[[link removed]] Ms. Memo: This Week in Women's Rights
August 6, 2025
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.
‘I Did It for Democracy—And I Did It With My Son’: The Human Cost Behind Texas Democrats’ Walkout [[link removed]]
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By Roxanne Szal | This week, more than 50 Democratic members of the Texas House made a wrenching decision: They left their homes, their jobs and their families, and fled the state. Their goal is to deny (or at least delay) Republicans the quorum needed to pass a mid‑decade redistricting plan, which they believe would erode minority voting power and engineer additional GOP seats in Congress.
But what may look like a political standoff is, for many of these lawmakers, an act of personal risk, cost and principle.
“I fled the state today alongside my Democratic colleagues,” wrote Texas state Rep. Linda Garcia in a now-viral Instagram post. “I did it for democracy and I did it with my son.”
Garcia, a first-term lawmaker representing Dallas’ House District 107, isn’t alone. Many of the Democrats who left Austin are mothers, fathers, caretakers, community workers and public servants—people like Rep. Donna Howard, a former ICU nurse, or Rep. James Talarico, a former middle school teacher—who also serve their families.
“To be gone from my family, from my state, is not a happy thing for me. But why I am doing this … it’s immoral and disgusting and outrageous,” Talarico said, describing the effort as a stand, not a stunt.
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Read more:
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Poverty Is a Policy Choice—and Women Deserve More [[link removed]] War on Women Report: State Department Mass-Burns Contraceptives; GOP Budget Decimates Medicaid; Texas Crisis Pregnancy Center Funds Paid for CEO’s Smoke Shop [[link removed]]
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Women’s Voices Are the Only Way Forward for Climate Change Solutions: ‘As Women, We Have to Stand Up and Back Up Women’ [[link removed]] From Dobbs to Bitcoin: The Economy of Control [[link removed]]
What we're reading:
Because it's hard to keep up with everything going on in the world right now. Here's what we're reading this week:
* "What Kids Told Us About How to Get Them Off Their Phones” — The Atlantic [[link removed]]
[link removed] [[link removed]] Listen to the latest podcast from Ms. Studios! The first episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward is out now on Apple Podcasts [[link removed]] + Spotify [[link removed]] .
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.
We hope you'll listen, subscribe, rate and review today!
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