Gender Integration in Sports: ‘I Have Been Suggesting This My Whole Life,’ Says Billie Jean King

Because sports historically have been socially constructed to highlight characteristics of male bodies and to preserve male dominance, sports can be reconstructed to be gender-integrated. People of all genders can and do play sports together in a lot of ways. The real question is whether or not society is ready to let sports start to challenge the gender binary and male dominance, rather than reinforce them.

(This story also appears in the Summer 2023 issue of Ms. magazine. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get the Summer issue delivered straight to your mailbox!)

Violence Against Jacinda Ardern and Other Women Political Leaders Is an Attack on Democracy Itself

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern faced online vitriol at a rate between 50 and 90 times higher than any other high-profile figure.

Because men commit the vast majority of violence directed at women in politics, men who reject misogyny and violence have a special responsibility to call it out. What can men who believe in elementary fairness and other basic democratic values do? They can start by pushing back against the idea that violent rhetoric in politics is normal.

How We Avoid the Rise of Another ‘Andrew Tate’

Most of Andrew Tate’s alleged criminal conduct took place in private. But his rise to fame—or infamy—took place in full public view. It is important to understand how and why all of this happened. Here are four “teachable moment” topics raised by the Andrew Tate saga:

1. Tate’s normalization of misogyny harms girls and young women.
2. The ideal of “manhood” Tate promotes harms boys and young men.
3. 3. For many uninformed young men, feminism is a hostile philosophy and feminists are caricatured villains.
4. There is a strong connection between misogyny and right-wing politics.

Andrew Tate as a Teachable Moment

Andrew Tate has been called “The King of Toxic Masculinity.” TikTok videos that feature him or his ideas have received an estimated 11.6 billion views. But many of his most controversial—and widely shared—pronouncements are those about women.

He says he dates women aged 18–19 because he can “make an imprint” on them. He said women in heterosexual relationships “belong to the man.” He once lectured a group of young women that their career aspirations don’t matter and that the “happiest women” have children and a man who is paying their bills. Tate has helped to normalize expressions of overt misogyny.

Media Coverage Misses the Gender Issues at the Heart of Mass Shootings

People think it’s so obvious the shooters are young men that there’s literally no point in saying so. In that sense, ‘gunman’ is internally redundant; everyone knows that ‘man’ follows ‘gun.’ 

As long as men, young and old, have easy access to high-capacity killing machines at the same time their society furnishes them with endless heroic masculine narratives about redemptive violence, the next tragedy is always going to be just around the corner.