President Biden’s American Rescue Plan included billions for the training of mental health professionals, and community-based programs. The proposals the Biden administration is enacting might seem like they were inevitable, but none of these changes would be possible without decades of work by those in the activist community.
Category: Herstory
Our Abortion Stories: ‘You Aren’t Thinking of Having It, Are You?’ Were His First Words
‘Our Abortion Stories’ chronicles readers’ experiences of abortion pre- and post Roe. Abortions are sought by a wide range of people, for many different reasons. There is no single story. (Share your abortion story by emailing myabortionstory@msmagazine.com.)
Ms. Muse: Melissa Studdard on the Power of Poetry to Create the World We Want
Ms. Muse is a discovery place for riotous, righteous and resonant feminist poetry that nourishes and gives voice to a rising tide of female resistance.
How do you redeem a woman’s worst nightmare lived—or at least one of them? How do you give a mute, silenced or dead woman a voice? These are a few of the questions answered by Melissa Studdard’s poems.
“after I died / I put my clothes back on. / Like women do. / When everything has been taken.”
Teaching the Deep Roots of Abortion in America
Having honest conversations about our nation’s history in and outside the classroom is as urgent as ever. Despite Alito’s protestations, abortion has been and will continue to be an integral part of our nation’s past, present and future.
A closer look at American women’s past and present—where nearly one in four women obtain an abortion by the age of 45—illustrates that abortion has deep roots, which began centuries before Roe v. Wade and will continue long after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
White Christians Are Still Taking Native Children
The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in a case, challenging the constitutionality of the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).
The lead plaintiffs, the Brackeens, are a well-to-do white, evangelical Texan couple, who are seeking to adopt a Navaho girl against the wishes of her relatives, who want to adopt her themselves. Among other arguments, the Brackeens allege reverse racism—that the law discriminates against them based on their race in violation of the equality guarantees of the U.S. Constitution.
But this is just the most recent chapter in a long history of white people taking Native children from their parents, tribes and cultures.
The Pioneering Black Sci-Fi Writer Behind the Original Wakanda
MIT rarely allows Hollywood films to be shot on their campus. So it was a surprise when an email went out in 2021, alerting students that a film titled Summer Break would be filming at the school. Turns out, this was the working title of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
But something else was special about Wakanda Forever’s filming location. The MIT scenes were shot a stone’s throw from where, a century before, Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins worked at the Institute. Hopkins is credited with inventing the setting that eventually became Wakanda in her science fiction, but her name isn’t widely known.
“She was a powerhouse, an innovator and an intellectual dynamo.”
Where Are the Voices of Indigenous Peoples in the Thanksgiving Story?
The Thanksgiving story many of us grew up learning in school neglects the voices and experiences of the Indigenous nations whose lands were invaded by Europeans, including the Pilgrims.
How do state-mandated history standards represent Indigenous peoples in social studies education? In this season of “Thanksgiving,” should we revise curriculums to be more accurate and culturally relevant?
Anna May Wong’s Legacy of Inclusion
Anna May Wong earned notoriety in Hollywood as a huge talent in the 1920s and ’30s by singlehandedly challenging the industry to redefine its concept of what constitutes a leading lady. It’s only fitting—and long overdue—that she is now being nationally celebrated as the fifth woman featured in the U.S. Mint’s American Women’s Quarters Program.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Fearless Feminist Legacy
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be remembered for many things: securing passage of the Affordable Care Act; recruiting more women and diverse candidates to run for office (“organize, don’t agonize” was her mantra!); and guiding the nation through the nightmare of the Trump years.
Quite simply, though, she’ll be remembered as the Best. Speaker. Ever.
Our Abortion Stories: ‘Please, God. Please Make Me Not Pregnant.’
‘Our Abortion Stories’ chronicles readers’ experiences of abortion pre- and post Roe. Abortions are sought by a wide range of people, for many different reasons. There is no single story. (Share your abortion story by emailing myabortionstory@msmagazine.com.)
“It’s a choice every girl and woman deserves to have. Having that choice saved my life.”
“I no longer feel shame. What I feel now is anger, anger at a system that hates and punishes those who choose what to do with their bodies. No one should ever have to have an illegal abortion. No man, or woman who parrots men, should decide that for us.”