This is a call to action for men. Nearly a decade after #MeToo emerged, reports of abuse by powerful men continue to surface at alarming rates.

How can so many of us stay silent in the face of an ongoing epidemic of men’s sexual and domestic assaults against women—including rape? Enough is enough. We have to do better.

Breaking that code is essential. It means men calling each other out in locker rooms, workplaces, offices and private conversations. It means redefining loyalty not as protecting other men, but as protecting those harmed.

The question is no longer whether we understand the problem. The question is whether we men are finally willing to confront it in ourselves.

The post Men’s Silence Is Fueling a National Crisis of Violence Against Women appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

Here, then, is my response to Mr. Sawyer—but also, in many ways, a response to the countless men who insert themselves into women’s inboxes with condescension, hostility and misplaced certainty. Women in public life know these messages well: the unsolicited lectures, the attempts at intimidation, the casual cruelty masquerading as critique. Consider this every woman’s letter to the crass and crude male intruder in her inbox. I hope you enjoy.

The post To the Men Who Send Women Hate Mail appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

This week:
—Mexico continues to bet the U.S. on women's political representation.
—A brief explanation on the Supreme Court's attack on voting rights.
—In a 2028 presidential nomination poll, women lead among Democrats.
—Denise Powell earns a primary nod in a hotly contested Nebraska congressional race.

... and more.

The post No Women Were Present at the U.S.-China Negotiations. This Is By Design. appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

From the Supreme Court fight over mifepristone access to the Trump administration’s bizarre new moms.gov initiative—complete with links to antiabortion crisis pregnancy centers and rhetoric about Americans being “under-babied”—the week offered a revealing snapshot of where U.S. health policy is headed. Meanwhile, flavored vape approvals for Big Tobacco sailed through the FDA, even as reproductive healthcare access remains under constant attack.

Chaos may be Trump’s currency, but the throughline here is ideology: rewarding conservative allies, policing reproductive autonomy and repackaging motherhood as a nationalist project while offering little meaningful material support to actual families.

The post A Government for Big Tobacco and Bigger Families appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

It’s possible that the Court is close and needs a little more time to reach a decision. There has been some thought it might set the case for argument on the merits as early as next month, or more realistically, next term, and decide it on the merits quickly, at least as courts count time.

But given the political weight of the issue in a midterm election year, the Court could also return to its history with mifepristone: kicking the can down the road. That’s what they did when the Texas case, Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, came before it in June 2024, deciding that the plaintiffs lacked standing and dismissing the case, instead of ruling on the substantive issue.

The post The Supreme Court Keeps Mifepristone Available by Mail as Litigation Continues appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

If the Court does nothing, the lower-court ruling could snap back into place, threatening mail-order and telemedicine access to mifepristone, one of the two drugs commonly used in medication abortion.

But abortion rights advocates say the story does not end there. Telemedicine abortion networks, shield-law protections, advance provision and community-based access have already reshaped abortion care in the post-Dobbs landscape—and those systems are continuing to evolve.

Julie F. Kay, a human rights lawyer and founder and executive director of Reproductive Futures, has spent years working at the intersection of reproductive rights, telemedicine abortion and shield-law protections. She co-founded the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, challenged Ireland’s abortion ban before the European Court of Human Rights, and co-authored Controlling Women: What We Must Do Now to Save Reproductive Freedom.

The post The Supreme Court Preserved Mail-Order Abortion Pills—for Now. Julie Kay Says Providers Are Still Preparing. appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

This week:
—The Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, slashing protections against racially discriminatory voting laws.
—A record high amount of books were censored from libraries in 2025, often due to LGBTQ characters or plotlines addressing racism.
—A third of moms living on low incomes have gone into debt or skipped meals so their kids could eat.
—Just 22 percent of American voters have significant confidence in the Supreme Court.
—In 2025 the number of abortions in the U.S. remained stable, but more patients in states with bans turned to telehealth services instead of traveling out of state.
—The Department of Justice announced plans to expand the use of the federal death penalty.
—An Epstein-Maxwell survivor, who asked to remain anonymous, laments, "I kept my identity protected as Jane Doe. I woke up one day with my name mentioned over 500 times. While the rich and powerful remain protected by redaction, my name was exposed to the world."
—The Trump administration launched a Moms.gov site on Mother’s Day that refers pregnant people to unregulated crisis pregnancy centers.
—A Ms. piece on solitary confinement by Kwaneta Harris and her daughter Summer Knight won Kwaneta second place in the Collaboration category of the Stillwater Awards for prison journalism.
—Liberation, a play about 1970s feminism by Bess Wohl, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. It was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. Wohl was inspired by her own life: Her mother, Lisa Cronin Wohl, was an early Ms. contributor.

… and more.

The post Keeping Score: Supreme Court Blow to Voting Rights Will ‘Silence Our Voices’; Conservative Judges Try to Restrict Mifepristone; Moms Worry About Putting Food on the Table appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

In her new memoir, Backtalker: An American Memoir, Crenshaw traces the personal and political experiences that shaped her work, while warning that the attacks on critical race theory, feminism and Black women are inseparable from the broader erosion of democracy itself.

In this wide-ranging interview, Crenshaw reflects on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, “intersectional failure,” the backlash against Black women leaders and the dangers of what historian Timothy Snyder calls “anticipatory compliance.” She argues that today’s political moment—from attacks on independent journalism to the dismantling of civil rights protections—demands a more expansive understanding of solidarity and resistance.

“The other side doesn’t want us to feel empathy,” Crenshaw says. “They’re taking our humanity away, the thing that makes us humans and not a machine.”

Crenshaw also speaks candidly about the personal costs of “backtalking” to power, the unfinished grief that continues to shape her activism, and why she still believes collective action and moral clarity matter.

“One step forward can lead to five or 10 steps back,” she says. “When we see the forces of retrenchment coming on the horizon, we must pick up every weapon we have to fight against it.”

The post ‘They’re Taking Our Humanity Away’: Kimberlé Crenshaw on Her Memoir, America’s Future and Why the Fight for Justice Requires ‘Backtalking’ appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

You don’t need much to start your I Will Not Be Quiet chapter. You don’t need any training, or even a big group of people. All you need is a few people and a space where you can sit together as a collective.

The post There Is Danger in Silence: How to Mobilize Your Friends and Neighbors Into an ‘I Will Not Be Quiet’ Chapter appeared first on Ms. Magazine.

The post Why We Need Gender and Women’s Studies Conferences and Coalition Work Now More Than Ever appeared first on Ms. Magazine.