Globally, over 676 million women and girls live within 50 kilometers of armed conflict, representing about 17 percent of the female population. This staggering figure—a 74 percent increase since 2010—is tracked and analyzed by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security in partnership with PRIO.

But we also know: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the world’s most urgent crises. Ms. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide—and the gendered realities shaping conflict, displacement, political repression and survival.

The post Ms. Global: From Ukraine to Lebanon to Sudan, Women Are Bearing the Brunt of Escalating Global Conflict appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

Last week, within 48 hours of each other the Supreme Court issued an emergency stay pausing the Fifth Circuit’s attempt to let Louisiana negate the FDA rule that allows telehealth provision and mail delivery of mifepristone, and FDA commissioner Marty Makary announced his immediate resignation after rumors that President Trump was planning to fire him.

Though Makary’s antipathy toward deregulation of flavored vapes appears to have triggered his fall from grace, and the rest of the chaos is perhaps business as usual, the Trump administration’s tip-toe approach to mifepristone is the real story.

The Justice Department’s litigation approach seemingly has been to wait until October when the FDA’s so-called “safety review” is due—ordered despite the mountain of evidence proving mifepristone’s safety and efficacy. But reports indicate that study has not even begun and is mired in data delays caused by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Foot-dragging? Finger-pointing? Old-fashioned incompetence? Who can tell anymore. But it surely hews to Republicans’ favor to keep the entire endeavor out of public sight, given that the vast majority (68 percent) of adults in this country oppose banning mifepristone.

The post Women’s Health Is a Democracy Issue—and a Midterm One appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

As it turns out, in America, you can be the most educated demographic in America and still watch a sitting member of Congress call your religious traditions "Third World." You can have a $151,200 median household income and still feel unsafe wearing your cultural clothing in public. You can have a vice president whose wife is Indian American and watch the president repost a podcaster who calls your country of origin a hellhole.

The achievement is real. The immunity it was supposed to purchase is gone.

Political scientists describe three options for a dissatisfied constituency: Exit, voice or loyalty. Indian Americans are exercising none of them cleanly. They are not leaving—37 percent have never considered it. They are not organizing. Their attachment to either party is measurably eroding.

What they are doing is waiting: making individual calculations, reading the room, finding both parties wanting. When a diaspora adapts individually rather than responds collectively, both parties get to pretend the problem does not exist.

Five million people with nowhere to go is not a problem for Indian Americans. It is an opportunity for whoever figures out how to meet them where they are. So far, at the national level, nobody has shown up.

The post The Frisco Test: What Happened in One Texas Suburb Signals a National Shift appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

The Comstock Act’s history is deeply tied to censorship, moral policing and attacks on marginalized communities. Under its broad and subjective definition of “obscenity,” authorities targeted contraception, abortion information, sexual health materials, queer literature and even works of classical art. Its reproductive restrictions disproportionately harmed poor and working-class women, who were often cut off from the safest and most affordable forms of care.

Today, antiabortion activists are once again looking to Comstock as a tool to restrict abortion nationwide—this time through the courts. Thomas’ explicit invocation of the law in the mifepristone fight signals how far-right legal movements are attempting to revive long-discredited morality laws to roll back reproductive freedom and other established rights.

The post Conservative Justices Resurrect the Comstock Act, Threatening Abortion Access Nationwide appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

History offers chilling parallels. Governments facing demographic anxiety—from Nazi Germany to the modern U.S. right—have elevated childbirth through propaganda, financial incentives and attacks on reproductive healthcare. Nazi officials restricted access to contraception and abortion information while glorifying motherhood through state medals and nationalist media campaigns; today, conservative lawmakers and influencers similarly cast hormonal birth control and medication abortion as dangerous while promoting “natural” fertility and larger families as social imperatives.

The result is not simply antiabortion policy, but a broader attempt to reshape gender roles and define which families are valued.

Moms.gov fits into a growing body-politics movement that ties reproduction to nationalism, morality and demographic control—using government-backed messaging to pressure women toward motherhood while undermining reproductive freedom.

The post Moms.Gov and the Return of State-Sponsored Pronatalism appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

The manifestos move fluidly between misogyny, anti-Semitism and racist conspiracies, portraying women as “evil,” using dehumanizing incel slurs and framing immigrants, Black people and LGBTQ people as existential threats.

These ideologies are not separate strands of extremism, but part of a broader supremacist worldview rooted in dehumanization and entitlement.

Coverage of extremist violence often struggles to grapple with these intersections, isolating one ideology while minimizing the central role of misogyny and anti-feminist conspiracism. The shooters’ lengthy involvement in misogynist online communities also underscores the growing radicalization of young men online—and the urgent need for prevention strategies that begin long before violence occurs.

The post Male Supremacism and Misogyny Was Central to the San Diego Mosque Shooting. Why Did So Much Coverage Miss It? appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

Drawing from her latest book (and New York Times best-seller) Erased: What American Patriarchy Has Hidden from Us, Tubbs traces the ruthless logic that has organized American life for 250 years—always bound to race, always rooted in a binary that decides who counts and who does not.

The event is Thursday, May 21, 2026 at 5:30 p.m. PT / 7:30 CT / 8:30 ET. RSVP today!

Tubbs will be joined in conversation by Aisha Becker-Burrowes, co-founder and co-executive director of FEMINIST—a nonprofit media company serving a global community of over 6 million—and interviewed by TV host, journalist and content creator, Danielle Robay.

The post May 21 Virtual Event: Tackling Patriarchy and Power (With Anna Malaika Tubbs, Aisha Becker-Burrowes and Danielle Robay) appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

If the SAVE Act becomes law, it would block millions of eligible American citizens from voting.

As the Senate considers the SAVE Act, state legislatures are advancing similar “show-your-papers” policies. Florida, South Dakota and Utah have enacted similar laws in recent weeks. Other states that already have similar laws have experienced the difficulties of implementing them.

Including Arizona, which has had a proof-of-citizenship requirement for over 20 years, five states will have a show-your-papers requirement for all voters for the 2026 midterms: Arizona, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. A sixth state, Louisiana, has one on the books that it has not yet implemented.

That’s a lot of strain on the election system to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. The U.S. Senate would be wise not to inflict those obstacles on every election official nationwide.

The post States Already Enacting Harmful SAVE Act Policies, Requiring Proof of Citizenship to Vote appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

The chants echoed through downtown Montgomery: “The power is with the people.” “We won’t go back.”

The post ‘The South Belongs to Us’: Voices, Signs and Scenes From Montgomery’s Voting Rights Rally appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

“Congressional Republicans are aiding and abetting the Department of Justice’s campaign of retribution against civil rights organizations and anyone who dares disagree with them,” said Fatima Goss Graves, board chair of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, warning the hearing will be "a spectacle designed to further harm an organization that has spent 50 years tracking hate groups, infiltrating extremist networks, and dismantling violent white supremacist organizations."

The hearing also comes just days after thousands of voting rights advocates gathered in Montgomery, Ala.—the same city where the SPLC is headquartered—on Saturday, May 16, for the “All Roads Lead to the South” national day of action.

The post After Voting Rights Advocates Rally in Montgomery, Republicans Turn Their Sights on Southern Poverty Law Center appeared first on Ms. Magazine.