Feminist Art

A Visual Depiction of Lactation Rooms in the U.S.: Inside the Spaces Where Mothers Pump

PUBLISHED 6/6/2026 by

My latest book Milk Factory is the first visual study of America’s lactation rooms. Photographing spaces where mothers pump—disparate sites such as a prison, corporate offices, a farm laborer’s tent, schools, an airport and the U.S. Capitol—I reveal the hidden architecture of care. I wanted to give participants a record of their labor and make that labor visible to others.

Born out of my own experience, Milk Factory is personal and political. It challenges romanticized portrayals of motherhood and breastfeeding, underscoring the complexity and labor behind an act that is widely expected but rarely supported.

June 2026 Reads for the Rest of Us

PUBLISHED 6/1/2026 by

Each month, Ms. provides readers with a list of new books being published by writers from historically excluded groups.

Happy June! Happy Pride! Happy Caribbean-American Heritage Month! Happy summer!

Wherever you are and however you spend your month, I hope you are able to slow down, rest and enjoy life with a good book. 

Dispatches From Ukraine’s Frontlines, Where Feminist Organizing Has Become an Act of Survival

PUBLISHED 5/28/2026 by

A lecture and discussion were about to begin in a local public library. It could have been a scene in New York, London or Melbourne. Yet this event was in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, just 25 kilometers from invading Russian forces, where most of the attendees had fled from Russian occupied cities and villages.

The meeting was one of many organized by Natalia Lobach and the Ukrainian LGBTQ+ human rights group, Insight. Lobach said these events aim to create “safe community spaces for people from different age and social groups,” but they are especially “a good way for vulnerable groups to socialize.”

“Putin’s military is trying to destroy us not only physically, but psychologically as well—to take away our identities,” she said. “We are surviving physically, but we are also preserving our identities and our pride. … Isn’t that a kind of miracle, what we continue to do despite the pressure of such a brutal enemy?”

Cover Reveal and Spring 2026 Issue Sneak Peek: ICE Is ‘the Army of the Patriarchy’

PUBLISHED 3/17/2026 by

In early February, while the nation was still reeling from the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents, Loretta Ross and Jackson Katz—two feminist academics with decidedly different backgrounds and identities—discussed how U.S. federal agents became the enforcement arm of the nation’s racism and misogyny.

You’ll find this, and more, in the Spring 2026 issue of Ms.

Oscar-Nominated Documentary ‘The Devil Is Busy’ Shows What It Takes to Keep an Abortion Clinic Safe

PUBLISHED 3/9/2026 by

Tracii’s day begins early—before dawn. She arrives at work, turns on the lights and thoroughly searches the building for intruders. Then she checks outside, where it’s still dark, making sure no one is hiding in the woods or behind a dumpster.

Tracii is the head of security at an abortion clinic in Atlanta, and is also the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary short, The Devil Is Busy. Directed by Christalyn Hampton and Geeta Gandbhir, the film follows Tracii over the course of a long, stressful day at the clinic, as she works tirelessly to ensure not just the safety but the comfort of the women seeking care. (Neither her last name, nor the name of the clinic, gets mentioned in the film.)

Available to stream on HBO Max, The Devil Is Busy is a compelling portrait of a deeply compassionate woman on the frontlines of the abortion war. It packs a lot into 31 minutes, exploring not just the precarious status of abortion care post-Roe v. Wade, but also the fraught intersection of race, religion and women’s health.

The film arrives just as advocates mark Abortion Provider Appreciation Day, observed each year on March 10. The date honors Dr. David Gunn, an abortion provider murdered by a white supremacist anti-abortion extremist in 1993. Since 1996, supporters have used the day to recognize the courage and compassion of abortion providers—people like Tracii—whose work continues despite harassment, threats and political attacks.

Sundance 2026: A Film About Revolution and Hope in Iran, ‘The Friend’s House Is Here’ Shows How Art and Friendship Sustain Resistance

PUBLISHED 2/11/2026 by

Even when it’s created at great personal risk, nothing can negate the power of art. So, too, the importance of friendship, which impacts our choices, shapes our ideas about the past, present and future, and changes lives.

These are central themes of The Friend’s House Is Here, a U.S.-Iranian co-production that won the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast at Sundance this year. In their presentation of the award, the jury praised the film’s ensemble cast “for delivering performances that each of us could find ourselves in, revealing a story that is frighteningly universal. The ensemble injects the world with gravity, love, and humor, and shows us the way community and connection are often our key to survival.”

In a case of life imitating art, the film circulates through its own act of defiance: It had to be smuggled out of Tehran for it to be shown at Sundance.

(This is one in a series of film reviews from the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, focused on films by women, trans or nonbinary directors that tell compelling stories about the lives of women and girls.)

Reads for the Rest of Us: The Most Anticipated Feminist Books of 2026

PUBLISHED 1/12/2026 by and

Happy new year, feminist readers! I hope you’ll make it a goal to carve out time to read, and I’m here to share the top books we are excited about this year. 

We’ve scoured catalogs and websites, searched our favorite authors, kept up with socials and tried to get through as much email as we can to find the gems that we know Ms. readers will love and learn from. We look for feminist, queer, anti-racist, anti-colonial, original, radical and reflective books. Subversive books. Books that’ll make you think and feel.

It’s a lot of work, but as a librarian and Ms. Feminist Know-It-All, it’s what I do! And it’s labor I love. 

Here are the top 94 books we’re looking forward to in 2026. 

The Best Feminist Fiction Films and TV Shows of 2025

PUBLISHED 12/22/2025 by

From devastating dramas to sharp satires and genre-bending thrillers, this year’s feminist fiction on screen refused easy answers—and demanded our attention. These films and series center women’s agency, ambition and survival, offering stories that linger long after the credits roll. Here are some of the standout feminist fiction watches of the year.

Aviva Dove-Viebahn reviews the top fiction feminist watches from the past year including The Substance, Ironheart and The Better Sister.

bell hooks Taught Us to Imagine Freedom. Universities Are Forcing Us to Fight for It.

PUBLISHED 12/15/2025 by

On the day bell hooks became an ancestor, four years ago today, my beloved friend, comrade and co-conspirator Black feminist sociologist Shawn McGuffey and I were consoling one another over text when he wrote, “We should do something.” “Say less,” I replied.

We had institutional support from Northeastern University at a time when universities and other institutions were publicly and ceremoniously committing to funding DEI related initiatives in the tidal wave of so-called racial reckoning that occurred in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. The first symposium took place two months later on a cold and clear February morning in 2022. This annual gathering became an important tradition that we looked forward to each year.

This week, we mark four years since the woman born Gloria Jean Watkins, a Black feminist writer, academic, professor and activist became an ancestor. But in 2026, there will be no bell hooks symposium at my university. Due to university wide fiscal austerity, we will not mark the anniversary this year in any official way. It is a tremendous loss, for our students and for our community locally, nationally and internationally.

As I grappled with my own grief over this loss, I had to also reflect deeply about what it means to be a Black feminist scholar in the academy today.