Spring 2021

‘Care Is Baked Into a Healthy, Functioning Economy’: Economists Lenore Palladino and Rakeen Mabud on How to Advance Economic Justice

PUBLISHED 8/12/2025 by

The experts and Ms. contributors assessed the state of the U.S. care crisis and women’s economic inequality in the latest episode of the Ms. podcast Looking Back, Moving Forward—and broke down why investing in women and care workers is good policy. 

Rakeen Mabud: “We’re at a really pivotal moment and a really complicated moment. We have conservative, pronatalist voices, with more institutional power than they have ever had, at least in modern times. They are advancing an agenda of deep progressive patriarchy, whiteness—and wealth, frankly, is the third prong of that. And they are co-opting progressive policy ideas to do it.”

Lenore Palladino: “There are schools, and there are childcare centers, and there are hospitals being shut down right now. Investing in those would be a really important way to move this whole conversation forward. … Within economic policy, there’s such bifurcation. There’s tax policy over here. There’s care over here. It’s still a women’s issue.”

“Economics is still seen as a man’s game. Women actually make most financial decisions in households, but men are the ones who are seen as the experts, and our financial system is shaped around their life cycles.”

Listen to the latest episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward, “Women Can’t Afford to Wait for a Feminist Economic Future (with Premilla Nadasen, Rakeen Mabud and Lenore Palladino, Aisha Nyandoro, Gaylynn Burroughs, and Dolores Huerta)” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Meet the Feminist Artists Recreating the Iconic First Ms. Cover—Five Decades Later

PUBLISHED 4/22/2021 by
Meet the Feminist Artists Recreating the Iconic First _em_Ms.__em_ Cover—Five Decades Later 1

In 1972, Miriam Wosk created the iconic first cover of Ms. magazine. Fifty years later, the Spring cover of Ms. pays homage to Wosk’s work.

The idea for the cover recreation was conceived by Ms. art director Brandi Phipps, who commissioned the project to D.C.-based artist Ashley Jaye Williams. Ms. digital editor Roxy Szal spoke to Phipps and Williams to see what it was like to pick up Wosk’s baton five decades later, their hopes for the cover’s impact on viewers, favorite Ms. covers over the years, and more.

Feminists’ Goals of Ratifying ERA and Ending Violence Against Women Are Inextricably Linked

PUBLISHED 4/6/2021 by and

“In Women’s History Month 2021, we celebrated extraordinary legislative victories for women’s rights—and, at the same time, suffered a profound tragedy. … Our message is simple: We will not give up our dream to live in a world without violence and with full equality under the law.”

(This letter from the editors originally appears in the Spring 2021 issue of Ms.)