More Than A Magazine, A Movement
The Southern Black Girls & Women’s Consortium has published an open letter in support of rapper Megan Thee Stallion, denouncing violence against women.
“There is no amount of power or prestige that can prevent a woman from becoming a victim of violence and there is no level of achievement that exempts women from our society’s complacency with that violence.”
MIT rarely allows Hollywood films to be shot on their campus. So it was a surprise when an email went out in 2021, alerting students that a film titled Summer Break would be filming at the school. Turns out, this was the working title of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
But something else was special about Wakanda Forever’s filming location. The MIT scenes were shot a stone’s throw from where, a century before, Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins worked at the Institute. Hopkins is credited with inventing the setting that eventually became Wakanda in her science fiction, but her name isn’t widely known.
“She was a powerhouse, an innovator and an intellectual dynamo.”
Anna May Wong earned notoriety in Hollywood as a huge talent in the 1920s and ’30s by singlehandedly challenging the industry to redefine its concept of what constitutes a leading lady. It’s only fitting—and long overdue—that she is now being nationally celebrated as the fifth woman featured in the U.S. Mint’s American Women’s Quarters Program.
Women’s voices spoke loud and clear in the midterm elections, and Outcry photographer Whitney Bradshaw’s ongoing series of monumental color portraits of women crying out, has documented their growing momentum since 2018.
Francesca Gabbiani’s art explodes with color and luminosity, and challenges the viewer with emotions of beauty and terror, with echoes of mythology, ecofeminism and finally, community and excitement.
The Vote for Abortion Rights billboard exhibition features 10 artists and 18 billboards, located in 12 states and 14 cities. Most of the billboards are located where abortion is now illegal or heavily restricted, including Wisconsin, Texas, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, North Carolina and Kentucky.
This summer, artist Jennie Carr launched a series of prints, fueled by the rage and sorrow she felt about the overturning of Roe and the loss of federal abortion rights. Now, her pop art prints are available for purchase. The prints range from $30 to $75, and a large portion of the proceeds will be donated back to Ms. magazine to fuel our feminist reporting, rebelling and truth-telling.
Our focus is on building the leadership capacity and political power of Black people and women. But we are struck by the complementary activism taking place in the arts to underscore this moment in history and to inspire progress.
Broadway’s Tony-nominated POTUS, Natalie Moore’s The Billboard and Molly Smith’s upcoming Arena Stage production, My Body No Choice, remind us to trust women as we collectively work to get our republic back on track.
Over the course of 15 years, Ellen Warner—American photojournalist, portrait photographer and author—interviewed and photographed women from different cultures about life after age 50. These women ranged from an author and translator in Connecticut, to a sacred healer in Indonesia, a doctor in Saudi Arabia, a retired cook in Antigua, and the first French woman TV anchor.
These photos will be on display at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., part of a solo art exhibition titled, “The Second Half: Forty Women Reveal Life After Fifty,” on view from Sept. 30 to Oct. 29, 2022.
Each month, I provide Ms. readers with a list of new books being published by writers from historically excluded groups. It’s already August and the heat is on. And while we are working hard to save the world, we must take time to read, rest and renew.
These 27 books are bound to support you, learn you, trouble you and try you. They may even heal you. So take some time and take care.
