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(American Eagle)

By Janell Hobson | “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.” Get it?

The issue is, we all get it and cannot avoid the ad’s uncomfortable truths about how women’s bodies convey different symbols and meanings. As a symbol of beauty, Sweeney certainly fits the bill as an attractive, voluptuous young woman who has capitalized on her looks. However, when the camera emphasizes Sweeney’s blue eyes just after panning across her body as she gives a quasi-scientific lesson on how “genes” get passed down, beauty is no longer just about whether a young woman is attractive enough to serve as an ad campaign’s spokesperson. It’s about which type of woman gets to define beauty and promoting scientific fixation on “good genes,” a holdover from the era of eugenics (which literally means “good genes”). 

The best “all-American jeans” advertisement should capture this sense of aspirational dreaming. And Ralph Lauren “Oak Bluffs” ads do just that. These campaigns depict the collegiate, bougie aesthetic of Black middle-class life—represented by those African Americans attending HBCUs and vacationing in Oak Bluffs at Martha’s Vineyard during the summertime—and resonates more positively for a wider audience than American Eagle’s exclusionary “great genes” messaging.

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(Cathy Murphy / Getty Images)

By Carmen Rios | Dolores Huerta has spent 70 years at the frontlines of the intertwined fights for economic justice and women’s rights. Huerta has pioneered campaigns to expand political representation for women and people of color; advance policies that improve the lives of women, LGBTQ+ folks, farmworkers, communities of color, and the poor; and spark dialogue around the intersectional fight for economic justice, and the ways it is intertwined with our democracy.

“This is a very, very scary time—and god knows it’s a time for women to rise up!” Huerta told Ms.

Listen to the latest episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward, “Women Can’t Afford to Wait for a Feminist Economic Future (with Premilla Nadasen, Rakeen Mabud and Lenore Palladino, Aisha Nyandoro, Gaylynn Burroughs, and Dolores Huerta)” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

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(Jim Vondruska / Getty Images)

By Lucie Arvallo | In the wake of catastrophic flooding that killed more than 100 Texans and displaced many more, Gov. Greg Abbott has called a special legislative session. But instead of prioritizing recovery and emergency relief, policymakers are using this tragedy to push through a slate of dangerous bills to escalate their attacks on reproductive freedom, especially for teens.

Among the governor’s priorities are two proposals that failed during the regular session: one that would effectively ban abortion pills (HB 65, a version of SB 2880), and another that would criminalize anyone who helps a teen travel out of state for abortion care without parental consent (HB 70, a version of SB 2352). That could mean driving them, buying a bus ticket or even chipping in towards gas money. And what starts with teens won’t stop there.

These extreme proposals are also at the center of a broader political standoff in Texas. In early August, over 50 Democratic lawmakers fled the state to block a quorum in the House, halting progress on the governor’s agenda—including these abortion-related bills. In response, Republican leadership voted to authorize civil arrest warrants to compel their return, escalating tensions at the Capitol.

This isn’t about one bill, or even one state. What’s happening in Texas is part of a broader strategy to attack abortion funds, criminalize community care, and expand the playbook to end abortion access for everyone, everywhere.

(Click here to read more)

Listen to the latest podcast from Ms. Studios! The first episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward is out now on Apple Podcasts + Spotify.

This episode traces the transformation of women’s economic experiences over the last 50 years, zooming in on workplace discrimination, women’s unpaid domestic and care burdens, and the factors pushing women disproportionately into poverty — revealing how the system seeks to devalue all of “women’s work,” and what feminists are doing about it.

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