Gender Gap

The gender gap is the measurable difference between women and men in public opinion polling and in voting. Ellie Smeal, the publisher of Ms. and the president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, was the first to identify the gender gap and popularized its usage in election analyses to enhance women’s voting power.

Women Voters Brought the Blue Wave

PUBLISHED 11/7/2026 by

Tuesday night was record-breaking.

Next year, record numbers of women will serve in the House (at least 136) and as governors across the U.S. (at least 17). Both House and Senate majorities have flipped to Democratic control.

We have women voters to thank for all of this.

Nationwide, 58 percent of women voted for Democrats, compared to just 49 percent of men.

In South Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Maine, Kansas, New Hampshire and Minnesota, if only men had voted, Republicans would have won.

Even in states where a majority of men voted for the winning Democrat—Georgia, North Carolina and Texas—women supported the winner by significantly larger margins.

Before the Gender Gap Had a Name, Ms. Saw Women’s Political Power Coming: Six Stories From the Archives on the Power of Women Voters

PUBLISHED 11/3/2026 by

A record 590 women filed to run for the U.S. House during the 2026 election cycle. Women candidates are also poised to make history in gubernatorial races across the country: Deb Haaland could become the nation’s first Native American woman governor in New Mexico, while Keisha Lance Bottoms could become the first Black woman governor in U.S. history if elected in Georgia.

Yet women still hold only about 28 percent of seats in Congress. And the stakes of this election—from reproductive freedom and immigration enforcement, to voting rights and the future of constitutional equality—extend far beyond the number of women elected.

For more than five decades, Ms. has documented the growing power of women voters, candidates and elected officials. We’ve tracked the gender gap, challenged the barriers facing women in politics and explored what it would mean to build a democracy that represents all of us.

These six selections from the Ms. Archive trace that history—from the earliest predictions of women’s political power, to today’s calls to fundamentally remake American democracy. (Full access to these selections and the entirety of 50+ years of issues of Ms. is available via the Ms. Magazine Archive on ProQuest, from Clarivate.)

Healthcare, Jobs and Equality: The Feminist Stakes of the Midterms

PUBLISHED 10/19/2026 by and

Federal policies shape women’s lives across the country—in our workplaces, schools, healthcare systems and homes, in red and blue states alike.

For example, federal workforce reductions undermine economic security and career opportunities for Black women, who have historically constituted a substantial share of the federal workforce. Restrictions on federal funding for reproductive healthcare also weaken access to contraception and cancer screenings. And of course, the unresolved status of the Equal Rights Amendment remains an unfinished chapter in the struggle for women’s equality.

These issues are not abstract. They affect whether a woman can obtain healthcare, whether a teacher has the resources to support her students, and whether an employee can challenge discrimination.

Gloria Steinem reminded women, “Voting isn’t the most we can do, but it is the least. To have a democracy, you have to want one.” Let’s also remember that women have been a majority of the electorate for the past two decades. When it comes down to tough choices, voters must demand America gets it priorities straight. After all, as Steinem asked bluntly: “Who needs a ballroom?”

The Cornell Rape Case Has Sparked a National Outcry. Can That Anger Shape the Midterms?

PUBLISHED 10/12/2026 by

A dam has broken for women, stemming from the case of the Cornell student who was allegedly gang-raped at a fraternity in 2024.

In the 1980s, Ms. published the first national study of sexual assault on college campuses. What our researchers found was, at the time, shocking—at least, to the college administrators: Over half of women surveyed had experienced “some form of sexual victimization,” and one in eight women had been victims of rape—though of those women, nearly three-quarters didn’t identify their experience as rape.

“The details of what happened to Jane Doe are horrifying, but at least they are now being reported and considered credible. This has not always been the case,” wrote Ellen Sweet, former Ms. magazine editor and coordinator of the Ms. Magazine Campus Project on Sexual Assault in a recent New York Times letter to the editor. “Now there is a public outcry for transparency and accountability that can’t be ignored. Let’s hope colleges and law enforcement finally learn their lesson.”

We know that in this moment, young women are fed up and deeply, deeply angry. The midterms offer an opportunity to channel that anger into tangible, meaningful change.

Feminist Lessons From the 1980s: Why Every Movement Faces Backlash

PUBLISHED 6/9/2026 by

The 1980s opened with a sense of uncertainty for feminists. Just years after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, the passage of Title IX and the near-ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, Ronald Reagan swept into office backed by a newly energized religious right determined to reverse many of the gains women had won in the previous decade.

Across the country, antiabortion activists organized at the state level, the ERA’s ratification deadline expired, and conservative leaders framed feminism itself as a threat to American values. What had felt like a period of rapid progress in the 1970s suddenly gave way to a fierce political and cultural backlash.

The decade was marked by escalating attacks on reproductive freedom. Reagan expanded antiabortion policies, implemented the global gag rule and sought to further entrench the Hyde Amendment’s restrictions on abortion funding. Meanwhile, antiabortion extremists targeted clinics and providers with bombings, assaults and intimidation campaigns.

Throughout the decade, Ms. documented the real-world consequences of these policies, particularly for poor women and women of color, while warning that the fight over abortion was fundamentally about women’s autonomy, equality and power.

Yet the 1980s were also a decade of feminist resilience. Women identified an emerging gender gap in voting patterns, rallied behind Geraldine Ferraro’s historic vice presidential campaign and reintroduced the Equal Rights Amendment year after year.

By the decade’s end, a majority of women—and two-thirds of younger women—identified as feminists.

The lesson of the 1980s is that backlash is often a sign of a movement’s success. Faced with powerful opposition, feminists did not retreat. They adapted, organized and laid the groundwork for the political breakthroughs that would follow in the decades ahead.

This essay is part of Feminist Lessons—part 2 of Ms.’ our three-part FEMINIST 250 project—which explores what each decade of modern feminist history can teach us about power, democracy, backlash and social change.

A (Brief) History of Women’s Rights, 1600 to Present

PUBLISHED 6/3/2026 by and

From the Haudenosaunee women who successfully challenged warfare in the 17th century, to today’s feminist organizers defending democracy, reproductive freedom and civil rights, the struggle for women’s equality has never been a straight line. It is a story of persistence, resistance and collective action spanning centuries.

Compiled by editors at Ms. and researchers from the National Women’s History Alliance, this women’s history timeline traces the interconnected histories of feminism, abolition, labor organizing, civil rights, reproductive justice, LGBTQ+ liberation and democratic participation.

No timeline can fully capture more than 400 years of feminist history, let alone every movement, leader, victory and setback that has shaped the ongoing fight for equality. Rather than offering a comprehensive account, this chronology highlights pivotal moments and turning points that help tell the story of how women have expanded the boundaries of freedom, democracy and human rights in the United States and beyond.

The timeline is part of Ms. magazine’s FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists project, a multimedia essay series marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by examining the women and feminist movements that have worked to make the nation’s founding promises more fully realized. Through reported features, essays, interviews and historical analysis, FEMINIST 250 explores not only where we have been, but where we must go next to achieve true equality.

FEMINIST 250’s Parts 2 and 3—Feminist Lessons and Feminist Futures—drop this month on MsMagazine.com.

Furious, Fearless and Defiant: Our Favorite Protest Signs From No Kings 3.0

PUBLISHED 3/30/2026 by and

On Saturday, March 28, 2026, millions showed up for the latest wave of No Kings protests, drawing an estimated 8 million people across more than 3,300 events worldwide.

The flagship event was held in Minneapolis-St. Paul, the site of a controversial immigration enforcement surge resulting in the deaths of two residents, Renée Nicole Macklin Good and Alex Pretti, at the hands of federal agents.

War on Women Report: Kentucky Woman Arrested for Miscarriage; Kansas Anti-Trans Bill Takes Effect; Polls Show Most U.S. Women Disapprove of Trump

PUBLISHED 2/27/2026 by and

MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide—the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.” We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Delaware abortion provider Debra Lynch, who operates the organization Her Safe Harbor, for allegedly mailing abortion pills into Texas.
—More than a year after seeking medical help for a miscarriage, Deann and Charles Bennett, a young couple in Booneville, Ky., have been arrested for alleged “reckless homicide.”
—Trump’s Department of Justice used the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, intended to protect abortion clinics from harassment, to prosecute journalist Don Lemon for attending an anti-ICE protest.
—The Trump administration withdrew a Biden-era rule that required pharmacies receiving federal funding to carry and dispense mifepristone, misoprostol and methotrexate.
—Arkansas’ near-total abortion ban is facing its first legal challenge since Dobbs. 
—Some good news from Cleveland: The Cleveland City Council passed Tanisha’s Law, creating a Community Crisis Response department to respond to non-violent mental health emergencies with trained, unarmed crisis teams.
—In a landmark victory for survivor accountability, an Arizona jury in Phoenix has ordered Uber to pay $8.5 million to Jaylynn Dean.
—Also in Arizona: Judge Gregory Como struck down several abortion restrictions, ruling them unconstitutional.

… and more.

The SAVE Act Isn’t About Election Security. It’s About Blocking Women, Young and Low-Income Voters

PUBLISHED 2/23/2026 by

The SAVE Act—the Republicans’ attempt to strip voting rights from millions of Americans under the guise of “safeguarding” elections that are already quite safe—is now headed for debate in the Senate, and President Donald Trump is pushing hard for the bill. Top Democrats say the GOP’s real aim is to “rig the system” by putting paperwork and ID barriers in front of millions of currently eligible voters, and that the bill is part of a larger, ongoing effort to undermine trust in elections and reshape rules in Trump’s favor.

Under the SAVE Act, people would have to show “proof of citizenship,” in the form of a passport or a birth certificate, in order to be allowed to register to vote.

But 21.3 million people (more than 9 percent of Americans) don’t have these documents readily available, and at least 3.8 million don’t have them at all, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Just over half of Americans (51 percent) lack a passport, a document that is time-consuming and costly to acquire or replace.

The SAVE Act will also disproportionately impact women who have changed or hyphenated their names—which is over 80 percent of women married to men.

Likewise, elderly voters, young voters and voters without the financial means to acquire these documents will be overwhelmingly impacted.

When in Doubt, Blame Young Women: The Evergreen Electoral Existential Crisis of Young Women in U.S. Politics

PUBLISHED 1/28/2026 by

While the right-wing media ecosystem views young women as an affliction, the Democratic Party risks taking this group for granted and overlooking their real-life concerns.

Women are more likely to support Democratic candidates than their male counterparts. This pattern, coined the “gendergap” by Ellie Smeal, has remained a fixture of American politics in every presidential election since 1980. That support shows that women’s Democratic support is consistent and can be politically decisive. Still, this support should not be taken for granted.