Native Women

The Perfect Victim Is a Dead Woman

PUBLISHED 9/17/2026 by

This is a story about choices that are not really choices. It is a story about impossible circumstances propelling us down pathways we believe unimaginable. You always believe it could never happen to you, until it does.

“Our last encounter was him trying to choke me, and me stabbing him.” Naomi sighs and leans against the passenger seat of my car, ending the story of the night she killed her abuser.

A grand jury indicted her for second-degree murder. A year later, she pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter. Initially facing five to 25 years in prison, her sentence was reduced under New York state’s Domestic Violence Survivor Justice Act to three years’ incarceration, with five years of post-release supervision. Even the District Attorney’s office acknowledged Naomi was a victim of domestic violence, which “was a significant contributing factor” to her behavior.

When the options available to her were kill or be killed, why was she even indicted?

We live in a world that punishes survivors and creates more victims with generous latitude inexplicably afforded to men who have proven themselves dangerous to society. It seems that the only perfect victim is a dead one, a woman who can’t talk back.

The Most Popular Supreme Court Justices Are Women

PUBLISHED 7/10/2026 by

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation in politics, on boards, in sports and entertainment, in judicial offices and in the private sector in the U.S. and around the world—with a little gardening and goodwill mixed in for refreshment!

This week:
—Knowing that whoever is nominated will face intense scrutiny for potential sexual misconduct, a woman could be Maine Democrats’ safest choice.
—”It’s worth remembering that in moments of past darkness we have triumphed not by moderating our opinions or softening our asks, but by dreaming big and daring boldly,” writes Janai Nelson.
—The justices who have most visibly pushed back on executive overreach, including on birthright citizenship and Trump’s tariffs, happen to be the three women on the liberal wing. And they are also, by a significant margin, the most popular justices in the country.

… and more.

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. 

Keeping Score: Threats Against Abortion Clinics Doubled in 2025; Sounding the Alarm on ‘Horrible Conditions’ of Delaney Immigration Center; Pride Celebrations Around the U.S.

PUBLISHED 6/10/2026 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:
—”Trump only seems to have the capability to fire female secretaries,” observes AOC.
—Two-thirds of abortion clinics reported violence or harassment in 2025.
—The TAKE IT DOWN Act (Tools to Address Known Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on Websites and Networks Act) took effect last month. It requires social media sites to take down non-consensual sexual imagery within 48 hours.
—Members of Congress visited the Delaney Hall Immigration Detention Center after detainees started a hunger strike to protest inhumane conditions.
—The Trump administration announced an investigation into E. Jean Carroll, who Trump sexually abused and defamed.
—Harvey Weinstein’s New York rape trial resulted in another mistrial.
—A North Carolina bill would allow deadly force against patients seeking abortion care.
—Healthcare premiums have skyrocketed, forcing 21 percent of HealthCare.gov enrollees to lose coverage.
—Women freelancers charge an average of 19 percent less per hour than men.
—Americans are struggling to access disability benefits after cuts to the Social Security Administration.
—Social media platforms are enabling anti-LGBTQ hate and censorship.
—Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) reintroduced the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act to ban the death penalty at the federal level. Last month, the DOJ announced they would bring back firing squads and potentially electrocution and lethal gas for executions.
—A comprehensive calendar shows all the Pride parades this month, across the country and globe.

… and more.

A (Brief) History of Women’s Rights, 1600 to Present

PUBLISHED 6/3/2026 by and

From the Haudenosaunee women who successfully challenged warfare in the 17th century, to today’s feminist organizers defending democracy, reproductive freedom and civil rights, the struggle for women’s equality has never been a straight line. It is a story of persistence, resistance and collective action spanning centuries.

Compiled by editors at Ms. and researchers from the National Women’s History Alliance, this women’s history timeline traces the interconnected histories of feminism, abolition, labor organizing, civil rights, reproductive justice, LGBTQ+ liberation and democratic participation.

No timeline can fully capture more than 400 years of feminist history, let alone every movement, leader, victory and setback that has shaped the ongoing fight for equality. Rather than offering a comprehensive account, this chronology highlights pivotal moments and turning points that help tell the story of how women have expanded the boundaries of freedom, democracy and human rights in the United States and beyond.

The timeline is part of Ms. magazine’s FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists project, a multimedia essay series marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by examining the women and feminist movements that have worked to make the nation’s founding promises more fully realized. Through reported features, essays, interviews and historical analysis, FEMINIST 250 explores not only where we have been, but where we must go next to achieve true equality.

FEMINIST 250’s Parts 2 and 3—Feminist Lessons and Feminist Futures—drop this month on MsMagazine.com.

States Already Enacting Harmful SAVE Act Policies, Requiring Proof of Citizenship to Vote

PUBLISHED 5/20/2026 by and

Congressional Republicans are once again prioritizing the SAVE Act, legislation that would force Americans to show documents like a passport or birth certificate to register to vote. The House has already passed yet another version of the bill, but so far it has stalled in the Senate.

If the SAVE Act becomes law, it would block millions of eligible American citizens from voting.

As the Senate considers the SAVE Act, state legislatures are advancing similar “show-your-papers” policies. Florida, South Dakota and Utah have enacted similar laws in recent weeks. Other states that already have similar laws have experienced the difficulties of implementing them.

Including Arizona, which has had a proof-of-citizenship requirement for over 20 years, five states will have a show-your-papers requirement for all voters for the 2026 midterms: Arizona, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. A sixth state, Louisiana, has one on the books that it has not yet implemented.

That’s a lot of strain on the election system to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. The U.S. Senate would be wise not to inflict those obstacles on every election official nationwide.

‘This Is Our Country Too!’: The Enduring Legacy of Spanish-Speaking Women in Early America

PUBLISHED 3/9/2026 by and

Centuries before the American Revolution, Spanish-speaking women crossed oceans and deserts to build communities whose legacies still shape the United States.

As anti-Latino sentiment coincides with the 250th anniversary of the United States, we must remember that long before the American Revolution, Spanish-speaking women inhabited territory that would become the United States. 

Like their English Protestant counterparts in New England, Spanish-speaking women were founding mothers of our nation. Their legacies live on through their descendants and the many other Latinas who immigrated to the U.S. over the past 250 years. Faced with the widespread detention of Spanish-speaking women, it is crucial to remember that it has long been their country too.  

(This essay is part of the FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists series, marking the 250th anniversary of America by reclaiming the revolution through the women and gender-expansive people whose ideas, labor and resistance shaped U.S. democracy.)

Haudenosaunee Governance: The Matrilineal Democracy That Shaped America

PUBLISHED 3/5/2026 by

I am a member of the Oneida Nation Wolf Clan of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, whose governance model influenced modern democracy and the women’s rights movement. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is recognized as the oldest continuous, participatory democracy in the world.

Our representative form of government, organized on local, state, national and international levels, flows organically from our Creation Story, which begins with Sky Woman, pregnant, falling from Sky World. She descends toward an endless water world, where water animals already reside and help form the first land, known as Turtle Island. Through their efforts, the living world we inhabit today was brought forth.

Haudenosaunee women inherently hold political, economic and spiritual authority—a significant difference from colonial patriarchy.

When the U.S. founding fathers drafted their Constitution, drawing inspiration from Haudenosaunee governance, they committed a catastrophic omission: matrilineal leadership. As the U.S. commemorates the 250th anniversary of its founding documents amid political, social and ecological upheaval, the country has a unique opportunity to revisit the original influences of American democracy.

(This essay is part of the FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists series, marking the 250th anniversary of America by reclaiming the revolution through the women and gender-expansive people whose ideas, labor and resistance shaped U.S. democracy.)

America’s Founding Feminists: Rewriting America’s Origin Story

PUBLISHED 3/2/2026 by | UPDATED 5/1/2026 at 7:59 A.M. PT

Two hundred and fifty years ago, a small group of men declared that “all men are created equal,” casting a vision of liberty that has shaped the American imagination ever since.

Yet even as they debated freedom in Philadelphia, women were writing, organizing, governing, resisting and insisting on their place within the nation taking form. Some, like Mary Katherine Goddard, literally set their names in print; others, like Phillis Wheatley, wrote themselves into intellectual existence against a backdrop of enslavement and doubt. Still others left their mark through acts of refusal and flight, choosing freedom when the republic would not grant it.

A new series, Founding Feminists—launching at the start of Women’s History Month—unfolds over two months, twice a week. On this semiquincentennial of the United States, Ms. turns to these “founding feminists” not as anachronistic heroines, but as architects of an unfinished democratic project. There is no nation without women at its core—no democracy without their labor, intellect, resistance and imagination.

From Haudenosaunee matrilineal governance, to Black women’s freedom-seeking acts, from revolutionary manifestos to quiet domestic rebellions, our Founding Feminists series reexamines the past to illuminate our present moment of backlash and possibility.

If the Declaration of Independence set forth a promise of equality, it was women—across race, class, sexuality and nationality—who pressed the nation to live up to it.

Two hundred and fifty years later, their questions remain ours: What does freedom truly mean, and who gets to claim it?

There Is Power in the Word ‘Patriarchy.’ We Need to Start Using It.

PUBLISHED 3/1/2026 by

News commentators still overlook the obvious when they speculate about why the majority of white female voters in the last three presidential elections cast their ballots for a dishonest, fraudulent, racist, misogynistic sexual predator or why people who call themselves Christians support someone who embodies in virtually every way the opposite of “what would Jesus do?”

I’m tired of snapping at the talking heads on the TV or computer screen, “Come on, say the P word! It’s the patriarchy, stupid!”

We can trace harmful sex binaries, reproductive control and white Christian nationalism back to the same root system: patriarchy. Naming it is the first step toward dismantling its power.