More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Ms. spotlights stories of women making political change by holding office and pioneering legislation all over the world, from the local to the federal level—despite the sex discrimination they often face in their positions.
On Oct. 24, 1975, 90 percent of the women in Iceland refused to go to work, care for their children or cook for their families. Instead, thousands gathered in Reykjavík and villages nationwide to demand gender equality.
Schools closed. Flights were canceled. Businesses shuttered. Factories came to a standstill. Phone service was off.
Men called it “The Long Friday.” Organizers called it Kvennafrídagurinn: Women’s Day Off.
In the 1700s and 1800s in the U.S., women were presumed to be subordinate to men: naturally helpless, emotional, vulnerable.
Reading through the thousands of petitions submitted by revolutionary-era women to the state, one might get the impression that all women accepted their subordinate status to men with humility and grace.
But what if they didn’t? What if their engagement with the discourse of feminine dependence was merely a shrewd tool, effectively deployed to cater to precisely what their readers—white, male elites—wanted to hear? What if the radical act of seeking a divorce in the 18th century contradicted the conservative language they employed?
In most cases, we’ll never be able to deduce these women petitioners’ true feelings on their social and legal status. Many women petitioners in the revolutionary era left no trail for the historian to follow.
What we can know is that the employment of this discourse of dependence, cunningly constructed in a sympathetic narrative neatly packaged for a patriarchal audience, was immensely effective. For the most part, women who engaged with these tropes of feminine subordination saw their petitions granted. Those that did not—including those who rebuked men—largely saw their pleas rejected or ignored.
(This essay is part of the FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists series, marking the 250th anniversary of America by reclaiming the revolution through the women and gender-expansive people whose ideas, labor and resistance shaped U.S. democracy.)
This weekend on Velshi with MS NOW (formerly MSNBC) anchor Ali Velshi, Kathy Spillar—executive editor of Ms. and executive director of the Feminist Majority Foundation (publisher of Ms.)—joined to discuss a sweeping new policy blueprint from the Heritage Foundation that lays out a vision for reshaping American family life and rolling back women’s independence.’
Velshi summarized the underlying logic of the proposal starkly: “You cut off opportunities outside the home. You make the public sphere hostile to women’s independence. You create a system where the only viable path left for women is dependence on a man for survival. In other words, you drag the country back to a time when women had fewer choices.
“Women today have opportunities their grandmothers could only dream of. From the perspective of the new right, that’s the crisis.”
Spillar said the report spells out a broader political strategy. “They are determined to use whatever levers of power they have under the Trump administration—to change tax laws, to provide incentives for women to have more children, to get married younger and to stay married, even in bad relationships,” and added the proposed policies primarily target heterosexual, middle- and upper-income families.
“This is the game plan of an authoritarian regime,” she said. “It’s designed to support an authoritarian government that has control over its women—and therefore over its men as well, making men more compliant because they now have larger families who depend on them economically.”
A March 24 program co-hosted by the Clearinghouse on Women’s Issues and Ms. will explore attacks on reproductive freedom, voting rights and gender equality, as well as strategies for feminist resistance.
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:
—Primary season marks few advances for women.
—Donald Trump’s endorsements were overwhelmingly male, and they mattered.
—LA Charter Commission recommends ranked-choice voting.
—German women oppose online hate speech.
… and more.
As the SAVE America Act heads toward a Senate showdown, Republican leaders are preparing marathon debate sessions that could stretch late into the night. The legislation, backed by Trump, would require Americans to present documentary proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, in order to register to vote in federal elections.
As the political fight intensifies, confusion about what the bill would actually require has spread widely online and across social media. Supporters describe the measure as a simple election-integrity policy, while critics warn it could create sweeping new barriers for millions of eligible voters who do not have ready access to the required documents—including many women whose current legal names may not match the names on their birth certificates after marriage.
To cut through the noise, Ms. has put together this guide to the SAVE America Act, answering common questions about what it would do and how it could affect your right to vote, including: Does a Real ID count? What if I can’t find my passport? And why are Trump and Republicans pushing so hard for this bill?
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:
—The SAVE Act would block women, young people and low-income people from voting.
—Crowded Illinois primaries call for ranked-choice voting.
—The American women’s hockey team wins gold at the Winter Olympics in Milan.
—An election in Denmark could extend women’s leadership
… and more.
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:
—Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Delaware abortion provider Debra Lynch, who operates the organization Her Safe Harbor, for allegedly mailing abortion pills into Texas.
—More than a year after seeking medical help for a miscarriage, Deann and Charles Bennett, a young couple in Booneville, Ky., have been arrested for alleged “reckless homicide.”
—Trump’s Department of Justice used the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, intended to protect abortion clinics from harassment, to prosecute journalist Don Lemon for attending an anti-ICE protest.
—The Trump administration withdrew a Biden-era rule that required pharmacies receiving federal funding to carry and dispense mifepristone, misoprostol and methotrexate.
—Arkansas’ near-total abortion ban is facing its first legal challenge since Dobbs.
—Some good news from Cleveland: The Cleveland City Council passed Tanisha’s Law, creating a Community Crisis Response department to respond to non-violent mental health emergencies with trained, unarmed crisis teams.
—In a landmark victory for survivor accountability, an Arizona jury in Phoenix has ordered Uber to pay $8.5 million to Jaylynn Dean.
—Also in Arizona: Judge Gregory Como struck down several abortion restrictions, ruling them unconstitutional.
… and more.
The following statement was delivered by former Secretary of State and U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton at the start of a closed-door deposition before the House Oversight Committee, as part of its ongoing inquiry into the federal government’s handling of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.
In the statement, Clinton tells lawmakers she had no knowledge of Epstein’s or Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal activities and does not recall ever meeting or speaking with Epstein, flying on his planes or visiting any of his properties. She says she has no new information to provide to the committee.
Her testimony is both a denial of involvement and a broader political and policy argument—one that defends her record on combating human trafficking, criticizes the committee’s approach and calls for wider accountability in Epstein-related investigations and anti-trafficking efforts. Clinton characterizes the subpoena as part of a partisan investigation designed to create “political theater” and distract from what she describes as more relevant lines of inquiry, particularly those involving former President Donald Trump and others named in Epstein-related materials.
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:
—“Kristi Noem sees immigrants like me as subhuman,” says Santiago Mayer, executive director of Voters of Tomorrow.
—A majority of U.S. voters think DHS Secretary Kristi Noem should be removed, and disagree with how ICE is operating.
—Women are 47 percent of athletes at the Winter Olympics in Milan.
—California Gov. Gavin Newsom fired back at threats from Louisiana over abortion protections.
—President Trump appointed no women of color to federal judgeships in his first year in office.
—A new Kansas law introduces a “bounty hunter” aspect to transphobic bathroom bills.
—Some ICE detention facilities and prisons refuse to provide appropriate menstrual products.
—A Kentucky couple was arrested over a year after seeking care for a miscarriage.
—A wave of “common sense” candidates, more than half women, recently won competitive school board races in swing states. Sixty-two percent of “extremist” candidates lost their elections, showing that culture war tactics like book bans may no longer resonate with local voters.
… and more.