Divya Mathur has built a career on understanding not just what consumers buy, but why.

In places where women rarely have access to traditional banking, they are excluded from financial systems that might otherwise help them build stable lives. Microcredit programs can help change that.

Three recent developments reveal how Cerberus Capital Management’s influence has spread through the Trump administration’s Pentagon—from Navy leadership, to defense procurement, to a new $200 billion investment initiative.

Recent polls show that 91 percent of voters support a national paid family and medical leave policy. But just 13 states and D.C. have paid family and medical leave programs.

As rural communities face the closure of hospitals and labor and delivery units, crisis pregnancy centers are growing in influence. #MsReads via @kffhealthnews.org

Looking for something to read this month? Our June feminist reading list has understandable science, histories of abortion and a “punk revival” of Medea.

"War is not inevitable. It persists because systems like the military-industrial complex profit from conflict and make peace seem impossible."

Despite the antidemocratic federal bill stalling in the Senate, new state laws that mimic parts of it will restrict voting for millions of Americans.

Legal and civil rights aid groups in New York City are demanding accountability and an investigation after a woman was handcuffed and forced to deliver her baby on a Brooklyn courthouse bench while in labor during an arraignment hearing on low-level charges. This is the War on Women report:

The U.S. is one of only seven countries lacking a federal mandate for paid maternal or family leave. Within the country, only 13 states and D.C. have paid family and medical leave programs.

In his first general election ad, Republican Ken Paxton accused his opponent, Democratic state Sen. James Talarico, of not having enough testosterone. #MsReads via @19thnews.org

A bill that would have identified a site on the National Mall to house the American Women’s History Museum was recently amended to limit the focus of the museum to achievements of “biological women” only—excluding trans women and girls entirely.

June marks the busiest month for primaries, with 15 states holding regularly scheduled primaries and three more states holding statewide runoffs on June 2.

On Friday, in response to a lawsuit brought by Democracy Forward, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s “anti-weaponization” fund—which would have directly funded the work of antiabortion extremists.

Journalist Jessica Valenti and advocates at If/When/How are seeing a pattern of CPS targeting mothers who assist their daughters in seeking abortion care. This is the War on Women report:

When domestic violence discussions, research and surveys focus only on individual intimate partners, excluding familial, communal and systemic sources of violence, their reach is limited.

"Putin’s military is trying to destroy us not only physically, but psychologically as well—to take away our identities. We are surviving physically, but we are also preserving our identities and our pride."

The Trump administration’s obsession with diversity, equity and inclusion continues to wreak havoc.

Have you gotten my book The Instigators: How Black Women Have Been Essential To American Democracy (And What We Can Learn From Them) yet? If not check out an excerpt @msmagazine.com ran on Black women electeds & the data that shows they push a progressive economic agenda that benefits everyone

Update: On Friday, May 29, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema blocked the Trump administration’s “anti-weaponization” fund. The restraining order is intended "to ensure that no funds are irreversibly disbursed" before the lawsuit against the fund has a chance to play out.

"The Trump administration is using multiple levers of federal power—and taxpayer dollars—to coerce women and girls into marriage and motherhood, and erect barriers to college education and careers."

While supremacist beliefs regularly appear with such intersections of multiple dehumanizing and conspiracist ideologies, coverage often appears to struggle with this, focusing on one ideological strand and neglecting the other elements of the belief system.

"We need more progressive Black women in public office for myriad reasons—but we also specifically need the younger generation of instigators in office, candidates who understand the times in which we live currently."

While the world has banned torture, survivors are often neglected or sidelined. A new charter written by people who have experienced this most violent of crimes sets out their demands to the world to help them recover.

"While supremacist beliefs regularly appear with such intersections of multiple dehumanizing and conspiracist ideologies, coverage often appears to struggle with this, focusing on one ideological strand and neglecting the other elements of the belief system."

Update: The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into writer E. Jean Carroll over whether she committed perjury during depositions tied to her civil lawsuits against Donald Trump. The move comes after two juries found Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation against Carroll.

Getting desensitised to Trump’s evil but did you know his administration is getting ready to fund violent anti-abortion vigilantes and he’s using the Justice Department to harass the woman he raped? msmagazine.com/2026/05/26/t...

On this day in 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law. Trump wants to keep Jackson’s image on the front of the $20 bill. I prefer Harriet Tubman. #WeTheMen msmagazine.com/2025/04/22/t...

"Robbie and I are here to show you he can be beaten. He can be beaten. I’m an old, 81-year-old woman, and we beat him twice." - E. Jean Carroll And they'll beat him again. @msmagazine.com; @michelebgoodwin.bsky.social; @ejeancarroll.bsky.social; @robbiekaplan.bsky.social From Aug. 2025:

Efforts to interfere in elections will likely continue—but raising awareness and local organizing can also shape the response to threats to our democratic norms.

Medical standards say it’s necessary for doctors to offer abortion. Women have died without it. But in states with bans, lawyers often decide if patients get care. #MsReads via @propublica.org

As Rollins and USDA further restrict the types of food available through SNAP, the budget would also have deep cuts to WIC, limiting access to fresh fruits and vegetables.

Taliban restrictions on Afghanistan’s media sector are intensifying, with Afghan press freedom groups recording at least 150 violations over the past year. More in the latest Ms. Global:

"President Trump is encouraging violence against healthcare workers by sending an unmistakable message: Not only will you face no consequences, but you could also be handsomely rewarded."

🗣️ #WPSWednesday: “The devastation that the #Iran war has inflicted continues to ripple outward...As time goes on, fewer & fewer will be immune to the impacts—& civilian populations around the globe will suffer.” @msmagazine.com msmagazine.com/2026/05/24/m...

“I knew that the answer to breaking the cycle that I had been going in since I was 15 was going to come through education." How women impacted by incarceration are building new futures for themselves and their communities. Originally published on @msmagazine.com.

'Is God Is' transcends into a stereotype-busting referendum on what rage-fueled justice might look like for Black women—a vision that is equal parts messy and meaningful, writes @profjch.bsky.social.

"From the minute we’re born, we are confronted with having to look at ourselves through how men are perceiving us." Director Ivy Meeropol on the challenges of making a film about E. Jean Carroll, Trump’s most formidable legal adversary:

Over 4M Americans have already had their SNAP benefits taken away, and it is going to get worse. States are weighing whether to leave the program. Millions of families could lose food access based on than where they live. This is a hunger catastrophe. Read in from our CEO in @msmagazine.com:

The @natabortionfed.bsky.social is suing to stop a new $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that could write checks to extremists terrorizing abortion providers.

Millions have already lost food assistance under sweeping Republican cuts to SNAP. The proposed FY2027 budget would only make the hunger crisis worse.

My take on #IsGodIs in @msmagazine.com

“It’s a dangerous idea to militarize American society through the existence of a draft," says scholar and lawyer Stephen Rohde. "We should be going in the opposite direction—demilitarizing society and looking for peaceful, diplomatic, humanitarian ways to solve problems.”

The Trump administration’s anti-feminism, and Pete Hegseth’s version of it in the Pentagon, are themselves part of a much larger history of male backlash against women’s gains.

“My life hung in the balance when a provider determined that, despite my immediate need for life-saving care, he didn’t want to provide it. It shouldn’t take another person subjectively determining the value of my life, or being raped, to realize that these policies are wrong."

"Watching a family movie is not the same as setting your toddler loose in YouTube kids. Posting a photo to friends and family is not the same as using your kid for public branded content." #MsReads via @jillfilipovic.bsky.social

Across four new episodes, Dr. Michele Goodwin speaks with leading Black women scholars about human rights, interracial marriage, maternal health, bodily autonomy, and the legal systems that have shaped American life over the last 250 years.

"Male podcasters shape conversations about masculinity every single day — whether they intend to or not." #MsReads via @jacksonkatz.bsky.social

President Trump’s so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund” is a corrupt scheme to enrich his allies while politically discriminating against people, like our plaintiffs, who have been harmed by Republican administrations. It's unconstitutional – we will prove it in court.

“If you go after Boy Scouts, 10-year-old kids doing literally the most American thing ever,” Thakur told The Texas Tribune, “how can you also say the issue is assimilation?”