It’s been quite a week. I’m guessing, like me, you saw a connective thread in the headlines: Accountability rarely arrives on its own. It comes because people refuse to stay silent.
Sexual Harassment
A (Brief) History of Women’s Rights, 1600 to Present
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.
From the Halls of Congress to Out on the Trail, Women Beg the Question: Why Not You?
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:
—Rachel Entrekin makes history by setting a new course record at the Cocodona 250 ultramarathon, becoming the first woman to win the race outright.
—Amy Acton could become Ohio’s first woman governor.
—Mother’s Day has always been about women’s political power.
… and more.
A New Playbook for College Athletes: Consent, Intervention and Prevention
June 2026 will mark the 54th anniversary of Title IX, the 1972 federal law barring sex-based discrimination in education, ensuring equal participation in sports and prohibiting sexual violence in educational programs receiving federal funding.
But even though Title IX passed more than half a century ago, and significantly more women now go to college than men, gender-based violence is still rampant among college students. Thirteen percent of U.S. college students experience rape or sexual assault during their time on (or off) campus. For women, that number doubles: 26.4 percent of women (and 6.8 percent of men) undergraduates experience sexual violence. Young women are especially vulnerable, compared to older grad students, and women college students aged 18 to 24 are three times more likely to experience gender-based violence than women in general.
Most colleges and universities have standard anti-sexual violence training during freshman orientation (often just required videos or something students click through online), but this information is often quickly forgotten or not practical enough for students to easily apply to their own lives and interactions. The nonprofit sexual assault prevention organization It’s On Us is seeking to change that with the The Playbook 2.0, a research-based workshop series for college athletes.
The Only Place to Report Police Sexual Violence Is the System That Causes It
Nearly one in five New Yorkers have experienced sexual violence—and a new report finds that 12 percent have also faced sexualized behavior from NYPD officers, ranging from unwanted flirting and requests for phone numbers to catcalling. Across the U.S., police are accused of sexual violence with alarming regularity, yet just over 2 percent of those complaints result in officer discipline.
In New York City, the report finds that officers who perpetrate sexual violence rarely face consequences (less than 1 percent), underscoring that these incidents are not situations of isolated misconduct, but part of a broader pattern of harassment, assault and retaliation.
In highly policed communities, that pattern shapes how people move through the world. Nearly 75 percent of respondents said they go out of their way to avoid interacting with police—changing routes, avoiding certain blocks or staying inside at night.
“They want you to be [scared],” one 22-year-old Black man from Manhattan said. “If you’re not scared of them, then it’s like they’re not doing their job right.”
Others describe a constant state of vigilance: “When you hear a siren, you freeze. … If you see them following you in a car, you slow down and pray they drive past you.”
For survivors, the barriers to accountability are built into the system itself.
“There is this long history of officer impunity,” said Ileana Méndez-Peñate, noting the persistent lack of consequences.
As Priscilla Bustamante put it: “Where can I go? I can’t report police back to police.”
The report argues that meaningful change will require more than internal discipline—calling for independent oversight, reduced reliance on policing, and greater investment in community-based resources.
“This issue really shines a light on the fact that police are not really the answer,” Bustamante said. “They’re part of perpetrating the harm.”
When Power Protects Abuse: Eric Swalwell Accusations Reveal Architecture of Male Entitlement in Congress
When survivors of Jeffrey Epstein stood in the Capitol during the State of the Union earlier this year, we were meant to read it as a sign that this Congress takes the sexual exploitation of women and children seriously. But weeks later, that symbolism rings hollow to anyone who watched Kevin McCarthy appear on television, bluntly telling the world that “every member of Congress” knew about allegations against Eric Swalwell.
Let’s sit with that for a moment. Lawmakers invited Epstein survivors into the chamber, while simultaneously elevating a colleague with his own credibly documented history of violence against young women—one who was until very recently, positioning himself as California’s next governor.
If we cannot connect those two facts, we are not serious about addressing these issues.
Silence Should Never Be the Price of Progress
Dolores Huerta’s revelation lays bare a painful truth too many women already know: Silence is often the price of progress.
For generations, women—especially women of color—have been expected to absorb harm to uphold institutions, movements and powerful men. “La lucha” is always supposed to come first. Huerta was forced to carry that burden alone for decades.
This dynamic is not unique to one movement or one moment. It is embedded in the very structures that shape our society. Women are told, implicitly and explicitly, that speaking out will jeopardize the greater good. That calling attention to harm, even violence, will derail progress. And so many stay quiet, carrying the weight alone, believing their silence is necessary for something bigger than themselves.
I’ve witnessed this reality firsthand, in my own family, in workplaces, and in the stories women share when they finally feel safe enough to speak.
We cannot continue to treat harm as collateral damage in the pursuit of progress. Movements rooted in social justice must also practice it internally. That starts with listening to survivors without judgment, creating environments where speaking out is met with support rather than skepticism, and recognizing that accountability strengthens movements—it does not weaken them.
A future where women are not asked to sacrifice their dignity for progress is not just possible—it is necessary.
Eric Swalwell and the Persistent Problem of Silent Complicity
The Eric Swalwell scandal is an altogether familiar and tired exercise: When allegations surface against a powerful man, the people around him scramble to distance themselves, downplay what they knew, or deny any knowledge at all. And yet, time and again, these cases are described as “open secrets.”
The real question is not just what he did, but what the people around him saw, heard and chose not to act on.
This is where the conversation needs to shift. For decades, sexual assault prevention educators have argued that we need to move beyond the perpetrator-victim binary and focus on the role of bystanders: What could colleagues have done? What kept them from speaking up?
The pressure to be “one of the guys,” to not rock the boat, to protect friendships or careers, remains enormously powerful. If we are serious about preventing abuse, institutions like Congress need to do more than react after the fact. They need to equip people, especially men, with the tools, the permission and the expectation to intervene before harm escalates.
I Want to Be Obsolete. Instead, I’m Afraid to Teach.
I want to be obsolete. I want to walk into a classroom full of students excited to learn feminist histories and begin by marveling at how far we’ve come—how unthinkable it now feels that a president once demeaned women, faced dozens of credible accusations of sexual violence, and still rose to the highest office in the country. I want that version of this story to feel distant, resolved, finished.
Instead, I walk into my gender, women and sexuality studies classes scanning for signs of hostility—wondering who might be recording, who might be there to report me, who might see my teaching not as scholarship but as something to punish.
Teaching about marginalized communities, especially through a feminist, anti-racist lens, now carries real risk: of being surveilled, doxxed, harassed or silenced. Books are banned, curricula are targeted, and the very act of naming systems of power is treated as a threat.
And yet, I keep teaching. I keep showing students that what they are experiencing is not individual failure but the result of structural forces—and that those forces can be challenged. I tell them their voices matter, their rage is justified, and their histories deserve to be known.
I would rather be obsolete. But as long as these attacks persist, our work is far from done.
Abandoned by the Department of Education, Advocacy Organizations Demand Action on Student Sexual Violence
In a powerful rebuke, 112 gender equity and survivor advocacy organizations sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly M. Richey on Feb. 23 condemning the Department of Education for “neglecting to protect students from actual sexual violence while pursuing an ongoing dangerous and unlawful campaign of discriminating against transgender students under the guise of preventing sexual violence.”
The heart of this crisis is the weakening of Title IX enforcement by the Department’s Office for Civil Rights. OCR oversight has been essential in compelling schools to respond appropriately to sexual harassment and assault. Federal enforcement elevates school districts’ Title IX awareness and compliance, reducing barriers to reporting, and motivating schools to adopt preventive action. For the vast majority of students, the federal complaint process has been the only mechanism to seek redress beyond local decision-makers.
“We finally had hope,” said Elizabeth Stewart-Williams, who filed an OCR complaint claiming sex and race discrimination under Title IX and Title VI at her daughter’s Texas high school. “But it wasn’t very long before we learned that the OCR office was closed. It is crushing. It is cruel. The OCR complaint process was our only pathway for help. If the department and its investigative and protective roles are diminished, what remedies do our children truly possess?”