More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Islam is a major religion practiced by 2 billion people around the world, centered around the Qu’ran. Islam is often demonized based on false racist and xenophobic assumptions in the Western world.
If you want a glimmer of hope that there are still sane, compassionate and intelligent politicians in the world, Prime Minister—winner of the Audience Award in the World Cinema Documentary Competition—will offer just that and more.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s sure-footed and community-minded approach to leadership shines through in this inspiring documentary directed by Michelle Walshe and Lindsay Utz.
“Hopelessness echoes from their [Afghan women’s] voices.”
Since the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in 2021, Afghan women have been systematically erased from education, employment, and public life, making Afghanistan the only country where girls above sixth grade are barred from school. Once vital contributors to the nation’s progress, women are now trapped in a cycle of oppression that not only devastates their futures but also weakens Afghanistan’s economy and global standing. The world must take urgent action to combat this gender apartheid and support Afghan women in their fight for basic human rights.
Iranian human rights attorney and recently released political prisoner Nasrin Sotoudeh wrote in the September 2022 issue of Ms. to express her appreciation for the magazine’s “unreserved support for me and my husband during the harsh days of my imprisonment.”
She described the way politicians around the world gain power and control by oppressing women, and she spoke about facing governmental “pressure that tightened like a noose around our family on a daily basis.”
That pressure was felt again last Dec. 13 when Nasrin’s equally courageous husband Reza Khandan was arrested for his efforts on behalf of women’s rights in Iran.
Across the 2000s, a series of child sex exploitation cases affected British towns, including Telford, Rochdale, Oxford and Rotherham, scarring the lives of hundreds of children. In 2011, Times journalist Andrew Norfolk reported that networks—so-called “grooming gangs”—of largely British Asian men of Pakistani heritage had trafficked and raped hundreds of mainly girls and young women. Elon Musk—the billionaire owner of social media platform X and incoming lead on US government efficiency—has, it seems, just found out about this devastating national scandal.
Musk has aligned himself with a gendered narrative: It is men’s duty to protect women—even when it means breaking rules or using force. This gender binary—strong men must be ready to use force to protect weak women, especially from hostile alien men—is the core narrative of patriarchal, nationalist, ultra nationalist and also Nazi groups.
Iraqi lawmakers’ proposal to amend the country’s family law and grant religious courts the authority to legalize marriages for underage girls is being pushed by the country’s Shiite parliamentary factions, as part of their appeal to conservative voters ahead of the country’s October 2025 elections, if not sooner.
The proposal has sparked a firestorm, particularly after initial reports suggested it could allow marriages for girls as young as 9 years old. Some experts contend the bill could also further fracture Iraq’s stability.
Over the years, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has deflected public discontent with his economic and social policies by pointing fingers at journalists and women’s rights defenders, among others.
Since a failed coup in 2016, the Turkish government has become “incrementally more repressive,” explains Asli Aydintaşbaş, a visiting fellow at the Center on the United States and Europe at the nonprofit Brookings Institution. The outcome of this year’s election “creates a bit of a breathing space in urban areas in terms of free speech issues, but there has not been an improvement on the Kurdish issue,” she says.
(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! )
Mistaking toxic masculinity for skillful leadership has led to one disaster after another—from pointless wars, to preventable terrorist attacks, to the spiraling climate change crisis.
As we enter the seventh month of attacks on Gaza, I can’t help but ask myself: What if we had female leaders in Israel and Gaza?
As someone who lived in a war zone for over five years, north of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capital, Sarajevo, I have borne witness to the horrors inflicted upon innocent souls women and children, my own community torn apart by violence and despair. Yet, in the face of such darkness, I have also seen the flicker of resilience, the unwavering spirit that refuses to be extinguished.
The failure of the international community to support a timely intervention in Bosnia has been well documented, but as I witness new conflicts across the globe in the three decades since, I see that we did not learn anything about protecting humanity. We cannot ignore the cries of innocent lives, including all the hostages caught in the crossfire of this conflict. Now is the time for decisive action; advocating to end relentless fighting and supporting urgent adequate delivery of humanitarian aid and medical assistance.
The human rights abuses of the Taliban and re-establishment of gender apartheid in Afghanistan have largely been met with silence by the international community. A trend of normalization of the regime has begun to emerge in the media and in international assessments. Recently, The Washington Post ran an article titled “Taliban vowed to change Kabul. The city may be starting to change the Taliban”, which described a Taliban enthralled with shopping, learning English, and studying abroad. A photo of Taliban enjoying a picnic accompanies the article, but neglects to mention that women are now forbidden from going to the park or anywhere else.
Taliban revels in its male-dominated society, while women languish under house arrest or in jail for daring to defy Taliban decrees. This normalization of the Taliban is devastating to the women and girls of Afghanistan, and portends danger to the rest of the world where attacks on women’s rights have intensified.
The Biden administration’s 2023 judicial appointments were some of the most diverse in a presidential history, marking a historic win for representation in the courts.
The momentum continues in 2024.