Here's to our resistance—and our anger.
Weekly Digest | June 29, 2019
Letter From an Editor
Feminists marked many milestones this week—and demanded even more.
The ILO, in a landmark vote, closed two years of negotiations with a victory for the #MeToo movement and approved language protecting workers worldwide from sexual harassment. In Los Angeles, feminists and city officials came together to celebrate Dolores Huerta's legendary activist career at what is now known as Dolores Huerta Square.
This week also marked a historic moment: the 50th anniversary of the riots at New York City's Stonewall Inn that launched the modern LGBTQ rights movement. We honored the occasion by spotlighting the young trans women leading the charge for trans rights, and by talking to documentary filmmaker Greta Schiller about what she learned uncovering the stories of queer communities before the historic uprising.
There is still much left to fight for—and much to be angry about. Efforts to fight gender-based violence around the world, according to one recenty study, remain vastly underfunded. New research also shed tragic light on the devastating impact of Donald Trump's anti-immigration policies on immigrant survivors. Women in many industries, and especially in broadcast media, continue to be unseen. And our latest issue explores the unfolding wars for women's bodily autonomy raging on worldwide.
But activists also continue to fight back, and our movement persists. While modern feminists make history, Representatives in Congress are renewing their fight for a National Women's History Museum, and movement leaders like Mónica Ramírez are continuing to urge advocates to pass the mic and continue amplifying the voices of those at the margins. (Plus, Lizzo exists.) This week served as an important reminder, too, that Pride started as a riot—and that our collective resistance is powerful.
"We need to storm in and say we want to be part of the conversation," Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee told Emily Sernaker in this week's Ms. Q&A. "The kind of polite anger that women display does not disrupt the system and it does not get our needs met. It is time to be enraged, not be violent, but to take action."
In the wake of this week's debates, I'm spotlighting stories below about the women fighting to get those needs met on the political stage—whether it's by raising new questions or telling new stories.
May our anger continue to change the conversation. Here's to hoping one day it changes the world.
Onward,
Carmen Rios
Managing Digital Editor, Ms.
More Must-Reads from Ms.
Time’s Up on Debates Without Diversity
New research from Time's Up found that out of 4,000 questions asked at 132 debates in 20 years, only eight zeroed in on "women's issues." Pressing issues like abortion have been noticeably absent from conversations at previous debates, and sexual harassment has never been spoken of on the stage. Women moderators can change the conversation: Only six debate questions in the last 20 years have focused on women’s rights issues outside of reproductive rights—and women asked all of them.
Candidates are (Finally) Being Asked About Abortion
Eight out of 10 caucus-going Democrats in Iowa called support for abortion a “must-have” quality in a candidate, making it leading issue driving their decision. Reproductive rights are also rising in importance among Democrats and Independent women—increasing in priority for such voters by eight percentage points alone since May. And months ahead of the 2020 elections, and decades after the first nationwide struggle for reproductive freedom that led to the Court’s ruling in Roe, candidates are finally being asked to formulate plans to address abortion rights on the debate stage.
Pramila Jayapal is Fighting Anti-Abortion Laws—With Her Own Abortion Story
In the wake of a slew of extreme anti-abortion laws passing through state legislatures across the country, Rep. Pramila Jayapal spoke up—and told her own abortion story. “I shared my story because I’ve been watching in horror as abortion bans are passed across the country,” she tweeted Tuesday. “You can’t say that we are free if we can’t make fundamental choices about our own bodies.”
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