Women in Media

America Needs Bethenny Frankel’s Divorce Podcast

“Finally.” That’s what Emma thought when she heard Bethenny Frankel spill the beans about her epic split on her new Just B Divorced podcast. Finally, someone was validating what millions of women go through silently behind divorce court doors. The Real Housewives of New York alum has millions of fans and a multi-million dollar business empire. In the show’s first two episodes, Frankel took listeners behind the scenes of the “torture” she endured during a 10-year divorce for a two-year marriage.

But following her mother’s death, Frankel announced that she was putting the new pod on hold and the episodes disappeared.

The Power of the Pen to Change the World

It’s a sunny day in Mikocheni, Tanzania. Sia Fred Towo clutches a bag of reusable sanitary pads in one hand, showcasing it to a group of women in a dusty yard with a look of seriousness and pride that rarely accompanies menstrual products. Towo is the director of Femme International, a nonprofit in East Africa, on a mission to break down global menstrual taboos. Towo is not only bringing period products to remote villages in Tanzania, she is bravely baring her own painful experiences in a borderless and ageless format: the op-ed.

Towo is one of six grassroots change leaders who are turning to the power of the pen to expose injustices and inspire change on a broad array of urgent issues—from climate change to education access. She joins courageous women from Afghanistan, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan and Peru who are writing op-eds about their personal experiences with these issues.

Rape Threats, Misogynist Slurs, Sexual Harassment and Doxing: How Online Abuse Is Used to Intimidate, Discredit and Silence

and

Eighty-five percent of women globally have witnessed online harassment and nearly 40 percent have experienced it directly.

Online abuse is made to feel targeted, personal, individual and organic—when in fact it’s often systemic, strategic and coordinated. Online abuse is one part of a broader spectrum of attacks—digital, physical, legal and psychological—intended to push women and nonbinary individuals offline, out of public discourse and out of their fields of expertise. Regardless of where they live and what they do, the goal is universal: to stop them from doing their jobs and shut them up.

(This article originally appears in the Winter 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)

Keeping Score: Voting Rights Act Weakened; Fighting Back Against Abortion Bans; Remembering Rosalynn Carter

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: Federal judge weakens the Voting Rights Act; Congress fails to fully fund WIC; Attorney General Merrick Garland defends women traveling to receive abortion care; Jill Biden launches an Initiative of Women’s Health Research; American women are living six years longer than men.

Creating Careers Based on Uplifting Women’s Voices

Both Elisa Lees Muñoz and Cindi Leive have built their decades-long careers creating and uplifting reporting by and for women. In this back-and-forth conversation, the two journalists discuss the risks women in the news face, the importance of women-centered and feminist reporting, and how we can best protect press freedom.

(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.)

The Missing Perspectives of Women in the News

“The Missing Perspectives of Women in News” report finds that women’s representation in the news has flatlined—if not reversed—in the 21st century. This alarming marginalization is clear in all areas of the news media: Women are underrepresented in newsroom leadership, gender equality stories are going untold, and men remain the vast majority of quoted experts and sources.

(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.)

Women’s Voices Are Essential to Global Democracy. We Need Your Help Saving Them.

Journalists face attacks on every beat, at every level of their careers, online and off. Government authorities, criminal groups and even the public target journalists with one common goal: to silence their voices.

And it works. A third of women journalists the IWMF surveyed in 2018 said they’d considered leaving the profession due to online attacks and threats. When women and nonbinary journalists’ reporting gets squashed or they exit the field, the public loses out. The access, nuance and perspective these journalists bring to the table is vital to a more diverse, free press—without their stories, democracy suffers.

(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.)

Israel-Gaza War: Threats and Attacks Against Women Journalists Covering the Conflict

Since the start of the Israel-Gaza War, a chilling tally of at least 128 journalists have been confirmed dead, with others either missing, detained or grievously injured. The Coalition For Women In Journalism is closely monitoring the situation on the frontlines and documenting violations against women journalists covering the conflict.

In the face of the growing threats and attacks against women journalists covering the war, it is imperative that we unite and take a stand for press freedom.

(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.)

Feminist Media Is Needed to Save Democracy

Despite the slew of Jezebel-inspired clickbait headlines (“End of an Era!”), feminist media is hardly dead. Far from it. Among the extraordinary and thriving nonprofit and membership-driven newsrooms, hubs and websites with which Ms. is proud to share this mantel:  The International Women’s Media Foundation, “Abortion, Every Day,” Rewire News Group, The 19th* and Women’s Media Center.

It is imperative that feminist media be understood as more than merely a hub for like-minded women. Its role is far more existential: It is where you will find the voices best able to call out and counter the rise in anti-democratic impulses and action that is growing all around us.

(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.)

The Ms. Q&A With CNN Anchor Fredricka Whitfield: ‘My Work Honors the People on Whose Shoulders I Stand’

CNN Newsroom anchor Fredricka Whitfield has a lot to be proud of. As the 2023 Women’s Media Center’s Pat Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Whitfield’s three-plus decades as a radio and television journalist have included stints across the country, where she has covered both domestic and international issues.

Eleanor J. Bader sat down with Whitfield to learn more about her incredible story.

“My work honors the people on whose shoulders I stand. I know that I have not had it as difficult as my parents or predecessors. They had to endure so much to create the path I walk. I refuse to be deterred. I’m mindful that even on my toughest days I have it better than the people who came before me.”