Immigration policies, Women's (In)equality Day and more feminist news from around the world.
Weekly Digest | August 31, 2019
Letter From an Editor
The Trump administration's escalating attacks on migrants, refugees and asylees have continued to dominate the headlines—and here at Ms., we've continued to push back, and our expert contributors have continued to provide analysis, action steps and a feminist perspective in the midst of the madness.
Karen Musalo and Brianna Krong from the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies at the University of California Hastings College of the Law sounded off this week on the administration's attempts to open the doors to the indefinite detention of immigrants, including children fleeing danger when they cross the border. Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi and Dr. Antoinette Nguyen from Physicians for Reproductive Health took on Trump's "public charge" rule. Mary Giovagnoli from Kids In Need of Defense explored the cruelty of the administration's threats to admit zero refugees next year. And in a timely excerpt from Knitting the Fog that previously appeared in print, in our latest issue, Claudia D. Hernández opens up about her mother's own journey across the border.
These conversations were ripe in the wake of Women's Equality Day on Monday, which marked the 99th anniversary of the 19th amendment granting women the right to vote. The occasion was less a celebration than a reminder of how much work remains, especially in this moment—as well as a reminder of how much power feminists have when they rise up together. Pat Mitchell encouraged further historic exploration in a post highlighting new exhibitions on suffrage history that tell the full and complicated truths about the fight for the vote, and VoteRunLead founder and CEO Erin Vilardi reclaimed the century-old slogan "Votes for Women" in the name of a new resistance movement.
Of course, the conversations don't end there—we spent the week talking to feminist poets and filmmakers and covering an array of other issues. We even rang in Black Breastfeeding Week and, in two posts I'm also highlighting below, recapped the National Sexual Assault Conference and marked the two-year anniversary of the Rohingya genocide.
There are many fights left, and on myriad fronts. This movement is big enough to take all of them on, and strong enough to win.
Onward,
Carmen Rios
Managing Digital Editor, Ms.
More Must-Reads from Ms.
Beyond the Breakthrough: Highlights from the 2019 National Sexual Assault Conference
Last week, over 1,700 advocates, practitioners and public figures working to end sexual violence came together to forge a new path forward in their movement. Ms. was there, too—talking with movement leaders and advocates about what it will take to end sexual violence in the wake of #MeToo.
We Heart: Anita Aysola's Anthem for Abortion Activists
Singer Anita Aysola and the Resistance Revival Chorus flip the narrative put forward by anti-abortion lawmakers in the new song "Heartbeat," which was released this week in response to legislation that threatens women’s reproductive freedom.
Ending Impunity for Gender-Based Violence in Genocide
Two years ago this week, the Burmese military began a systematic campaign of brutal violence against Rohingya Muslims in Burma's northern Rakhine State. In July, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court requested to investigate alleged crimes committed against the Rohingya—including deportation, persecution and other inhumane acts. Her investigation must include the reports of sexual violence from the UN's Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, which showed that sexual violence occurred with such intensity that it may amount to genocide.
What the Consequences of Zimbabwe’s Abortion Restrictions Mean for the U.S.
As one of the first and few abortion rights activists in Zimbabwe, a country that makes it extremely hard for women to obtain an abortion at a legitimate health facility, I have seen first-hand the impact of strict abortion laws on women, their families and our country as a whole. For many decades, women in the U.S. have been shielded from this reality—because the global gag rule was directed at foreign countries, and domestic laws in the U.S. were less restrictive. Now, as the U.S. is steadily making it harder to for women to obtain safe abortion services, too, I thought I could share some lessons from my country, lessons that may make American politicians think twice before invoking their religious and moral views to justify their positions.
Purvi Shah Resists Erasure and Rewrites History with Feminist Poetry
As a systems change consultant, Shah has asked tough questions about domestic violence against women—and the relationships between structural, state, community and interpersonal violence—and then provided transformative research and strategies. Shah’s poetry asks hard questions, too. Her just-released second book, Miracle Marks, “investigates gender inequity and American racism through Hindu iconography and philosophy.”
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