Medical Sexism

Medical sexism—the systemic bias, discrimination, and mistreatment of women in healthcare settings—has a long history, and remains pervasive. Medical researchers historically excluded women from experiments. As a result, the male body has been treated as the biological default. This healthcare gender prejudice has left gaping knowledge gaps around how illness and pain impact women.

How Abortion Bans Could Make Your IUD Insertion More Painful (And Other Far-Reaching Consequences)

PUBLISHED 10/29/2026 by

In the fall of 2024, Louisiana implemented the nation’s first-ever law designating mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled substances. That put the pills in the same category as opioids and anxiety medi­cations that have a high risk of­ dependency and abuse, even though mifepristone and misoprostol have no recreational use, ­aren’t stimulants or sedatives, and are not addictive.

“They do not meet the definition or intent of what a controlled substance is, and categorizing them as such can lead to harm,” warned the American College of Medical Toxicology. “Additionally, it sets a dangerous ­precedent of politicizing phar­maceu­ti­cal regulation.”

The state targeted the two drugs ­because they are used in combination in most abortions. But mifepristone and misoprostol have a broad range of other medical uses beyond abortion—from inducing­ labor, to assisting in the removal of uterine polyps.

Dr. Emily Holt, a family medicine physician in New Orleans, had regularly prescribed both drugs to help patients manage miscarriages, and had offered just misoprostol to those with a stenotic cervix, in which the entrance to the uterus closes up. But she most frequently used misoprostol for IUD insertions.

Keeping Score: Early Voting Signals Strong Midterm Turnout; Hundreds of Women Charged With Pregnancy-Related ‘Crimes’; Dems Seek Special Counsel on Trump-Epstein Ties

PUBLISHED 10/29/2026 by

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too, in this biweekly roundup.

This week:
—As early voting begins, several Texas counties report record-breaking turnout.
—Vivek Ramaswamy sinks to new lows by weaponizing his opponent’s esranged mother and childhood sexual abuse.
—Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated far-right challenger Flávio Bolsonaro.
—Protests continue on the Cornell campus after allegations of gang rape by fraternity members.
—Women are much more likely to have their autoimmune conditions dismissed as psychological.
—Over 900 women have been charged with pregnancy-related “crimes” since Roe was overturned.
—More than 500 U.S. citizens have been detained by ICE under Trump.
—ICE also collected over 48 million voter records and investigated hundreds of nonprofits that help people register to vote. ICE may have shared this state voter data with a Palantir surveillance tool used to identify and locate immigration enforcement targets.
—New Mexico’s universal childcare policy led to an increase in labor force participation by lower-income moms.
—The National Women’s History Museum is honoring teachers Kristen Kelly and Serene Williams, who created the first AP U.S. Women’s History class, with the 2026 Meryl Streep Educator Award.
—Four members of antiabortion group Students for Life have been sued under a Texas law they supported.
—House Judiciary Democrats released a 53-page report compiling allegations of sexual misconduct involving President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein and calling for an independent special counsel to investigate.
—UltraViolet and the Trump-Epstein Reading Room held an event highlighting MoMA trustee Leon Black’s references in the Epstein files and his multiple rape accusations.
—Almost 70 percent of voters in the Deep South do not believe the government should ban abortion.
—”The Trump administration’s announcement to pursue a military execution by a manner not used in the military since 1945 demonstrates the federal government’s zeal for brutality at any cost,” says the Legal Defense Fund.
—The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders have unionized.

… and more.

Why This Menopause Expert Turned Down Trump’s Rose Garden Photo Op

PUBLISHED 10/22/2026 by

On Monday, President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump presided over a bizarre ceremony in the Rose Garden where she made rare public remarks and he signed an executive order, “Advancing Women’s Health to Improve Outcomes in All Phases of Life.”

Never mind that his executive order has the same primary objectives as one signed by President Joe Biden in 2024—namely, increased research in and knowledge about diseases and conditions that affect women uniquely or disproportionately. Both executive orders make explicit the need to focus on menopause, midlife and aging, with stated priorities such as Alzheimer’s Disease, cardiovascular and heart disease, stroke and osteoporosis.

The biggest difference between the two is that Biden’s tied dollar amounts to these objectives: Though the $12 billion he directed Congress to allocate never materialized, hundreds of millions were activated across several federal agencies.

Alas, that executive order is now officially replaced with the current one.

As much as I want to mean it when I say, This agenda must transcend partisanship, and I want to show up for the millions of women who deserve these hard-won milestones—it was way too large a leap to be in the room where this executive order happened.

Yes, I was invited to the Rose Garden. Yes, I declined.

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?”

Why Women Need a Hormonal Bill of Rights

PUBLISHED 10/12/2026 by

For too long, midlife symptoms of women have been minimized; our concerns dismissed, our suffering normalized and our voices overlooked. We reject the notion that hormonal decline is simply something to endure.

Everyone has the right to connection, support, shared knowledge, honest conversation free from shame and community in search of quality of life.

To ask questions.
To demand answers.
To require equal research.
To expect better healthcare.
To defy patriarchal control.
To hormonally radicalize the world.

Activists Have Fought for Disability Justice. So-Called ‘Sickfluencers’ Still Face Medical Sexism.

PUBLISHED 9/16/2026 by

Mainstream legacy media in the U.K. has found a new target: young disabled women.

Last week, Telegraph editor Poppy Coburn published “How having a disability became cool,” arguing so-called “sickfluencers” are “turning chronic illness into a lifestyle trend.” Just a month earlier, Times of London columnist Kathleen Stock suggested the disproportionate number of Gen Z women diagnosed with what she called “vague syndromes” may be experiencing “social contagion.” Both pieces cast suspicion on young disabled women and the ways they discuss chronic illness and use mobility aids, reflecting a growing strain of far-right rhetoric that treats disabled women’s accounts of their own bodies with suspicion.

‘That’s Just Aging’ Is Not a Diagnosis

PUBLISHED 8/28/2026 by

As a physician, I was trained with the same mantra: that hormone therapy was only for women who were absolutely miserable, and that if we were to prescribe it, it was for the least amount of time at the smallest dose.

That was completely wrong.

In 2002, part of the Women’s Health Initiative study was halted prematurely for a press release that essentially stated that hormone therapy caused breast cancer—when in actuality, the women who took estrogen alone (those without a uterus) actually had a reduced risk for breast cancer.

The mangling of that messaging is in large part responsible for scaring a generation of physicians off prescribing hormone therapy and terrifying generations of women away from taking the very things—estrogen and progesterone—that improve the immediate symptoms of menopause (such as hot flashes, night sweats, vaginal dryness and recurrent UTIs) and prevent the long-term consequences of estrogen depletion like osteoporosis, heart disease and premature cognitive decline.

Every time you refuse to accept a doctor telling you, “That’s just aging,” you aren’t just advocating for yourself. You’re doing structural work. You’re demanding to be seen as a full person, not as a set of body parts.

The questions women ask in exam rooms are how the gap between medical evidence and clinical practice closes. It’s how we close the disparity between men’s health and women’s health.

Health, after all, isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about asking better questions—of yourself, and of the people responsible for your care.

I Want an Oura Ring. As a Reproductive Health Lawyer, I Know Better.

PUBLISHED 8/23/2026 by

I almost bought an Oura Ring at 3:12 in the morning. I was lying awake in my small D.C. apartment, my phone casting a blue glow across my face. I couldn’t sleep. Again. My mind was already racing through the work waiting for me in the morning: Federal Register alerts, Google alerts for abortion ban and pregnancy criminalization, another headline about a woman denied reproductive care.

So I did what people do when they can’t sleep: I shopped. I opened the Target app looking for something—anything—that might help me sleep, and soon an Oura Ring was sitting in my cart. Before checking out I opened TikTok to see whether it was actually worth it. Soon, I was watching a woman talk about her Oura Ring the way people talk about a revelation, a religious experience. One video became 10. Women talked about the ring as if it had given them access to a version of their bodies they had never been able to understand before. It noticed signs of illness before they felt sick. It helped explain their exhaustion. It tracked their cycles and identified patterns connected to fertility and pregnancy. Its promise was simple and seductive: the ring might know what was happening inside your body before you did.

It sounded incredible. I wanted the ring to tell me why I was so tired. I wanted it to warn me before I got sick. More than anything, I wanted to understand my own body. 

For generations, women have been told their pain is normal, their cycles are mysterious, and their instincts are unreliable. So when a device promises to listen to your body every minute of every day and translate its signals into something you can finally understand, it doesn’t feel like a luxury. It feels like power.

Don’t Let AI Become the New Sex Educator for Adolescents

PUBLISHED 8/20/2026 by

“Why would I Google it when I can just ask ChatGPT for exactly what I am looking for?” 

A 16-year-old asked me this during a recent conversation with Black adolescents about where they turn for health information. Her answer was striking, but hardly surprising.

As traditional sex education faces cuts in schools and reproductive health services become harder to access—particularly for young people of color in underserved communities—adolescents are increasingly looking elsewhere for answers. AI chatbots offer something schools, clinics and even trusted adults often do not: information that feels immediate, private and judgment-free.

Looking to Black and Indigenous Foremothers to Resist Erasure

PUBLISHED 7/2/2026 by

Free Black women and Indigenous women are the foremothers of generations of African Americans. Yet they remain largely absent from the official story of American freedom. Their lives, contributions and descendants have been systematically erased—from colonial records and legal classifications to public memory itself.

That erasure began in the earliest colonial records. The 1620 Virginia census recorded “four Indians in the service of several planters,” alongside 15 Negro men and 17 Negro women, reducing people to categories that obscured their identities, families and histories. Over the centuries, laws, court decisions and public institutions repeatedly reinforced that disappearance.

The best celebration of 250 years of American freedom—after the fireworks and celebrations by a newly blue-painted Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool are over—could be a visit to a cool, air-conditioned archive. In the quiet, anyone can search the records for the full story, of the enslaved and freeborn, Indian and African. Anyone can defy censorship and erasure with an open mind and a pencil, no fees required.