More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Last week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced on social media that he proudly ended the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) program inside the Department of Defense (DOD). He tweeted: “WPS is yet another woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative that overburdens our commanders and troops—distracting from our core task: WAR-FIGHTING.”
This attack on WPS efforts at the DOD undermines the safety and security of America and its troops, at home and abroad.
During President Donald Trump’s first term in office, a particular hell befell nearly 4,000 children who were separated from their families while trying to enter the U.S. at the southern border. At least 1,360 of these children still had not been reunited with their parents as of March 2024.
Now Trump is back in office, ordering increased deportations, and experts expect Trump to throw out any protective measures created by former President Joe Biden. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress have introduced legislation aimed at expanding criminal penalties for undocumented immigrants that may make it easier for Trump to separate families.
(This article originally appears in the Spring 2025 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox.)
With far-right agendas gaining traction, anti-rights movements growing and attacks on women’s rights intensifying, the escalating use of the law as a weapon against women—such as through the criminalization of abortion—serves as a stark call for collective action.
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.
This week: For the first time in recent history, the percentage of top-grossing films featuring female protagonists equaled that of films with male protagonists; the use of antiquated voting systems in Canada and the U.S. is a major barrier to women winning; gearing up for the fourth annual Democracy Solutions Summit, March 4-6; women running for governor and Senate in 2024; Germany elected a new coalition government, and women lost ground in Parliament; growing tensions between Democratic governors and President Donald Trump; 41 state constitutions nationwide use exclusively male pronouns to reference an individual seeking or holding elected office; and more.
Every day of 2024, Ms. writers and editors set out to create content that empowered, informed and infuriated readers. We sought out the truth, sounded alarms, asked tough questions, mourned feminist losses (and feminists we lost), looked to gender justice advocates abroad, and handed the microphone over to experts. Dear reader: As we enter a new year and a new era of the movement, we promise you more of this.
Explore the 30 most popular articles published this year on MsMagazine.com—the articles feminists most clicked, shared, studied, bookmarked and passed out at marches.
Since 1789, only six women have occupied a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States, one of the most crucial institutions for justice in this country; and in the last 237 years, only 60 women have held a seat in the U.S. Senate.
In order to achieve true parity, the United States needs to implement affirmative actions—gender quotas established by law. This will ensure that women are selected, appointed and supported by political platforms. Strategically speaking, these quotas would ensure that women rise to the same level of political opportunities as men.
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.
This week: Feminists from around the world meet in Athens, Greece, to talk women’s representation and gender gaps in the European Union; Mexico inaugurated its first woman president Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum, her Cabinet is half women, and the Supreme Court and Congress are headed by women; Alabama is the only state without any legislators who are mothers of school-age children; MSNBC special titled “Black Women in America: The Road to 2024,” focused on the critical influence of Black women in American politics; and more.
Tuesday’s vice presidential debate brought exchanges over the question of asylum and border security, with Sen. JD Vance lying—without real-time fact-checking—about the ease of obtaining asylum. He offered a baseless assertion that people can be “granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand.”
Winning asylum is extremely difficult, and the horrific conditions forcing women to seek protection from gender-based violence in Central America and Mexico show no signs of abating.
Posing women’s leadership writ large as an open and unanswered question—and questioning the electability of a candidate who has made a career of supporting women’s lives and fundamental rights in an election largely defined by these issues—is nothing short of irresponsible journalism. Women lead politics around the world every single day.
Black women are electable if we elect them.
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.
This week: Concerns of political violence are on the rise after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump; insights from the historic Mexican elections; for the first time, the Olympics will have gender balance, with equal primetime coverage for men’s and women’s events; and more.