighting their struggles, resilience and dreams as they care for their families, build careers and challenge systems not built for their success.

“Every Friday, my boys and I have a special ritual. We go get snow cones and head to the snow park. We walk around, talk about our week and do affirmations. We discuss what we can do better, with each other and for ourselves. If I messed up, they let me know, and we talk about it. If I feel like they need to improve, we discuss that, too. …

“I dream of going back to school and finishing my criminal justice degree. I fell short because of hard times. But I’m going back this year! I want to make my kids proud. If I can do it, they can do it, too. It’s not easy, but it’s not hard, either. You just have to push. As long as you have that mindset, you’re going to make it.”

‘More Cash, Less Paperwork’: Mothers on the Frontlines of Poverty Are Telling Their Stories. Are We Listening?

We are living in challenging times. Fundamental rights are under attack, the economy is teetering on the edge of a recession, and our already-insufficient social safety net’s holes grow larger by the day. It is never easy to live in poverty in America, but the past four-plus months have managed to make a bad situation worse.

As I often say, policy only changes at the speed of narrative. And unless we start truly listening to the real stories of families living in poverty—with all their challenges, joys, complications and layers—we won’t be able to change poverty policy in this country.

Documenting Harriet Tubman’s Leadership: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Edda L. Fields-Black on the Combahee River Raid

The Combahee River Raid was a military operation during the American Civil War led by Harriet Tubman on June 1-2, 1863. Historian Edda L. Fields-Black—this year’s winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History—reflects on Tubman’s revolutionary Civil War raid and the power of preserving Black history in the face of political pushback.

“What I speculate is that the Union told the enslaved people who she was. And her presence facilitated the enslaved people in trusting the Union. We know, from some of the sources I’ve brought together in [my latest book] Combee that Harriet Tubman was on the ground in the raid, that she participated in the burning of buildings, and that she went to the slave cabins and coaxed the people there to come onto the boats and come to freedom. So how she convinced them to do that, we don’t know, but they did trust her, even if they didn’t know her entire backstory.”

Profiles in Courage: Gwynne Wilcox Was the First Black Woman on the NLRB—And the First to Be Fired by a President

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Throughout the month of May, the Profiles in Courage spotlighted women in the Department of Justice, federal agencies and the military whose careers have been defined by integrity, resilience and reform. Their quiet heroism—often at personal cost—reaffirms the enduring role of public servants who choose justice over self-interest. Through their stories, Ms. pays tribute to a tradition of service that safeguards democracy and inspires the next generation to lead with courage.

In 2023, labor lawyer Gwynne Wilcox—whose union-side advocacy career has spanned decades—shattered two barriers: becoming the first Black woman seated on the National Labor Relations Board and, soon after, its chair. The board’s institutional independence was hastily put to the test on Jan. 27, 2025, just one week after President Donald Trump’s return to office. Wilcox received a midnight email from the White House saying she was dismissed, effective immediately.

Refusing to accept her unlawful dismissal, Wilcox filed suit against the Trump administration. On May 22, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a brief order allowing Trump to dismiss Wilcox from the NLRB. Writing for the three dissenters, Justice Elena Kagan quoted Alexander Hamilton as saying: “To avoid an arbitrary discretion in the courts, it is indispensable that they should be bound down by strict rules and precedents.” The order, she said, “favors the president over our precedent.”

War on Women Report: Texas Woman Jailed for Miscarriage; Maine Advances Law to Protect Abortion Pill Prescribers’ Identities; Louisiana Intensifies Legal Attacks on N.Y. Abortion Provider

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MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide—the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.” We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—A judge struck down federal regulations that required U.S. employers to give workers paid time off for abortions.
—Catholic cardinals elected the first American pope, Chicago-born Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV. He has strongly opposed abortion and expressed hesitancy over IVF.
—Some good news out of North Carolina: After a six-month legal battle, Republican Jefferson Griffin has conceded the North Carolina Supreme Court race to Democrat Allison Riggs.
—Earlier this month, the FDA approved the first at-home replacement for Pap smears.

… and more.

Could Hollywood’s Vision of a Black Woman President Help Make It Possible?

Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning featured Tom Cruise’s action hero Ethan Hunt deep-sea diving through a submarine 500 feet under the sea, swimming naked in sub-zero temperatures, and sky diving in the middle of a plane duel. And yet, perhaps the most implausible fiction was… a Black woman president of the United States?!

Black male presidents in film and TV set the stage for Barrack Obama’s election. Could more depictions of Black female leaders pave the way for a Black woman president?

(This is Part 1 of a two-part series on women leaders and feminist leadership. Part 2—out Monday, June 2—continues with a public syllabus.)

Why Democracy Needs Data—and What Happens When It Vanishes

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In the first few months of Donald Trump’s return to the presidency, one thing has become crystal clear: The war on gender and racial equity is being waged in a new arena—on the battleground of data.

This fight isn’t waged with tweets or soundbites. It’s carried out through budget cuts, shuttered research programs and disappearing federal surveys. It’s a quiet but devastating assault on the tools we rely on to tell the truth—and to hold those in power accountable. And the message is chilling: If we can’t measure inequality, maybe we can pretend it doesn’t exist.

When race is stripped from maternal health reports, we overlook the crisis facing Black mothers. When LGBTQ+ identity is erased from youth surveys, we lose critical insight into mental health and safety. When disability status is omitted from labor market data, inequities in access and pay go unaddressed.

We need a renewed federal commitment to the research infrastructure that allows us to see and solve inequality—not ignore it.

Sean Combs’ Defense Leans on Familiar Tropes About Women. Will the Jury Believe His Accusers?

Casandra Elizabeth Ventura has described years of alleged physical and sexual abuse at the hands of Sean “Diddy” Combs. Combs has denied the charges, insisting that the sex acts were consensual.

The women’s credibility is therefore critical to the trial’s outcome.

As Combs’ lawyer already previewed, his team will endeavor to convince the jury that the accusers are lying. The courtroom becomes a stage for the oldest stories we tell about women and truth.

Adriana Smith and the Legal Horror of Reproductive Servitude in the U.S.

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Three months ago, 30-year-old Adriana Smith was declared brain-dead. But a hospital in Georgia is keeping her “alive” on life support because of the state’s strict abortion ban.

“In what universe does a hospital in Georgia … believe that they can take ownership of Adriana Smith’s body?” asked Michele Goodwin on a recent emergency episode of On the Issues: Fifteen Minutes of Feminism. “According to the hospital, she is now an incubator. … This is not science fiction, though I wish that it were.”

“I think every woman should have the right to make their own decision,” Smith’s mother, April Newkirk, said. “And if not, then their partner or their parents.”