More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Stories covering the fight for gender-based rights across all regions of the world and stories of international coalitions advocating for global feminist change.
If you don’t live in Florida, you may be inclined to distance yourself from the news that they just banned public school districts from teaching sex education—including lessons on consent, HIV transmission, abuse prevention, and the existence of LGBTQ+ people.
But this is not a “Florida problem”—it’s a national preview. Because Project 2025 calls for a federal ban on sex education too. It’s just hidden, snuck in as part of their ban on pornography.
Afghanistan has plummeted to last in global rankings of gender equity and women’s security since the withdrawal of international forces in 2021. A second Taliban regime has issued increasingly harsh decrees entrapping millions of women and girls in a system of repression that violates their basic human rights, segregates them from broader society and keeps opportunities and independence out of reach.
But even as the situation for Afghan women grows more dire, the international community is inching closer to recognizing the Taliban as the legitimate leaders in Afghanistan, leaving Afghan women with diminishing hopes that their oppression will end.
(This article originally appears in the Fall 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)
This week marks three years since the Taliban banned secondary education for girls in Afghanistan.
The international community holds power, and the past three years have proven that mere condemnation is not enough. Real action is essential to help Afghan girls return to school—because every child deserves that right.
Monday, Sept. 16, marks two years since the murder of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini made international headlines and sparked an uprising in Iran. Her death triggered the longest citizen-led rebellion in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Nasrin Sotoudeh and her husband Reza Khandan are no strangers to brutal and violent government suppression. The two Iranian activists and attorneys have faced harassment, violence and imprisonment from a government that will do virtually anything to crush women’s rights and freedom of expression.
It’s been 45 years since the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, often described as an international bill of rights for women. Yet some younger feminists haven’t even heard of it.
The vast majority of the world’s nations—96 percent—have ratified CEDAW. The U.S. is not a signatory because it has never made it to the Senate floor for a ratifying vote—making it only industrialized democracy in the world that has yet to ratify it.
(This article originally appears in the Summer 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)
As the world approaches a critical juncture with over half its population heading to the polls by the end of 2024, philanthropy faces a pivotal moment.
While conservative foundations intensify funding to restrict rights, progressive donors often stall. Black feminist movements, working at the forefront of transformative change, receive a shockingly small fraction of philanthropic funds—between 0.1 to 0.35 percent. There is an urgent need for philanthropy to support these efforts in the face of growing global challenges and anti-rights organizing.
(This essay is part of a Women & Democracy package focused on who’s funding the women and LGBTQ people on the frontlines of democracy. We’re manifesting a new era for philanthropy—one that centers feminism. The need is real: Funding for women and girls amounts to less than 2 percent of all philanthropic giving; for women of color, it’s less than 1 percent. Explore the “Feminist Philanthropy Is Essential to Democracy” collection.)
Iraq’s Parliament is currently advancing an amendment to the country’s Personal Status Law that would shift governance of marriage from state courts to Iraqi religious authorities, posing dire threats to the human rights of girls and women. The new law would give legal recognition to marriages of girls as young as 9 years old and remove criminal punishments for men who marry young girls—thereby legally authorizing the rape and sexual abuse of girls by adult men.
“Girls belong in school and on the playground, not in a wedding dress,” said Sarah Sanbar, an Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch.
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 week: a special report from the Paris Olympics, as well as news from Afghanistan, Iran and more.
The situation in Afghanistan today is dire, but many are unaware of the full extent of the tragedy for women and everyone in the country. It’s easy to recall Afghanistan as a country which has long faced war and destruction, but before the Taliban took power in 1996 and then again in August 2021, Afghanistan was progressive.
In 2020, the Raising Haiti Foundation began funding the provision of small loans ($25-$50) to 50 women clients in two communities: Medor and Sarrazin. Most of the women use their loans to become entrepreneurs, or to expand their current businesses, selling goods in local markets. Some use them to purchase livestock or crop seeds, improving their farming outputs.
This interview with recipient and entrepreneur Marimène Tijuste exemplifies some of the achievements of the microcredit clients.
“Having more and different types of products to sell in my business has changed my life. I have more clients. I earn a profit. I can feed my family. … Everything has changed for me!”