From the ongoing fight for abortion rights and access, to elections, to the drive for the Equal Rights Amendment, there are a multitude of battles to keep up with. In this weekly roundup, find the absolute need-to-know news for feminists.

President Joe Biden shares a moment with Kathy Sherlock (left), on March 16, 2022. Sherlock’s daughter Kayden was killed by her father during an unsupervised weekend visit ordered by the court. The event marked the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which Biden helped to write in 1994 when he was a senator on Capitol Hill. (Alex Wong / Getty Images)

BY ESTA SOLER | It was a huge, meaningful victory. A historic event. The culmination of years of tireless advocacy. A true inflection point.

Twenty-nine years ago, Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), finally putting the full force of our federal government into efforts to stop domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking to help survivors.

• This landmark law provided funds for urgently needed services and improved legal responses.
• It launched the work of creating a coordinated community response, bringing healthcare providers, schools and other institutions into the work to prevent gender-based violence and heal those harmed by it.
• It reshaped our criminal justice system, introducing training for judges and law enforcement, which were largely failing survivors.
• It set the stage for the National Domestic Violence Hotline and funded the Office of Violence Against Women at the U.S. Department of Justice. 

Enactment of VAWA was a hard-won, improbable victory. In all the years before it, most people facing domestic violence and sexual assault had to rely on friends and family members, seek out shelters that were often underground and barely funded, or simply go without help. Emergency rooms routinely treated survivors and sent them right back home to face further abuse. 

Many of the brave, valiant souls who were supporting survivors realized that we couldn’t keep doing this work on a shoestring. Domestic violence was a pervasive problem, in some way affecting every family and community. Depending on local organizers to provide emergency housing and services with whatever resources they could muster was wholly inadequate. Put simply, we were losing lives we didn’t have to lose.

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Because it's hard to keep up with everything going on in the world right now. Here's what we're reading this week:

• "‘Feels horrible to say no’: abortion funds run out of money as US demand surges” — The Guardian
• "Laphonza Butler tapped to fill Dianne Feinstein’s Senate seat" — The 19th

Tune in for a new episode of Ms. magazine's podcast, On the Issues with Michele Goodwin on Apple Podcasts + Spotify.

Fifty years ago, hip-hop emerged from a party in the rec room of a Bronx building—and a new sound was born: one with roots in African music, but with its own vibe and messaging. Since its first iterations, women have played significant roles in the creation and evolution of hip-hop: as rappers, DJs, producers, breakdancers, graffiti artists, scholars, journalists and more. Michele Goodwin, Drew Dixon and Janell Hobson break down the past, present and future of hip-hop, and the crucial role of women.

We hope you'll listen, subscribe, rate and review today!

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