Spoiler Alert: Feminists are still fighting on.
Weekly Digest | July 13, 2019
Letter From an Editor
The week began with a marathon celebration: After the U.S. Women's National Team won their fourth World Cup, the victory march continued on TV, on Twitter, on Instagram and even in the streets of New York City. (So did the cheers calling for equal pay for equal play.)
And while all of us were watching and re-watching video footage of Megan Rapinoe declaring "I deserve this, I deserve everything," this week's feminist fights were spilling into the headlines.
Abortion rights activists were putting up pro-choice billboards in Texas this weekend to protest new anti-abortion policies, and within days this week Jeffrey Epstein and R. Kelly were both arrested and charged on charges of sex trafficking after years of evading accountability. (Labor Secretary Jeffrey Acosta is stepping down after outcry over his role in making much of that evasion easier.) On Tuesday, the Affordable Care Act ended up back in court, and the Trump administration launched a new agency to further its anti-woman, anti-LGBTQ agenda. On Thursday, the President finally relented in his fight to add a citizenship question to the Census. And on Friday, #Lights4Liberty events nationwide kept up the momentum of the fight against the Trump administration's intentional cruelty at the border.
What struck me in every story that filled my Twitter feed this week—and, then, filled our queue—was the persistence of feminists, and the power of their continued resistance.
Around the clock and across the calendar, feminist organizations have formed the front line in the fight to protect migrant children, and to provide necessary supplies to migrant families at the border. Despite widespread gaps in sexual and reproductive health and rights worldwide, millions of women raised their voices to be part of the White Ribbon Alliance's groundbreaking What Women Want campaign—which will now fuel policy agendas across the globe. And in advance of next week's news cycle, advocates are already ringing the alarm about unfinished feminist business on Capitol Hill.
If this political moment has taught us anything, it's that feminists aren't giving up. And that's always great news.
Onward,
Carmen Rios
Managing Digital Editor, Ms.
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