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Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks at the Convention of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) on Aug. 13, 2024 in Los Angeles. (Mario Tama / Getty Images)

By Jackson Katz | When right wing activists and media personalities (falsely) accuse Tim Walz of deliberately misrepresenting his military record, they’re not just attacking his honor and integrity, and therefore his character. The actual—although unspoken—target of the attacks on Walz’s career in the Army National Guard is his masculinity.

The reason is straightforward: Military service confers a certain kind of masculine street cred on men who wear the uniform. As a result, when a male candidate has a record of service—especially if he’s a Democrat—right-wing operatives make it a point to plant seeds of doubt about whether they were truly worthy of that respect. It’s a battle tactic in the political war. The ultimate goal is to punch holes in the “real man” credentials of someone like Walz, and thereby undermine his popularity with men.

(Click here to read more) 

A march in Atlanta, in opposition to a Georgia abortion law on July 23, 2022, after an appeals court allowed the six-week ban to go into effect. (Megan Varner / Getty Images)

By Shefali Luthra, The 19th | “It is generally men who promote and defend laws like the LIFE Act, the effect of which is to require only women … to engage in compulsory labor,” wrote Fulton County Superior Judge Robert McBurney.

“Georgia’s six-week ban left millions of people across a wide swath of the South facing drives of hundreds of miles to North Carolina and Virginia,” said Caitlin Myers, an economist at Middlebury College who studies abortion travel patterns. “Now, as long as the ban isn’t enforced, Georgia residents as well as people from Florida, Alabama and parts of Tennessee are going to be much closer to services.”

(Click here to read more)

Brzonkala’s case offers a poignant argument for the Equal Rights Amendment. (C-SPAN)

By Victoria F. Nourse | For years, critics have claimed that women don’t need the Equal Rights Amendment because the Supreme Court has secured women’s rights under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. 

At the time it was ratified in the 19th century, no one thought that the 14th Amendment protected women; its purpose was to end slavery. Thanks to pioneering lawsuits by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the 1970s, women did gain a measure of equal rights under the 14th Amendment, but lawyers know that those victories were limited.

(This essay is part of “The ERA Is Essential to Democracy” Women & Democracy collection.)

(Click here to read more) 

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

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In this episode, we’re joined by two co-hosts of the Webby Award-winning #SistersInLaw podcast to discuss where our nation stands as we approach the 2024 elections—from the ongoing trials faced by former president Donald Trump, to Nikki Haley, to the Supreme Court’s recent opinions and so much more.

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