Young Women and Girls

Teaching Sex to Empower, Not to Control: Sex Ed in Sweden vs. South Carolina

PUBLISHED 7/25/2025 by and

Sweden was the first country to mandate sex education in 1955 and now has a national sex ed curriculum integrated through all course subjects. Swedes divorce sex ed from discussions about religious morality. Their curriculum instead encourages students to ask questions and critically examine gender and sex norms, while teachers instruct students with medically accurate information. 

Swedes were shocked to learn that in our local South Carolina school district, sex ed teachers use a memorable acronym (H.A.M.) to remember what their districts won’t allow them to discuss with students. “H.A.M.” stands for homosexuality, abortion and masturbation—three topics which are forbidden. If students ask about these subjects, teachers are told to redirect their questions. 

Thank You, Cassie Ventura. Your Voice Broke the Silence for Millions of Survivors.

PUBLISHED 7/23/2025 by

Dear Cassie Ventura,

Millions who do not have the celebrity, resources or platform to speak out are exceptionally grateful for your voice, and the voice of all the courageous women who literally take the stand. 

The millions of women who have experienced rape and sexual assault are grateful at a time when resources for them are in danger of elimination.

Trump’s History of Misogyny Was Obvious Long Before the Epstein Files Scandal

PUBLISHED 7/23/2025 by

The Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files has rattled his MAGA base unlike any other issue, and caused the president a major political headache. It remains to be seen whether he or the Republican Party he leads will suffer any lasting damage.

But for the many millions of Americans who are not fans of the current president, one of the truly astounding features of this scandal is how long he has been able to evade meaningful accountability for his history of misogyny—as well as serious scrutiny of his long friendship with the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Trump’s close association with the disgraced pedophile has been a matter of public record for more than two decades.

What’s even more tragic is that despite all of this, Trump has managed to get elected president of the United States not once, but twice. He has then used the awesome power of the presidency to roll back feminist gains in a number of different ways. His administration’s regressive agenda has included, during the early months of his second term, a dramatic reversal of progress in federal support for sexual assault prevention initiatives.

Where There’s Fire, There Are Women Carrying Water

PUBLISHED 7/19/2025 by

The girl I was in Kolkata would not recognize the woman I am today.

I was a girl who noticed everything: the way women’s voices dropped around men, too hot to argue; the way dupattas were carefully wrapped to conceal bare shoulders; the way hair was yanked into tight buns to spare the neck from sweat.

There was heat in the body too, a restlessness, an impatience, a dawning awareness of what it meant to grow into a girl in a world already lined with expectations. Summers were when I first learned to shrink myself.

Decades later, I find myself in a different kind of heat. Not from the sun, but from the headlines: the rage, the lies, the erasure. This is the heat of 2025: Trumpism returned, democracy under siege, rights dismantled. Roe is gone. Truth is a moving target. Rage simmers, thick enough to choke on.

In these moments, I return to those childhood summers. Not just for the discomfort, but for the clarity. Because in heat, everything sharpens. You see what survives. You see what wilts. And you learn how to move through the world without losing your shape.

An Open Letter to Rep. Kat Cammack From a Medical Doctor: It’s Abortion Bans That Make Doctors Afraid to Act, Not ‘the Radical Left’

PUBLISHED 7/10/2025 by | UPDATED 8/5/2025 at 11:19 A.M. PT

No woman may escape the cruelty of the nebulous and varying restrictions on reproductive healthcare in the post-Roe world—as Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) discovered in May 2024 when faced with a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy shortly after Florida’s six-week abortion ban took effect. Concerned by the lack of clarity in the wording of the law on the limits of intervention in pregnant patients, doctors reportedly delayed administering intramuscular methotrexate to terminate the pregnancy, out of fear of prosecution.

I’m a doctor. In this chaotic landscape, where reproductive healthcare policy and medical reality appear woefully divorced, my colleagues and I don’t know what misstep could land us in senseless litigation or with felony charges.

Rep. Cammack, your voice and your story have power. I hope you use them to reintroduce nuance and common sense to the discussion on women’s lives. There are many of us who will extend a hand across the aisle and work together with you to right some of the senseless wrongs. 

Inside Liberty University’s Secret Maternity Home

PUBLISHED 7/10/2025 by

Imagine you’re a pregnant teenager in 1972. Abortion isn’t an option, and you’re not ready to get married… so you might turn to a maternity home for unwed mothers. You’ll live there until the baby is born, then give it up for adoption to redeem yourself from the so-called sin of premarital sex.

On June 23, podcast studio Wondery released the new series Liberty Lost, which investigates the well-kept secret of Liberty University’s Godparent Home, which opened in the 1980s and is still operating today. In the podcast, reproductive rights journalist T. J. Raphael explores the history of the maternity home on the campus of Liberty University, a private evangelical college in Lynchburg, Va. There, staff members coerce young girls into surrendering their babies for adoption by affluent Christian parents in exchange for a full-ride scholarship at Liberty. 

“Maternity homes are on the rise,” Raphael told me. “There might be one near where you live, and maternity homes play a larger role within the wider antiabortion movement.”

The Myth of ‘Choice’ in Global South Sex Trafficking Discourse

PUBLISHED 7/8/2025 by

“Sex work is work,” is an oft-repeated refrain.  But who is behind the megaphone? And who is paying the price? 

For most women and girls, especially from the Global South (and poor, racialized and displaced women everywhere), the notion that prostitution is freely chosen collapses under scrutiny. More often than not, entering the sex trade is not a choice, but an act of survival under patriarchal and capitalist constraints.

So, who is sex work legalization really for? And what would it mean, for all women, if buying sex were not legal, not normalized, but abolished?

The Problem With Sabrina Carpenter’s Album Cover Is Not Sex—It’s Violence 

PUBLISHED 7/3/2025 by

The real discomfort with Carpenter’s controversial cover isn’t about sexual provocation. It’s about normalizing images of violence against women.

Policing women’s sexual choices should never be the goal of this discourse. Our personal sex lives are rich with context, and I hope that most people who enthusiastically interact with violent sexual acts, such as choking or hair-pulling, have felt comfortable enough with their partner to talk them through and have a truly consensual experience.

But we can monitor the way we speak about sex—especially expressions that lack that personal context, like album covers—and our tendencies as feminists to defend them in any light, no matter how troubling, for fear of restricting women as opposed to liberating them. 

We do not need to be OK with violence. Each of us has the personal autonomy to consider it, be conscious of it, oppose it, or even play with it. But when we look at an image of a woman having her hair pulled like the leash of a dog, it is only human—and important—that we feel uncomfortable.

Governors in 12 Republican-Led States Reject Federal Funding for Summer Lunches

PUBLISHED 7/1/2025 by | UPDATED 7/3/2025 at 10:17 A.M. PT

Twelve states, all led by Republican governors, opted out of the federal SUN Bucks program this summer, which launched in 2024 and provides $120 in grocery benefits for eligible school-aged children during the months when school is out: Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.

“I think something people don’t always recognize is that summer is the hungriest time of year for families,” said Rachel Sabella, director of the nonprofit No Kid Hungry New York. SUN Bucks in particular gives families more flexibility during the summer to access food, she added.

War on Women Report: MAGA Republicans Hope to Turn Miscarriage Into a Crime and Gut Planned Parenthood

PUBLISHED 6/30/2025 by and

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:
—On June 14, between 4 and 13 million people attended No Kings rallies nationwide to protest President Trump’s immigration and economic policies.
—Four states—California, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey—have petitioned the FDA to undo restrictions on the abortion pill mifepristone.
—Some good news out of Montana: This month, the state supreme court struck down three abortion restrictions that Republican lawmakers passed in 2021.

… and more.