Dear John,

This year marks a major milestone for female athletes. For the first time in Olympic history, women and men compete in the same number of events, and women now make up 48.8 percent of the total field of Olympians. Feminist athletes and officials inside the Olympic movement and feminist advocates and leaders in Congress have waged a decades long battle to get us to this day. It’s a win for female representation in sports and for women and girls everywhere, but we still have a long way to go when it comes to pay equality, required Olympic athletic wear (bikini bottoms?) and how we’re covered in the media. 

This week, we take a deep dive into the politics surrounding women’s health. 

In the latest episode of our podcast On the Issues, host Michele Goodwin and her guests tackle the taboo subjects of sex, menstruation, and LGBTQ+ health—it’s the talk you wish you got from your parents. “Our nation does a grave disservice to sexual and reproductive health, and we see that. We see that when it comes to the really ballooning epidemic of sexual transmitted infections. We see that when we come to the Black maternal mortality and morbidity crisis,” says Kelly Davis, vice president for global birth equity and innovation at the National Birth Equity Collaborative. Adds Jennifer Weiss Wolf, founder of Period Equity, “We’ve all grown up with the stigma and taboo and shame that surrounds menstruation, and we also have grown up, I would say here in the United States, in a fully unrepresentative democracy, as much as we like to tell ourselves otherwise sometimes,” which is why, she explains “… menstruation really was not addressed in any productive way in our laws.” 

I also hope you read our report on how anti-abortion politics is restricting the use of mifepristone as an effective treatment for fibroid tumors, which afflict 26 million women in the U.S. The condition can cause heavy periods, severe pain and difficulty conceiving. But the FDA has restricted the use of this critical medicine—widely known as the abortion pill—because of anti-abortion politics. 

And in a separate article, we report on the politics of birth control access and the movement to allow the over-the-counter sale of birth control pills in the U.S. Currently, the FDA requires Americans to get a prescription from their doctors and refill it through a pharmacy, adding to the cost and putting undue burden on women—in contrast to much of the rest of the world. And the American Society for Emergency Contraception (ASEC) has launched a campaign called Emergency Contraception for Every Campus—known as EC4EC—to advocate for EC vending machines on college campuses.

Finally, this week, we take a look at the difference between the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the larger human infrastructure package—not so much the ‘inside the beltway who’s up and who’s down’—but the reasons Congress must pass both if we’re to have an economy that works for everyone. As we conclude, women disproportionately faced the consequences of a weak caregiving infrastructure during COVID, and the usefulness of roads, railways, ports and bridges diminishes when those who use them have basic needs going unmet.  

Thank you for keeping up with the world with Ms.

For equality,

Kathy Spillar
Executive Editor