Dear John,
The government shutdown ended late Wednesday night, leaving hunger, inequality and disarray in its wake.
While some of the worst may be over, the shutdown reinforced what many Americans have long felt: our social safety net is failing to meet real, everyday needs—and people across the nation are growing disillusioned with politicians who play games with those needs. Ms. spoke with SNAP recipients impacted by the shutdown and Trump’s denial of benefits. “I initially really fell through the cracks, and we didn’t think I was going to live for a bit… Without [these services], I wouldn’t even be alive or functioning, let alone a student,” said Grace Robinson, a 30-year-old student who relies on SNAP and Medicaid to manage her disability and get an education.
Meanwhile, a rare piece of good news out of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week: On Nov. 10, the FDA announced it will revise its labeling requirements for menopausal hormone therapy, removing the stringent “black box” warning that had previously accompanied estrogen medications. It’s an important step in the fight against hormone therapy stigma—which prevents so many women from obtaining relief for symptoms that can range from unpleasant to deadly. Kelly Casperson, one of the 12 leading physicians who convened at the FDA’s headquarters for the agency’s first-ever public panel on the subject this past summer, reports on why this victory matters—and the work that remains to be done to make the therapy more accessible to all.
And in the midst of all the pressing news that is deeply relevant to women happening in this moment, the New York Times is covering the oh-so-important topic of… whether women “ruined” the workplace?
Last week, the Times posted an opinion podcast asking, “Did Women Ruin the Workplace?” While the headline was eventually changed (in an effort to “soften” it?) to “Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace?” (subtitle: “And if so, can conservative feminism fix it?”) the message remains the same, as Jodi Bondi Norgaard explored in Ms. this week: “There is no such thing as conservative feminism. … It borrows feminist words—’choice,’ ‘agency,’ ‘strength’—but drains them of their radical meaning, using them to defend inequality.”
As the mainstream media skews ever-rightward, in ways both subtle and unsubtle, I can promise you this: Ms. won’t back down from covering the topics that matter to women and people who care about equality. (And you can bet we’d never even entertain the question of women OR feminists “ruining the workplace.” There’s too many of us in the Ms. offices for that.)
For equality,
