More Than A Magazine, A Movement
The former senior editor and writer for Ms. coordinated what became the first-ever national survey of campus sexual violence. In the latest episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward, Sweet assesses what she learned from the study about rape, activism, and backlash—and what has and hasn’t changed since it was published.
For the first time in years, the number of U.S. mothers with young children in the workforce is shrinking—over 212,000 women left between January and June 2025 alone.
Childcare costs, in-office pressures, and a cultural nudge toward traditional gender roles are pushing moms out, while men in power nod along.
Meanwhile, the tradwife movement parades its perfect, baked-from-scratch, filtered-life versions of domesticity online, making the impossible look effortless.
It’s absurd. It’s dangerous. And it’s time we stop letting the economy treat raising kids as invisible labor.
From reproductive rights and workplace protections, to access to education and voting, the freedoms women have fought for are under attack like never before.
This Women’s Equality Day cannot be symbolic. It must be a reckoning. Because if women’s rights continue to erode, it won’t just be women who lose—it will be democracy itself.
The time for quiet patience is over. The only way forward is louder, stronger and unstoppable.
In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.
This week:
—“I am deeply alarmed by news reports that Costco is refusing to sell safe, effective, and legal medication for no other reason than to appease the politics of antiabortion fanatics,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).
—The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee called for Democrat-led state legislatures to pursue redistricting: “The DLCC refuses to allow Republicans to rig the maps to keep themselves in power.”
—“A troubling shift is underway: Women are leaving the U.S. workforce in unprecedented numbers. But this isn’t a choice; it’s a consequence,” warned Catalyst president and CEO Jennifer McCollum after a report showed 212,000 women have left the workforce since January.
—A third of college students have missed class because of their period.
—The Trump administration is planning to restrict coverage of abortion care for veterans in almost all circumstances.
—RFK Jr. takes aim at antidepressant use during pregnancy, despite American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ approving of their usage.
—Texas’ abortion ban has made miscarriages more dangerous.
—A federal court blocked the Trump administration’s restrictions on grants from the Office on Violence Against Women. Seventeen states had challenged the restrictions, and the order is a temporary win for organizations supporting survivors of domestic and sexual violence.
… and more.
When Texas House Democrats returned to the Capitol after walking out over the GOP’s new congressional map, they were cheered by supporters as bulwarks of democracy—then promptly bulldozed by Republicans fed up with their protest and intent on further marginalizing the minority party.
Republicans moved quickly to drive the map through both chambers of the legislature within a week of the Democrats’ return. But they also wasted no time advancing a host of conservative priorities that Democrats vehemently oppose, including bills cracking down on the manufacturing and distribution of abortion pills and requiring transgender people to use the bathroom aligned with their sex assigned at birth in government and school buildings.
Those measures stalled in the House during the regular session. And while Gov. Greg Abbott, who controls the special session agenda, had put them on the to-do list from the start, Democrats’ protest has only increased the GOP appetite to push them all through as retribution for the walkout.
“Now we’re not even going to negotiate,” said Rep. Tom Oliverson of Cypress and chair of the House Republican Caucus. “We’re just going to slam it through, too bad.”
The fight for women’s equality isn’t stalled because women aren’t stepping up to run—it’s stalled because our systems are built to protect incumbents and the status quo. The good news is we know how to fix those systems. Tools like ranked-choice voting and proportional representation give voters more voice, create real opportunities for women and people of color, and help build a democracy that reflects us all. Change is possible, but only if we act.
We can say, “We knew this would happen,” and tell Black single mothers, “I told you so,” all day long, but then what? There’s something hollow in the phrase—especially when it follows public documentation of abuse.
If we are people who truly believe that Halle Bailey, Keke Palmer and Skai Jackson deserved better, then we should be extending that same belief to the women we actually know.
(This essay is part of a collection presented by Ms. and the Groundswell Fund highlighting the work of Groundswell partners advancing inclusive democracy.)
Today, not only are all three branches of the federal government under the control of the Republican party, they are all acting in obedient servitude to a single individual, President Donald J. Trump. To compound the problem, the U.S. Supreme Court is employing a rarely used procedure to create a law-free zone to help Trump aggressively implement his executive orders despite the fact that they have already been found unconstitutional by numerous federal judges.
When the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in August 2021, one of their earliest, most devastating acts was to remove all women judges from their positions. These courageous women, educated in their own country and possessing many years of experience adjudicating complex and sensitive cases, were abruptly stripped of their roles and authority.
Although the global spotlight has dimmed, the danger remains real and immediate. These judges, still known and targeted by the Taliban, face grave risks. The international community must not let them fall through the cracks.
The professor, advocate and veteran of multiple political campaigns reflected in the latest episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward on her journeys to both survivor advocacy and politics—and the ways in which our political structures reinforce the injustices survivors face writ large across the country.
Listen to the latest episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward, “How Feminists are Breaking the Cycle of Gender-Based Violence and Harassment (with Ellen Sweet, Jane Caputi, Vanessa Tyson, Victoria Nourse, and Debra Katz)” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.