More Than A Magazine, A Movement
Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation.
This week, explore how public funding for campaigns can level the playing field and encourage more women to run for office; learn about the challenges women face in securing local government seats in England; discover what resources can empower mothers to pursue political careers; and examine why gender diversity in corporate leadership positions is still lagging.
María Teresa Montaño Delgado is the founder and director of the investigative portal The Observer and winner of the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Courage in Journalism Award.
She has dedicated her 30-plus-year journalistic career to uncovering corruption in the Mexican government. Her reporting has been met with smear campaigns by political leaders, tax harassment, bribery and threats to her and her family. Despite all the harassment, Montaño has continued her work.
As we celebrate World Press Freedom Day, it’s worth reflecting on how it’s become a rare privilege to spot a female face on Afghan television—whether they wear a face covering or not.
Now, even these brief glimpses of women on Afghan TV might disappear. Near the end of February, Sheikh Mohammad Khalid, the Taliban’s minister for the propagation of virtue and prevention of vice, gathered owners of media companies for a meeting in Kabul and issued a warning: Women working in media needed to start covering their entire faces, leaving only their eyes visible; otherwise, the Taliban would ban women from working in the industry.
Imagine being guided by cruelty so deep you are compelled to take the food out of the mouths of your hungry neighbors. You don’t need this food yourself—in fact, you’re going to turn around and throw it in the trash. For nearly 2,000 intended recipients of a guaranteed income pilot program for low-income residents that was set to distribute $500 monthly for 18 months in Harris County, Texas, this is their reality.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has blocked implementation of the program—a move upheld, at least temporarily, by the state’s Supreme Court just a day before initial payments were set to begin last week.
In Haiti, there are high rates of maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality.
Founded in 2014, the Foundation for Advancement of Haitian Midwives (FAHM) partners with and supports Haitian midwives through education and outreach. Their work is urgent today while Haiti is in political turmoil, and unrelenting assaults by paramilitary groups have led to severe insecurity in the capital.
“Most people who are drawn to this want to produce safe competent, evidence-based care and to respect people’s voices, preserving the honor and dignity of every human being.”
How is it that an independent business executive goes from a full-time position in the C-suite to a full-time position in the kitchen, out of submissive devotion to her husband? If you’ve recently spent time on TikTok or Instagram, you may have wrestled with this question.
Tradwife influencers are right to point out the emptiness, precarity and dissatisfaction of neoliberal life, and the appeal of the alternative they offer is clear. But much of the rosy picture they paint exists only on our iPhones and not in reality. Domestic labor is neither slow nor peaceful.
Most Americans support the right to abortion. But the fact that we are relying on ballot initiatives to protect and expand abortion access to translate that support into policy—rather than our elected representatives—should call on us to expand our fight.
Nearly every part of our system of government is structured in ways that prevent popular rule.
Can a democracy where women have never been equal ever really thrive? How are attacks on democracy tied to gender equity? What can we learn from past fights to protect and expand women’s rights in order to chart a path forward?
A two-part virtual discussion hosted by Ms. magazine in partnership with NYU Law’s Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center and the 92Y explored these questions, plus how women’s rights are inextricably tied to the integrity and durability of democratic institutions—featuring Melissa Murray, Alexis McGill-Johnson, Ruth Ben-Ghiat and more.
Florida is ground zero for what is known among organizers and philanthropists as “boom-and-bust” funding—meaning money flows in during big election cycles and dries up immediately after. Yet electoral and issue-based organizing is a 24/7 operation. In recent years, these efforts have led to restoring voting rights to 1.4 million Floridians, raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour, and legalizing medical marijuana. These massive wins were led by the people of Florida, even as the legislature acted against their will.
Boom-and-bust patterns are sure to pose a particular challenge in 2024, given the state’s six-week abortion ban officially taking effect is now coupled with a citizen-initiated opportunity for Florida voters to undo the ban this November and enshrine protections for abortion in the state Constitution.
Rather than funding a single issue or candidate during an election cycle, an integrated voter engagement approach, with year-to-year financial and capacity-building support for gender and reproductive justice groups, is the most essential element of a healthy pro-democracy funding environment.
A healthy, functioning democracy operates on two core principles: that each person’s vote counts equally, and that the law applies to everyone the same, regardless of wealth, race, gender or political party. Gerrymandering, the practice of drawing district boundaries to advantage a specific party or community, poses a grave threat to both of these foundational principles.
The ongoing battle against gerrymandering will determine whose votes will have value, whose voices will be heard and what public policy ideas on issues like women’s and civil rights stand a chance of becoming law.
(This article originally appears in the Spring 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)
