Sexual Assault

After Decades of Institutional Silence, Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse Deserve More Than the Catholic Church’s PR

PUBLISHED 1/27/2026 by

When the archdiocese of New York announced plans to raise at least $300 million toward a potential global settlement with childhood sexual abuse survivors, headlines framed it as progress. For those living with the trauma, it landed as a mix of relief, anger, exhaustion and deep skepticism shaped by decades of abuse of power, institutional denial and calculated delay. 

The story isn’t the dollar amount; it’s the decades survivors have waited for justice. They had to fight just to be heard by the very institution that failed to protect them and now must watch that same institution frame overdue negotiations as moral penance. 

Any willingness by the church to engage in meaningful talks is better than silence, but this moment should not be mistaken for accountability. It signals the start of a process survivors should never have had to force through legislation, litigation and relentless public pressure. 

I Grew Up Wanting to Be Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I’m Coming of Age Under Trump.

PUBLISHED 1/19/2026 by

As a 17-year-old, marking one full year since Donald Trump’s inauguration, I have now spent half my life under his administration. I am growing into adulthood in a world where I may have to travel across state lines for an abortion; where I’ll be penalized more for my gender than men are penalized for their misconduct; where the very leaders meant to protect my rights are actively stripping them away. 

Hockey’s Cultural Renaissance Can’t Ignore Domestic Violence

PUBLISHED 1/13/2026 by and

HBO’s recent juggernaut, Heated Rivalry, has blasted to the front of seemingly everyone’s consciousness over the last few months. While the press tour of the two lead actors promoting the show is, in a word, delightful, the attention being paid to fictional hockey players’ relationships off-the-ice is, unfortunately, a stark reminder of the reality of the state of gender-based violence in the sport.

Countless players for the National Hockey League (NHL), as well as the junior and minor leagues, have been accused of domestic and sexual violence. Yet many of those same players are retained on lucrative professional and semiprofessional contracts, and some have been able to keep playing even while under investigation for criminal sexual and domestic assault.

The NHL remains the only of the four major professional sports leagues (which also includes the NFL, NBA and MLB) that lacks a formal and specific domestic violence policy when players are accused of sexual or domestic violence.

She Was an Antiabortion Poster Child. Now She’s a Reproductive Freedom Activist.

PUBLISHED 12/10/2025 by and

At the age of 15, Charlotte Isenberg took to social media to process complicated feelings about a miscarriage after alleged sexual abuse. That was what first brought her to the attention of antiabortion groups.

“Almost immediately, anti-abortion actors threaded a narrative for me between my grief, my miscarriage and anti-abortion sentiment. I clung to it with desperation,” Isenberg wrote.

Feeling isolated from peers due to both her traumatic experiences and the COVID-19 pandemic, Isenberg found a sense of belonging in these online spaces.

But in May 2024, at age 20, Isenberg says her birth control failed, and she became pregnant for the second time. The timing was devastating: She was unemployed, without stable housing or transportation, and preparing to relocate for college—the first in her family to access higher education. 

When she couldn’t find adequate support for her unplanned pregnancy, Isenberg scheduled an appointment at her local Planned Parenthood for an abortion consultation, unsure of what she would ultimately decide. Another prominent antiabortion activist, one of Isenberg’s best friends in the movement, found out about her appointment; she and other members of the group intervened aggressively.

Despite this pressure, Isenberg was able to make the decision that was best for her and her body. Since her own abortion, she’s become a reproductive freedom activist, educating others about extremist antiabortion tactics and promoting systemic protections for people navigating reproductive healthcare. 

Misogyny, Racism, Power: Connecting the Dots in the Violent Far Right

PUBLISHED 12/6/2025 by | UPDATED 1/23/2026 at 10:47 A.M. PT

In Part 2 of the Q&A between Jackson Katz and Cynthia Miller-Idriss, the author of Man Up discusses the link of misogynists and mass shooters: “The fact that so many domestically violent extremist attacks have both gendered and racialized dimensions shows that racism and misogyny are inseparable in the minds of many perpetrators.”

Miller-Idriss explains the key role online gaming and chat spaces play within the radicalization of young men and boys.

Misogyny is no doubt threaded through nearly ever mass shooting, and feminists are used as a scapegoat for taking away men’s opportunities.

‘This Is the Blind Spot in Extremism Research’: Cynthia Miller-Idriss on Misogyny, Gender and Violence

PUBLISHED 12/5/2025 by | UPDATED 1/23/2026 at 10:45 A.M. PT

Cynthia Miller-Idriss, director of the Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL) at American University, makes the connection between gender policing, misogyny and far-right extremist violence, which for many years was not a connection scholars were willing to make.

Jackson Katz and Miller-Idriss discuss her book, Man Up, on misogyny, gendered violence, the MAGA movement and far-right extremism. Miller-Idriss says political violence coming from the far-right includes gender policing and exploitation.

“These aren’t just opportunistic elements of extremism—they are deliberate, organized and large-scale forms of gendered violence aimed at increasing pain and humiliation of victims, witnesses and family members. … I’m still blown away by how few people will acknowledge the connection.”

Sex, Power and Impunity: Epstein’s Legacy in Historical Perspective

PUBLISHED 12/3/2025 by

The scandal that has preoccupied much of mainstream U.S. politics has, been, at one level, delightful: We have seen extremist Republicans—Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Thomas Massie and Nancy Mace—break with their party and its president in an effort to force into light the U.S. Department of Justice files on convicted sex trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 

The story is almost irresistible for critics of the current national administration, feminists among them: Will we finally get to items from Epstein like the CD labeled “girl pics nude book 4”? What might these materials reveal? And whose misbehavior might they reveal?  

Fire the starting gun on analyses from every liberal, left, critical corner. Claims abound of shifting coalitions, changing tides, pages turned, a president’s authority shredded. 

But there are still as many questions stirring in the Epstein pot as there are answers. Why did these particular Republicans break from the pack? Is this a contemporary Republican version of feminism? 

And beneath them all: What good does it actually do us—or Epstein’s particular victims, or the scads of other victims of sexual coercion, trafficking and other mistreatment—to raise the heat so high on this particular scandal?

War on Women Report: Antiabortion Extremist Charged in S.C. Shooting; Army OB-GYN Accused of Abusing Over 85 Women Patients

PUBLISHED 12/1/2025 by and | UPDATED 12/4/2025 at 9:06 A.M. PT

MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide—the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.” We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—North Dakota’s Supreme Court reinstated a total abortion ban, making it the 13th state with a near-total ban on abortion.
—Trump ordered Catherine Lucey, a woman reporter for Bloomberg, to be “quiet, piggy.”
—The U.S. moved to categorize countries with state-sponsored abortion and DEI policies as violators of human rights.
—Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has sued Planned Parenthood over allegedly “misrepresenting the safety” of abortion pills.
—On Thursday, Dec. 4, an unprecedented law banning doctors from shipping abortion pills takes effect in Texas.
—”The country’s most respected newspaper hosted a conversation about whether women’s equality and freedom was a mistake.”
—Doctor Maj. Blaine McGraw, an OB-GYN at Fort Hood military base in Texas, the third-largest base in the country, is under investigation for sexual abuse against patients. As of Monday, 85 victims have come forward.
—With Jeffrey Epstein survivors watching from the gallery above, the House agreed in a near-unanimous vote to force the release of all files related to the investigation of the convicted sex offender.

… and more.

What Boys Learn When Powerful Men Face No Consequences

PUBLISHED 11/21/2025 by

For decades, Donald Trump has modeled a version of masculinity rooted in entitlement, impunity and the casual degradation of women—and he has done so from one of the most visible platforms on Earth. That visibility matters. When the most powerful man in the country repeatedly evades consequences for misogynous acts, it sends a potent cultural message to boys and young men about what manhood looks like and what women’s lives are worth.

This is why the stakes of the Epstein files extend far beyond Trump’s personal exposure. His ability—or inability—to finally face accountability is inseparable from the broader crisis of male socialization and the normalization of men’s violence against women.

At the same time, focusing solely on Trump risks missing the larger system that made Jeffrey Epstein’s predation possible. As feminists have long argued, these abuses were not aberrations but expressions of a patriarchal network that exploited girls and women with impunity. The Epstein saga is not simply a story of individual bad actors; it is an indictment of the cultural, financial and political institutions that protected them. Whether the public and political leaders confront that reality—or once again look away—will reveal as much about our collective values as it does about the men at the center of this scandal.