More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Around the world, women’s labor is undervalued and exploited. These are stories about national and global economies through the eyes of feminists.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced our nation to look critically at how our societal infrastructure, or lack thereof, has failed women in our roles as both workers and caregivers. As one sociologist put it: “Other countries have social safety nets. The U.S. has women.” So what can we do?
(This essay is part of The Majority Rules project—an artful essay and op-ed series from Ms. and Supermajority Education Fund.)
We must do more to increase our nation’s stagnant labor force participation rate. Childcare providers and the families who depend on them cannot continue to bear the burden of supporting our current system without additional support.
The U.S. childcare system needs to be radically transformed. Our nation must focus on creating a childcare system that is affordable, accessible and equitable in the long term.
In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.
This week: The Grammys saw wins (and losses) for women performers and feminist causes; Republicans in Congress call for a nationwide abortion ban; Iowa state rep compares women to cattle; Florida educators reject ban on books in classrooms; NYC city-run clinics to provide free abortion medication; Lisa Marie Presley dies at 54; Biden administration releases plan for renter’s bill of rights; Utah Governor Spencer Cox approves ban on youth gender-affirming care; and more.
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.
This week: The leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees are all women, as is the top White House budget official—the first-ever all-women team to lead the congressional committees that control government spending; new research about women of color involved in the suffrage movement; the power of knitting; and more.
Around the globe, white supremacy is a thread that runs through reproductive policies, maternal health programs, marriage and family law.
The reproductive justice framework can help people everywhere access the care they need.
The Federal Reserve has responded to inflation with rapid interest rate increases, meant to tamper down prices, at each of its past seven meetings. They are expected to do the same at their Jan. 31 Open Market Committee gathering. However, these hikes can also increase the risk of recession and unemployment.
Too many companies have opted to use inflation as an excuse to boost profit. Caregiving is a key area of potential government investment that could help women. Their needs are often put last, after childcare and elder care. The economy is already fragile after a global pandemic; now is the time to prioritize people.
Among employees ages 18 to 34, 47 percent of women and 44 percent of men believe they won’t have the career they’d planned, hoped for and dreamed of because politicians are now in control of their personal reproductive decisions.
“We’re looking to future generations of business leaders and managers and employees and we have nearly half of them saying, ‘I don’t think I will have the career I planned because of the decision by the Supreme Court,’” said Heather Foust-Cummings, Catalyst’s senior vice president for research
While the U.S. has created an omnibus Farm Bill for nearly a century, our mothers—especially when Native or women of color—have never had a say in where our government’s farm support money goes. Not until recently.
Now the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry is under the leadership of U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). Her hearings will mark arguments on the horizon we’d all be wise to notice. A whole new generation of younger, female, Indigenous, Black, Latinx and queer farmers are contending with land prices out of reach, and old attitudes that minimize the healthier, more sustainable production they seek.
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act takes effect today, requiring employers to make “reasonable accommodations” for pregnant and postpartum workers.
“It will no longer be the case that pregnant workers can be ousted from their jobs for simply requesting basic accommodations like permission to sit on a stool, carry a bottle of water, or take additional bathroom breaks,” said Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center.
Most pundits insisted abortion wouldn’t drive many votes, but inflation would. How wrong they were.
If you put together the sheer size of the women’s vote, the intensity of the issue and the fact that, unlike inflation or the economy, the two parties have stark differences on the issue, you get a powerful driver of the vote.
