More Than A Magazine, A Movement
I’ve been a clerk, teacher and administrator in Volusia County, Fla., schools for decades. Our 9-year-old grandson will no longer be educated here.
Last school year, one like no other, I kept a journal because the laws coming down from Tallahassee and the school board meetings I regularly attend had become frightening. I knew the effects in the schools would be equally scary. They were worse than I imagined.
When almost 80 percent of rapes are committed by a perpetrator the victim knows, panicking about strangers lurking in loos is a dangerous diversion. Banning trans women from women’s spaces due to misguided safety concerns is not only nonsensical, it is cruel. I am incensed that the spaces I love are being weaponized to advance bigotry and exclusion.
Protecting women means protecting all of us and our right to freely express who we are.
When Ms. was founded in 1971, the vast majority of publications for women were about homemaking, parenting advice and fashion and beauty tips. Ms. was far from that, created with the intention of giving a national voice to the feminist movement of the ‘70s—and railing against the idea of the perfect homemaking housewife that was perpetuated by many of the other “for women” publications.
It’s a setting that doesn’t seem too foreign. “The levers of power are very imbalanced still to this very day, not only on sex but also race and ethnicity,” said Kathy Spillar, Ms executive editor. “Ms. has played a major role in constantly putting that in front of the public so that people understand.”
(This essay is part of the “Feminist Journalism is Essential to Democracy” project—Ms. magazine’s latest installment of Women & Democracy, presented in partnership with the International Women’s Media Foundation.)
Lawmakers are barring the education of, or exposure to, an understanding of the purposes and catalysts for the civil rights movement and the lasting impacts of white supremacy and white superiority by insisting on revisionist history and outright elimination of teaching facts in schools.
As Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson reminded us on the anniversary of the Birmingham bombing, “The uncomfortable lessons are often the ones that teach us the most about ourselves.”
On Monday, Ms. Studios is dropping a brand-new podcast: Torn Apart: Abolishing Family Policing and Reimagining Child Welfare, hosted by Dorothy Roberts, which investigates how the U.S. child welfare system destroys Black families.
Over four episodes, Professor Roberts brings listeners front and center with the oppressive child protection system and what we need to do to reimagine child welfare.
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.
This week: Four steps we must take to see more women running in future elections; St. Paul, Minn., which uses ranked-choice voting for local elections, is projected to elect its first women-majority city council; how Shirley Chisholm, the first Black congresswoman in the U.S., shifted political rival Alabama Governor George Wallace’s stance on racial segregation; and more.
Diversity, equity and inclusion efforts have become a lightning rod for debate in American higher education. At Rice University—a private university in Houston, Texas—officials admit impact is hard to measure, but they also see progress from their work.
(Ms. Classroom wants to hear from educators and students being impacted by legislation attacking public education, higher education, gender, race and sexuality studies, activism and social justice in education, and diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Submit pitches and/or op-eds and reflections to Ms. contributing editor Aviva Dove-Viebahn at adove-viebahn@msmagazine.com.)
The issue of book banning has resurfaced with renewed vigor. We must resist attempts to suppress books written by Black authors and diverse voices. Ms. spoke with Tiffany D. Jackson, Kimberly L. Jones, Jason Mott and Nicola Yoon—national award-winning authors—about the impact of book banning on both authors and society.
“Banning books will not make racial complexities and the world’s complexities disappear; instead, it erodes compassion and understanding.”
“Books nurture empathy in kids who are reading about people who don’t look like them. They build understanding.”
Awareness of the U.S. maternal health crisis has increased—but a parallel crisis of human rights violations against pregnant and postpartum people remains invisible or misunderstood. By convening two People’s Tribunals to End Obstetric Violence and Obstetric Racism before the end of the year, we aim to change that. The first will happen on Oct. 6 in New York City at the NYU Law School, and the second on Dec. 1 in Memphis, at BRIDGES USA.
We cannot fix the maternal mortality problem without fixing the human rights problem at its core.
Each month, we provide Ms. readers with a list of new books being published by writers from historically excluded groups.
Many of this month’s list of recommended new books seem to align with the theme of liberation. I hope you’ll find something here that gets you thinking about liberation and, more importantly, inspires you to work towards liberation for all.
