Low-income Americans and people of color are fed up with the environmental racism that has been practiced by government at all levels.
Tag: Native Women
Throughout History, Women Have Forged a New Type of Leadership
Women’s History Month is an opportunity to recognize the ways women throughout U.S. have redefined effective leadership.
It is time to embrace the lessons learned from the “silenced but not silent” generation, who forged a new perspective on leadership in which strength is bolstered by vulnerability.
Idaho Seeks to Redefine Assisting a Pregnant Minor to Obtain an Abortion as Human Trafficking
As if teens seeking to terminate a pregnancy in this bleak post-Roe landscape do not have enough obstacles to contend with, particularly in abortion-hostile states, Republican lawmakers in Idaho recently introduced House Bill 98, which would make it a crime to take a teen out of state for an abortion without the consent of a parent or guardian. On Tuesday, the Idaho House voted 57-12 to advance the measure.
The right of teens to obtain an abortion without the knowledge or involvement of their parents has been constitutionally protected—at least until now.
When Women Are Safe, We Will Finally Be Free
Safety is our most fundamental need, but the U.S. denies it to women—especially women of color. Every attack on our safety stands in the way of our freedom. We need to get serious about the problem with serious policy solutions.
Securing safety for women is possible. State legislatures across the country are proposing legislation to ensure that people who have committed violence can’t get access to guns, support families who experience domestic violence, improve investigative processes for missing Indigenous people, and fund mental health crisis services.
(This essay is part of The Majority Rules project—an artful essay and op-ed series from Ms. and Supermajority Education Fund.)
Sundance 2023: Indigenous Drama ‘Fancy Dance’ Explores the Complexities of Family, Care and Community
A Native and queer filmmaker, Erica Tremblay—director of Fancy Dance was eager to make a feature film that deals with real issues facing Indigenous women and families, but also one that focused on the “joy and happiness in Indian Country, which often gets lost in mainstream portrayals of our communities.” Reflecting on obligation, family, parenthood and the responsibilities thrust upon us by love, the film asks viewers to reckon with the complex ways joy and grief intertwine and refuses easy answers to any of its necessary questions, in a way that’s as profound as it is memorable.
Keeping Score: Women’s Grammy Wins (and Losses); NYC Clinics to Provide Free Abortion Pills; Navajo Nation Elects First Woman Speaker
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: The Grammys saw wins (and losses) for women performers and feminist causes; Republicans in Congress call for a nationwide abortion ban; Iowa state rep compares women to cattle; Florida educators reject ban on books in classrooms; NYC city-run clinics to provide free abortion medication; Lisa Marie Presley dies at 54; Biden administration releases plan for renter’s bill of rights; Utah Governor Spencer Cox approves ban on youth gender-affirming care; and more.
Anti-Trans Legislation to ‘Protect Children’ Harms LGBTQIA+ Youth—Both Now and in the Future
Already, 150 bills aimed at LGBTQ youth have been filed or introduced in 25 states, from restrictions on drag performances, to bans on pronouns teachers can use in the classroom, to mandates that schools ‘out’ trans students to their families.
As a multiracial queer mom to a nonbinary Jewish child, these issues are both personal and political.
Reads for the Rest of Us: The Most Anticipated Feminist Books of 2023
I have spent the last few months scouring catalogs and websites, receiving hundreds of books and even more emails from authors, publicists and publishers, reading your book Tweets and DMs, all to find out what books are coming out in 2023 that I think you, my exceptional, inquisitive and discerning Ms readers, will want to hear about.
Here’s your TBR (to be read) for the year. Enjoy!
As the U.S. Looks to Revamp the Farm Bill, Women Must Be at the Table
While the U.S. has created an omnibus Farm Bill for nearly a century, our mothers—especially when Native or women of color—have never had a say in where our government’s farm support money goes. Not until recently.
Now the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry is under the leadership of U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). Her hearings will mark arguments on the horizon we’d all be wise to notice. A whole new generation of younger, female, Indigenous, Black, Latinx and queer farmers are contending with land prices out of reach, and old attitudes that minimize the healthier, more sustainable production they seek.
Landmark Global Biodiversity Agreement Enshrines Rights of Indigenous Peoples—Providing Hope for Bolivia’s Guarani
After more than four years of negotiations, on Dec.19, 2022, nearly 200 nations adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework—a binding agreement to protect at least 30 percent of the world’s biodiversity within 2030. The agreement represents a significant step forward towards rights-based, gender just and socially equitable biodiversity conservation.
There is hope that the agreement will help to return stolen lands to communities and ensure the rights of Indigenous peoples—like the Guaraní of Laguna Chica, Bolivia, located in the Yaku Agüa territory by Bolivia’s southern border with Argentina.