More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.
This week: Movies like Barbie and Oppenheimer are impossible without actors and writers, and women are still getting paid less in the industry; Christopher Nolan’s film had the opportunity to mention critical women of the atomic age but failed; Emily’s List’s new Madam Mayor program will “serve as a critical touchpoint” for woman mayors to receive support; and more.
A Ms. conversation with legal scholar Diane Rosenfeld and activist Ashley Judd reveals what some of our closest relatives can teach us about preventing sexual violence.
(This story also appears in the Summer 2023 issue of Ms. magazine. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get the Summer issue delivered straight to your mailbox!)
Elaine Richardson—or Dr. E—a professor of literacy studies at the Ohio State University, founded the Hip-Hop Literacies Conference. Kyra Gaunt, an assistant professor of music and women’s, gender and sexuality Studies at the University at Albany, State University of New York, is the author of the groundbreaking The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop (2006). She is currently writing a book on the impact of YouTube and music technologies on the sexualization of young Black girls. Richardson and Gaunt spoke with Ms. contributing editor Janell Hobson to discuss the upcoming 50th anniversary of hip-hop.
(This series is part of “Turning 50,” which recognizes the women who shaped hip-hop.)
Representation of menopause in popular culture matters. Among the ways menopause has been reflected on TV, the And Just Like That cast has tackled issues of aging, including a cameo by Ms. co-founder Gloria Steinem last week.
It was also the main theme of a Judy Blume film screening and panel Ms. recently co-hosted in New York City entitled “Menopause Needs Our Margaret”—a reference to Blume’s iconic book, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. The event gathered the filmmakers behind the Judy Blume Forever documentary, Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok, plus menopause advocates Stacy London, Sharon Malone, Omisade Burney-Scott, Tamsen Fadal and Susan McPherson, in conversation with Jennifer Weiss-Wolf.
Read on for highlights from our New York City event.
Peg Yorkin—leading U.S. feminist, philanthropist and strategist, as well as theater producer—died on Sunday, June 25, 2023, at the age of 96. In the midst of our collective grief, we honor and pay tribute to a co-founder as well as the one and only chair of the board of the Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF), publisher of Ms. Since the day FMF started in 1987, Peg Yorkin was important in conceptualizing the organization’s mission and potential significance in the struggle for equality and women’s rights.
“Peg was impatient. She wanted to see change now,” said Kathy Spillar, executive editor of Ms. and executive director of FMF. “She would constantly remind us of her age and wanted to see the changes in her lifetime. She thought big and had total confidence we could make a difference.”
In the Summer issue of Ms., we look into the new Florida law that could decimate degree programs in women’s and gender studies, Africana, ethnic and queer studies, among others—part of a radical right-wing strategy that extends nationwide.
Also within the pages of the Summer issue: A look back at 50 years of women in hip-hop. A solution to inequality in professional sports: Let women and men play together. Solutions to men’s violence toward women. And more!
Join the Ms. community today and get the Summer issue delivered straight to your mailbox!
By 2018, Johnny Depp was bordering on irrelevancy—but he soon gained a tremendous fandom as a public trial unfolded, prompted by abuse allegations from his ex-wife Amber Heard. In December, Heard announced she would no longer be moving forward with her appeal because “cannot afford to risk an impossible bill—one that is not just financial, but also psychological, physical and emotional.”
Depp has paved a new path for accused men in search of cultural capital—and accomplished the very thing women throughout the ages have been baselessly accused of: leveraging victimhood to gain status. Depp, whose career was flailing, became not just a rallying cry for men’s rights and the supposed victimhood of being a successful, wealthy, white man in a changing world, but a newly hot commodity in Hollywood once again with a thriving fan base.
If you’ve been looking for holiday tunes sung by artists whose feminist values match your own, here is our semi-annual list of holiday songs written by feminist musicians or holiday songs that espouse feminist values.
“In the Depp v. Heard trial, behaviors that are common to survivors were relentlessly mocked and misunderstood,” said Dr. Emma Katz, author of Coercive Control in Children’s and Mothers’ Lives. “These common survivor behaviors—including covering injuries with makeup and leaving your abuser then arranging to meet with them again—were widely condemned as signs of deception. Many survivors watched these public conversations unfold with dread, as the question, ‘Will I be believed if I come forward?’ seemed to be met with a resounding ‘no.’”
When country music star Loretta Lynn died on Oct. 4, the world lost a powerful voice—not only due to Lynn’s divine musicality and acclaim in the realm of country music, but because of her genuine ability to portray the intimate thoughts and frustrations of women of her time.
