Mental Health

Support for improving mental health is just as vital as with physical health. However, stigma surrounds speaking about mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression, especially for parents who struggle with these disorders. For this reason, its effects are criminalized and resources are limited to privileged communities.

Sleep Is a Feminist Issue: Why Women’s Rest Is Political

Despite being among the top reasons women seek medical care, sleep disruptions during menopause have been understudied and undertreated. For women, sleep problems peak during the menopausal years, which span from their 40s to early 60s. Even more alarming, suicide rates also rise during these years. And the research shows that even amid immense hardship, the ability to sleep well buffers against suicidal thoughts. Yet, this crisis remains largely ignored.

Federal research, which now faces catastrophic budget cuts, has long neglected women’s sleep and menopause. And of course, in America, midlife women are holding the social safety net together, picking up the pieces of a broken welfare system.

Sleep is not a luxury. It is a nightly ritual restoring the brain through cellular growth and repair. To understand how we got here, we must examine the long history of how women’s sleep—or lack thereof—has been weaponized against us.

Fifty Years After War, Southeast Asian Communities Face a New Kind of Violence. Gender and Queer Justice Must Be at the Heart of This Moment.

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Drawing on histories of war, displacement and resistance, Southeast Asian organizers expose how patriarchy fuels violence, erasure and division—and why intersectional justice must lead the way forward.

“Patriarchal power is regrouping, seeking to reassert its grip. If we do not recognize and resist this realignment, we risk losing hard-won resources, protections and, most importantly, people. 

“As a community, Southeast Asians’ trauma is compounded by war and displacement. Nearly 16,000 Southeast Asian refugees face deportation; many live in poverty and fear, underserved by traditional systems and are often overlooked in broader Asian American narratives. As the United States expands its deportation machine, refugees from the U.S.-backed wars in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam are being re-criminalized and forcibly removed. These deportations fracture families, destabilize communities, and retraumatize those already targeted by the carceral state. Gender-based violence and anti-queer violence only intensify those challenges.”

(This essay is part of a collection presented by Ms. and the Groundswell Fund highlighting the work of Groundswell partners advancing inclusive democracy.)

Why Is the Vice President Sitting Like That?

That awkward posture isn’t accidental. When Vance spreads his legs and plops down for an interview, he is directly addressing young men. He wants to prove that he’s just one of the guys, while also issuing a dire warning. “The boys,” he asserts, are under attack.

Advancements in women’s rights have always been followed by countermovements, each one lamenting, “But what about the boys?”

In reality, the cure for loneliness can’t be found in calling your friends the f-word or finding a “trad wife” who will stay in her place. It requires genuine relationships. It’s about having your feelings valued but with the equal expectation of emotional reciprocity. Behold and be held. That’s the deal.

Guys: You all, like all people, deserve to be loved. The problem is, the messengers who claim to be your friends are lying. Those guys don’t love you. They love their power over you.

Ms. on Men: Rethinking Masculinity in the Wake of the 2025 Election

When the editors of Ms. asked me to guest-edit “Ms. on Men,” a feature section in the latest print issue highlighting key issues related to men and masculinity, I knew this was more than a symbolic gesture—it was a necessary intervention.

In the wake of the 2025 election, with a growing number of young men embracing right-wing populism, we need a pro-feminist vision of masculinity rooted in justice, not grievance. This section brings together voices committed to that vision, offering both critique and possibility.

The first piece from the feature—going live on MsMagazine.com early Friday, July 25—will answer the question we’ve all been pondering: Why is the vice president sitting like that?

Gender-Based Violence Rises in Gaza, Case Workers Tell of Harrowing Conditions: ‘There Aren’t Enough Safe Spaces for Women and Their Children’

“There’s been a sharp increase in survivors seeking help,” said Suhair, who works at a safe space for women and girls in Gaza’s central Deir El-Balah Governorate.  “We’re working under extremely difficult conditions, including repeated incursions. There aren’t enough safe spaces for women and their children,” she told UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency. 

Repeated, forced displacements, movement restrictions and a prolonged lack of fuel and electricity have also made it more difficult to help those most at risk. “We’re providing services over the phone because survivors can’t reach safe spaces,” added Suhair.

Widespread illness, poverty, mass displacement and depleted healthcare and social services are all heightening stress levels within households. These exacerbated conditions have led to rising reports of increased domestic violence, sexual exploitation and abuse. Many are turning to child labor and forced marriages to cope with devastating levels of hunger.

With over 714,000 people—one third of Gaza’s population—forced to move again over the past three months, families are being separated and the local support structures they once relied on have crumbled. Women and girls in particular describe feeling afraid on the street, at aid delivery points and in overcrowded, makeshift shelters that lack privacy, sanitation or basic security measures.

You Must Have Your Baby, But Sorry, You Have No Insurance

Medicaid is a cornerstone of maternal healthcare, providing coverage for nearly two-thirds of women of reproductive age and financing 42 percent of all births in the United States, according to an analysis by KFF. That means almost half of all new parents—disproportionately low-income—depend on it for prenatal care, safe delivery and postpartum support.

Unfortunately, pregnant and postpartum people are at the center of the crisis created by the One Big Beautiful Bill—recently passed by both the House and Senate and signed into law by Donald Trump—which guts Medicaid by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade.

If clinics are shuttered, hospitals are closed and providers are stripped from Medicaid, what happens to people forced to carry pregnancies without care? They will face unmanaged labor, untreated postpartum depression, and dangerous complications alone.

In a nation that mandates childbirth but slashes access to care, the question isn’t whether outcomes will worsen. It’s how many will suffer—and how many won’t survive.

‘No More Shame!’ The Transformative Lesson of Gisèle Pelicot, the French Survivor of Mass Rape

A phone call one autumn morning from local police requesting that Dominique Pelicot, then 67, husband to Gisèle, also 67, report to the local station interrupted their daily routine. A surprised Gisèle listened as her husband told her not to worry: “It won’t be pleasant, but by noon we will be home,” he said. But the next time she saw him was at his trial.

Like many countries, France has a protective privacy act guaranteeing anonymity for crime victims. Gisèle’s lawyers warned what would happen in a public trial—the intense media attention that would surely follow every development in the case, the probable attacks on her testimony in court and possible threats to her life. Undaunted, Gisèle chose to waive her right to anonymity.

“When you’re raped, there is shame, and it’s not for us to have shame,” she told the court. “It’s for them.”

Her insistence that her trial be public surprised both her lawyers and the presiding judge—and transformed Gisèle into a feminist hero and icon.

Women’s Health Needs Are Ever-Changing. It’s Time for Flexible Benefits That Meet Us Where We Are.

With traditional group insurance, employees typically have just a few plans to choose from, none of which are a guaranteed fit. As a result, many women are forced onto a plan that fails to meet their medical needs, leaving them with high costs but still missing the support that matters most.

By switching group insurance to an Individual coverage health reimbursement arrangement (ICHRA), companies can provide the flexible and affordable benefits that meet women where they are. 

One-size-fits-all group insurance, selected by employers, no longer makes sense for female employees with unique and ever-evolving health needs. As employers across sectors embrace this new, flexible approach, more women stand to benefit from customizable coverage.

An Open Letter to Rep. Kat Cammack From a Medical Doctor: It’s Abortion Bans That Make Doctors Afraid to Act, Not ‘the Radical Left’

No woman may escape the cruelty of the nebulous and varying restrictions on reproductive healthcare in the post-Roe world—as Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) discovered in May 2024 when faced with a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy shortly after Florida’s six-week abortion ban took effect. Concerned by the lack of clarity in the wording of the law on the limits of intervention in pregnant patients, doctors reportedly delayed administering intramuscular methotrexate to terminate the pregnancy, out of fear of prosecution.

I’m a doctor. In this chaotic landscape, where reproductive healthcare policy and medical reality appear woefully divorced, my colleagues and I don’t know what misstep could land us in senseless litigation or with felony charges.

Rep. Cammack, your voice and your story have power. I hope you use them to reintroduce nuance and common sense to the discussion on women’s lives. There are many of us who will extend a hand across the aisle and work together with you to right some of the senseless wrongs.