More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Ms. offers stories about the abuse of children related to feminist issues and the pursuit of human rights for all. Abortion, adoption, sexual abuse, criminalization of women, drug criminalization and harmful legislation all intersect with the issue of child abuse.
The Southern Baptist Convention rejected a proposed amendment that would have designated any church with a woman pastor as no longer in “friendly cooperation” with the SBC. Those churches could have then been expelled from the SBC.
Some might express surprise at this vote and wonder if Southern Baptists are changing direction on women’s issues—if they’re becoming more accepting of women in leadership.
They’re not. This vote wasn’t at all about supporting women.
“We have to crawl our way out, even though we tripped our way in,” said Gabrielle Prieto, who was sex trafficked at 12 years old and is now challenging the stigmas surrounding survivors of sex trafficking and advocates to end sex trade.
In New York, a new bill could afford survivors seeking legal recourse for the crimes committed against them a real chance for justice—removing the five-year statute of limitations on sex crimes.
An excerpt from Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Susan M. Shaw’s new book, Surviving God: A New Vision of God Through the Eyes of Sexual Abuse Survivors:
“The God of our childhoods was terrifying. Sure, He (and it was always ‘He’) loved us, but we also knew He could destroy us in a moment if we displeased Him. Poof! Like Lot’s wife, we’d become a pillar of salt. God knew us intimately and had complete control over us. Like an abuser, He asked us to love Him even as he threatened us with the torments of hell if we didn’t.”
This weekend, thousands of Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) delegates will assemble in Indianapolis, and one of the most misogynistic gatherings in all of Christendom will be on display. With 13 million members, the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant faith group in the country. Considered as a bellwether for white evangelicals, and enmeshed with the Republican Party, the SBC carries an outsized influence disproportionate to its numbers.
When you combine the SBC’s misogynistic, authoritarian theology, which relegates females to second-class status, with an institutional structure lacking in effective accountability systems, you wind up with an institution in which abuse can run rampant.
From the Summer 2010 issue of Ms.: “In 10 years, we will look back and consider it ludicrous that we ever prosecuted children for prostitution.”
(For more ground-breaking stories like this, order 50 YEARS OF Ms.: THE BEST OF THE PATHFINDING MAGAZINE THAT IGNITED A REVOLUTION, Alfred A. Knopf—a collection of the most audacious, norm-breaking coverage Ms. has published.)
In the rap battle between Kendrick Lamar and Drake, serious accusations of violence against women and girls were repeatedly reduced to punchlines in these diss tracks.
We don’t deserve to see our experiences, especially our most painful ones, turned into punchlines.
In this three-part American Autocracy series, we track Trump’s comments on feminist issues.
This installment: Trump’s previous comments on gay and trans rights make him a clear threat to the LGBTQ+ community.
Virginia became the 12th U.S. state and first in the South to end child marriage last week, after Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) signed HB 994 into law. The law completely ends child marriage in the state by establishing a minimum marriage age of 18 without exceptions and removes a legal loophole that previously allowed emancipated minors to marry in Virginia. The law will go into effect on July 1, 2024.
Child marriage has been shown to result in increased risk of future poverty, particularly for teen moms, as well as greater vulnerability to sexual and domestic violence, human trafficking, coercive control, financial abuse, homelessness and mental illness.
Catholic priests and bishops perpetrate and tolerate astounding levels of sexual violence, and then deny their victims the right to prevent or end life-threatening pregnancies.
The all-male Catholic leadership’s long history of perpetuating sexual assault and reproductive coercion grows out of a toxic masculinity that devalues women’s lives, rights and dignity. Both are forms of intimate assault that deny the bodily autonomy of women in particular.
Given the Catholic Church’s history of clergy sexual abuse, and their callous disregard for the reproductive health and safety of women, why are priests and bishops considered to have any moral authority on issues of sexuality?
Theresa Cachuela, known as “Bunny Bontiti” to her more than 20,000 Instagram followers, was fatally shot on Dec. 22 in a murder-suicide committed by her husband, as her young daughter looked on, just days after a judge granted Cachuela a restraining order against him. Cachuela is one of hundreds of murder-suicide victims each year.
Highlighting the connection between guns and domestic violence is crucial, with the Supreme Court currently considering the case of United States v. Rahimi, a Second Amendment challenge to the government’s right to ban gun permits for those subject to domestic violence restraining orders.
