More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Free and fair elections are an essential pillar of democracy around the world. However, the validity of elections are often threatened by the state or individuals introducing barriers to voting, including violence, and political or financial corruption.
It’s expensive to run for office: Political ad spending in the 2024 election cycle is expected to exceed $16 billion. And the price of campaigning is a greater barrier for women, who typically have less access than men to the wealthy donors who provide most of this money.
Enter: public financing, a simple but powerful reform that uses public funds to boost small donations to candidates.
As of this month, 46 cities have adopted ranked-choice voting (RCV), which allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference.
On Election Day earlier this month, 11 of these RCV cities across six states held elections, and RCV has proven once again to yield positive outcomes for women.
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.
This week: Four steps we must take to see more women running in future elections; St. Paul, Minn., which uses ranked-choice voting for local elections, is projected to elect its first women-majority city council; how Shirley Chisholm, the first Black congresswoman in the U.S., shifted political rival Alabama Governor George Wallace’s stance on racial segregation; and more.
If our election officials are not safe, neither are our elections. As election officials are leaving at an alarming rate, we must step up to protect the security of our democracy.
Tuesday, Nov. 7, is the last day for voters in several states to head to the polls to vote in a number of off-year elections. While they may be lower-profile, some of these races are still deeply consequential.
We’ll be watching: Ohio’s pro-abortion ballot measure; Virginia’s state legislature; the Pennsylvania supreme court race; and the Kentucky and Mississippi governors’ races.
Ahead of Election Day on Nov. 7, I’m reflecting on the women on the ballot in our local elections, as well as my mom’s own run for political office in 2010 when I was 8.
Regardless of the election outcome, your decision to run will have a huge impact on the women around you—especially young women and girls.
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation. In this week’s Weekend Reading, we’ll expose the “tricks” that have haunted our democracy and celebrate the “treats” that can remove these obstacles once and for all.
Here’s a preview: Women-majority city councils (like New York City’s!) make a difference; Missouri’s supreme court is one of just 11 in the country to have a female majority; will Texas’ 12th District will elect another woman to office?; and more.
In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled along political lines that it could not review disputes over partisan gerrymandering. The conservatives in Rucho v. Common Cause insisted that the question of how state legislatures draw their maps is a “political” question and thus “nonjusticiable” by the Court.
The truth is more that the Court silenced the Constitution and set our democracy on a destructive course. As Justice Kagan wrote in the liberals’ dissent, the Court had “encouraged a politics of polarization and dysfunction.” The resulting “unchecked” gerrymanders, she warned, “may irreparably damage our system of government.”
I found out I was pregnant in June 2022. My husband and I were thrilled—and at 42 years old, we understood that I was embarking on a high-risk pregnancy. I was also leading the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee at the time. I certainly did not anticipate that my personal and professional worlds were about to collide in a historic political year.
Weeks after I learned I was pregnant, the conservative U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Some people believe that abortion laws and pregnancy have nothing to do with one another. Those people have no idea what they’re talking about—and they’ve probably never been pregnant.
The U.S. ranks as the 19th most dangerous country for women, 11th in maternal mortality, 30th in closing the gender pay gap, 75th in women’s political representation, and painfully lacks paid family leave and equal access to health care. But Ms. has always understood: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the U.S.’s most intractable problems. Ms. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.
This time with news from Spain, Nigeria, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Turkey and more.
