Women Workers

Women workers are women engaged in paid labor whose contributions are vital but routinely discounted because of gendered inequities in pay, safety and workplace power.

Denmark’s Generous Childcare and Parental Leave Policies Erase 80 Percent of the ‘Motherhood Penalty’ for Working Moms

PUBLISHED 2/13/2026 by

For many women in the U.S. and around the world, motherhood comes with career costs. Can government programs that provide financial support to parents offset the “motherhood penalty” in earnings? Killewald with Therese Christensen, a Danish sociologist, set out to answer this question for moms in Denmark, a Scandinavian country with one of the world’s strongest safety nets.

In an article to be published in an upcoming issue of European Sociological Review, Christensen and Killewald show how mothers’ increased income from the state, such as from child benefits and paid parental leave, offset about 80 percent of Danish moms’ average earnings losses.

Trump-Era Federal Layoffs Hit Black Women Hardest

PUBLISHED 2/5/2026 by

There is a shift happening in the labor force that favors men in general, and white men in particular. And Black women—who historically have found more job security and upward mobility in federal employment—are now seeing those federal jobs slip away in record numbers.

“What we are seeing happening is a federal government that is intent on creating a DEI boogeyman to radically change how workplaces operate in ways that disadvantage women, people of color and LGBTQ workers,” says Gaylynn Burroughs, vice president for education and workplace justice at the National Women’s Law Center.

One Year In: 53 Ways the Second Trump Administration Is Harming Women and Families

PUBLISHED 1/20/2026 by

A sweeping, year-one rundown of how Trump’s second-term power grabs and policy rollbacks are eroding women’s rights, healthcare and economic security, including—from dismantling the Women’s Bureau at the Department of Labor and shuttering reproductive health clinics, to passing historic cuts to the Medicaid program and sowing mistrust in abortion pill safety.

Social Services Cuts Will Mean More Women Stop Working—and Maybe That’s the Point

PUBLISHED 1/9/2026 by

The current federal administration is very pro-family—they tell us that all the time. One of JD Vance’s first public appearances as vice president was his speech at the antiabortion March for Life rally in January 2025, where he called for more births in the U.S. and framed his agenda as both “pro-life” and “pro-family.” Trump reaffirmed that position in March, where he reiterated that this was a pro-family administration.

But at the start of this year, on Jan. 6, 2026, alleging concerns about fraud in state-run social services programs (even though the only concerns that have been raised—not proven—are in Minnesota), the Trump-Vance administration’s U.S. Department of Health and Human Services suspended three programs that provide support to children—not only in Minnesota, but also in California, Colorado, New York and Illinois. Those states, all led by Democrats, will lose access to billions in funding through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, the Child Care and Development Fund, and the Social Services Block Grant program. To be clear, these funds are the backbone of services-provision for families living in poverty in most communities, Republicans and Democrats alike.

This announcement comes days after the administration moved to eliminate a rule that had capped childcare copayments for low‑income families at 7 percent of their income.

It also comes after last year’s efforts to eliminate support for Head Start, quality and affordable education and other services for young children living in poverty.

All this from the pro-family party.

Disrupting Intimidation: How Texas Hotel Workers Are Shaking Up the Industry 

PUBLISHED 12/27/2025 by

The hotel had become a place where women endured hellish conditions and were expected to stay silent.

They decided to break that silence.

***

More than 70 percent of hotel housekeepers in the United States are women. Their labor is the backbone of an industry that markets comfort but often denies dignity to those who create it. At Sonesta Select Austin North, the women who knew every hallway, every cart and every stain were treated as if they were disposable. What they experienced is a common issue when those doing the hardest work have the least power.

(This essay is part of a collection presented by Ms. and the Groundswell Fund highlighting the work of Groundswell partners advancing inclusive democracy.)

Project 2026 Declares Open War on Women’s Rights

PUBLISHED 12/13/2025 by

When The Heritage Foundation released its new policy blueprint for 2026 this week—an extension of the now-infamous Project 2025—it did so with the calm confidence of an institution convinced no one will stop it. The document is shorter than last year’s 900-page “Mandate for Leadership,” but no less dangerous. It is, in fact, more candid.

Project 2026 lays out a government redesigned to control women’s bodies, erase LGBTQ+ lives, dismantle civil rights protections and roll back decades of hard-won progress. Wrapped in the language of “family,” “sovereignty” and “restoring America,” it is a direct attempt to impose a narrow, rigid ideology on an entire nation.

Make no mistake: This is a plan for forced motherhood, government-policed gender and the end of women’s equality as we know it.

But Project 2026 is not destiny. It is a warning—and one we must answer with the full force of a movement that has never accepted a future written for us by someone else.

They Came for Nurses. What They’re Really Coming for Is Women’s Power—and Your Healthcare

PUBLISHED 12/3/2025 by

In a quiet regulatory maneuver with seismic consequences, the U.S. Department of Education—under the direction of Republican members of Congress—has proposed reclassifying all graduate nursing degrees as “non-professional.” What sounds like an obscure bureaucratic shift is, in reality, a direct attack on the women who make up nearly the entire nursing workforce and who hold together America’s fraying healthcare system.

Are We Ever Off Work, or Just Out of Office? The OOO Messages Exposing America’s Care Crisis

PUBLISHED 11/25/2025 by

A new public awareness campaign, “Out of Office for Care,” launched this week invites employees to set their “OOO” automated email replies to accurately reflect the array of care responsibilities that pull them away from work, and then share those messages publicly.

People across industries—artists, founders, caregivers, cultural influencers, nurses, educators, nonprofit leaders, small business owners and parents—can give the country an unfiltered look at why they step away from work, and what it costs to do so without paid leave.

OOO replies range from clever to catastrophic. Some name the person they are caring for; others reveal the exhaustion of trying to do it all. All together, they show a country exerting caring in every direction and a policy landscape that hasn’t caught up.

Among those making the rounds:
—”I’m OOO because inexplicably school ends at 3 and work ends at 5 at best. … I can’t keep up, I need sleep, I’m getting a cold, everything is expensive and unnecessarily hard, and the holidays are coming.”
—”I’m OOO because my parents are getting older and I can’t manage their RX and 500 unread emails at once. In-home care is $60K and I have limited PTO. WiIl get back to you ASAP!”
—“Hi, sorry to miss you! I’m OOO because I just gave birth, but like 1 in 4 women in the U.S. I’ll be back at work in a couple weeks.”

‘I’m Working Just to Survive’: A Single Mom on SNAP Cuts, Two Jobs and Big Dreams

PUBLISHED 11/13/2025 by

Front & Center amplifies the voices of Black women navigating poverty—highlighting their struggles, resilience and dreams as they care for their families, build careers and challenge systems not built for their success. Now in its fourth year, Front & Center is a collaboration between Ms. and Springboard to Opportunities, a nonprofit based in Jackson, Miss., working alongside residents of federally subsidized housing as they pursue their goals.

Nicole is a single mother working two jobs. She was a part of the first round of Magnolia Mother’s Trust (MMT), where she received one year of guaranteed income. MMT has helped more than 500 mothers since it began in 2018.

“My ideal future is one where we aren’t living paycheck to paycheck—where I can pay all our bills, provide stability, and even take a trip on the weekends for fun, just to enjoy life together. I want more for Kylie and me.”

The Politics of ‘Audit’: How Texas Is Using Bureaucracy to Erase Gender Studies

PUBLISHED 11/11/2025 by , , and | UPDATED 11/14/2025 at 10:27 A.M. PT

Professor Melissa McCoul was dismissed in September after teaching LGBTQ+ themes in her children’s literature course at Texas A&M. Just this week, a faculty council determined McCoul’s firing violated her academic freedom.

But politicians and activists who oppose what they call “woke gender ideology,” are galvanized and doubling down, using this Texas A&M case to push for curricular reviews aimed at eliminating women’s, gender and sexuality studies from public colleges and universities across Texas.

Framed as bureaucratic oversight, conservatives seek to eliminate gender studies and related fields through procedural mechanisms that evade public scrutiny. The assaults on gender studies in Texas are not just a local issue; they are a national bellwether. They signal a coordinated effect to dismantle feminist and queer inquiry and remind us that silence, in the face of repression, is complicity.