More Than A Magazine, A Movement
As Americans prep for the holidays and the time off from paid work that comes with them, I suspect many working moms are steeling ourselves for a season that feels anything but restful.
The weight of society’s expectations of working moms on a normal day is crushing. As the mother of two young children, an attorney fighting for due process for immigrants in the second Trump administration and a clinical law professor, I know this firsthand.
Gift-giving may seem small, a holiday ritual, a birthday moment, a simple gesture. But it lays a cultural and societal foundation. Children need stories that build possibilities, not break them into stereotypes. They need toys that expand their sense of self, not shrink it.
A new public awareness campaign, “Out of Office for Care,” launched this week invites employees to set their “OOO” automated email replies to accurately reflect the array of care responsibilities that pull them away from work, and then share those messages publicly.
People across industries—artists, founders, caregivers, cultural influencers, nurses, educators, nonprofit leaders, small business owners and parents—can give the country an unfiltered look at why they step away from work, and what it costs to do so without paid leave.
OOO replies range from clever to catastrophic. Some name the person they are caring for; others reveal the exhaustion of trying to do it all. All together, they show a country exerting caring in every direction and a policy landscape that hasn’t caught up.
Among those making the rounds:
—”I’m OOO because inexplicably school ends at 3 and work ends at 5 at best. … I can’t keep up, I need sleep, I’m getting a cold, everything is expensive and unnecessarily hard, and the holidays are coming.”
—”I’m OOO because my parents are getting older and I can’t manage their RX and 500 unread emails at once. In-home care is $60K and I have limited PTO. WiIl get back to you ASAP!”
—“Hi, sorry to miss you! I’m OOO because I just gave birth, but like 1 in 4 women in the U.S. I’ll be back at work in a couple weeks.”
For years, many have nicknamed January “Divorce Month” and the first working Monday as “Divorce Day,” as if floods of filings hit courthouses across the country right after the ball drops. But that’s not the case.
March is a bigger month for the D-word. August is nothing to sneeze at either, according to a study by the University of Washington. So what’s the big deal with January? You could say the first of the year pushes sideline spectators, who’ve watched others split, to start dipping their toes in the divorce waters. In the end, nearly 70 percent of divorces are initiated by women.
Amid Iran’s oppressive crackdown on dissent, activist and artist Reza Khandan, husband of human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, faces brutal imprisonment for championing women’s rights and freedom of choice.
On Dec. 20, Reza called from Evin Prison to leave this message with a surprisingly strong voice: “I continue to stay true to my pledge of defending women and human rights. I continue to oppose the heavy and unjust sentences given to my wife and the difficult circumstances brought on my children, whose grace and patience through the ordeals have given us strength and peace of mind. I wish you a happy Yalda [Winter Solstice] and hope for better days.”
For millions of women, the new year rings in a commitment to dieting. With the recent headlines that three quarters of Americans are now overweight or obese, we can expect surging spending on diet products targeting women this holiday season—adding to the estimated $33 billion that Americans already spend on commercial weight loss products each year.
As an anthropologist who studies how people make sense of nutrition guidelines, I’d like to propose a feminist alternative. Forget dieting: Make a commitment to become involved in collective action—anything that involves joining others in your communities to work for change. It is by working with others that lasting health benefits will come about.
The holiday season, often considered a time of joy and togetherness, can also be one of the most challenging periods for those who are grieving a loss.
As a clinical psychologist and professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences working with cancer patients and their families, I see the profound toll grief takes on people. I’ve also experienced grief personally, both when my mother died suddenly at the age of 66 and when my father passed after a long illness at the age of 84. Those experiences, combined with my research, have driven me to dedicate much of my career to understanding grief and its effects, and to finding effective ways to support those who are struggling with it.
This week’s winter solstice marks the beginning of the winter season when the darkness reaches its peak in the Northern Hemisphere. But with the solstice comes the promise of brighter days ahead. After today, the days will gradually grow longer—reminding us that light and hope are just around the corner, even in the darkest times. […]
On Jan. 1, 2024, California began enforcing Assembly Bill 1084, a landmark bill in the movement for a more inclusive toy culture. Reinforcing the traditional gender binary through toys, for the first time in history, will be a civil offense.
The impetus for the legislation is straight out of 1970s toy campaigns against gender-based marketing—like Ms. magazine’s “Toys for Free Children” and the Ms. Foundation’s “Free to Be … You and Me.”
In a country where roughly two out of every five parents struggle to afford care for their kids, many couples have resorted to parenting in shifts: One parent looks after the kid(s) while the other works, and then they swap.
I asked my social media followers: What is split-shift parenting like in 2023? One word popped up over and over again: exhausting. And when the whole family is stretched thin, we know exactly who picks up the slack: moms.
Moms deserve more options. Better options. Sustainable options—and they need them urgently.