Sex and Relationships

Project 2026 Declares Open War on Women’s Rights

PUBLISHED 12/13/2025 by

When The Heritage Foundation released its new policy blueprint for 2026 this week—an extension of the now-infamous Project 2025—it did so with the calm confidence of an institution convinced no one will stop it. The document is shorter than last year’s 900-page “Mandate for Leadership,” but no less dangerous. It is, in fact, more candid.

Project 2026 lays out a government redesigned to control women’s bodies, erase LGBTQ+ lives, dismantle civil rights protections and roll back decades of hard-won progress. Wrapped in the language of “family,” “sovereignty” and “restoring America,” it is a direct attempt to impose a narrow, rigid ideology on an entire nation.

Make no mistake: This is a plan for forced motherhood, government-policed gender and the end of women’s equality as we know it.

But Project 2026 is not destiny. It is a warning—and one we must answer with the full force of a movement that has never accepted a future written for us by someone else.

Police Officer Domestic Violence Is A Crisis. It’s Time for States to Take Action.

PUBLISHED 12/11/2025 by

Domestic violence by police officers is a nationwide scourge. While the actual number of cases that happen every year is unknown, it’s likely in the tens of thousands. Police officers in almost every state have been charged with domestic violence since the start of 2025. Such figures demonstrate that police officer domestic violence is a structural failure, not the isolated misconduct of ‘a few bad apples.’

These numbers become even more sobering in light of police officer-abusers’ training and responsibilities, which makes them uniquely dangerous, and extremely undertrained: Less than 2 percent of police academy training time is spent on domestic violence response, while 17 percent is spent on weapons and defensive training.

Officer-abusers and their victims make clear that something is deeply wrong in our domestic violence support system. For now, we don’t understand the depth of that dysfunction, but we can be certain that more funding, better policy and less criminalization will help drive a better future.

Sex, Power and Impunity: Epstein’s Legacy in Historical Perspective

PUBLISHED 12/3/2025 by

The scandal that has preoccupied much of mainstream U.S. politics has, been, at one level, delightful: We have seen extremist Republicans—Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Thomas Massie and Nancy Mace—break with their party and its president in an effort to force into light the U.S. Department of Justice files on convicted sex trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 

The story is almost irresistible for critics of the current national administration, feminists among them: Will we finally get to items from Epstein like the CD labeled “girl pics nude book 4”? What might these materials reveal? And whose misbehavior might they reveal?  

Fire the starting gun on analyses from every liberal, left, critical corner. Claims abound of shifting coalitions, changing tides, pages turned, a president’s authority shredded. 

But there are still as many questions stirring in the Epstein pot as there are answers. Why did these particular Republicans break from the pack? Is this a contemporary Republican version of feminism? 

And beneath them all: What good does it actually do us—or Epstein’s particular victims, or the scads of other victims of sexual coercion, trafficking and other mistreatment—to raise the heat so high on this particular scandal?

Actually It’s Good That Fewer High Schoolers Want to Get Married

PUBLISHED 11/20/2025 by

High schoolers, and especially high school girls, are less likely than ever to say that they want to get married someday, according to new research from Pew Research Center. While boys have stayed fairly stable in how many of them say they want to marry, girls have gone from overwhelmingly wanting marriage to being even less likely than boys to want to wed.

Conservative groups and writers have met this new survey with some panic. If 12th graders don’t want to get married, I guess the logic goes, then they won’t get married, and America’s declining rates of marriage and childbearing will continue and will eventually destroy society. To them, this new survey indicates a broader social shift away from marriage and childbearing, which is bad, because in their view, the nuclear family is the good and necessary backbone of any moral and functional culture. 

But actually, it’s great that far fewer high school girls are even thinking about marriage.

The teenage girls who are thinking about their weekends instead of their weddings? They’re doing something right. 

Meet Dr. Lincoln, the Internet’s Favorite OB-GYN

PUBLISHED 10/18/2025 by

You may know—and love—Dr. Jennifer Lincoln already. If you are unfamiliar, she’s a board-certified OB-GYN and a famous content creator with 2.8 million followers on TikTok and large platforms on Instagram and YouTube. Dr. Lincoln is also a practicing OB-hospitalist who works in labor and delivery, night and day.

She makes content to dispel medical misinformation, a frequent tool of the patriarchy. As ‘MAHA’ influencers decry everything from birth control to Tylenol, at the expense of women, she’s pushing back with evidence-based information.

Like most Americans, I felt uninformed about sexual reproductive health, even after my in-school health classes. In high school, I searched YouTube for information about reproductive health, where I found my way to Dr. Lincoln, who not only provided the health class I never had, but also ignited my interest in reproductive justice. Without her influence, I likely would not have become a feminist writer at Ms.

Over Zoom, I had the privilege of chatting with Dr. Lincoln about her journey from OB-GYN to viral educator, how the post-Dobbs landscape has reshaped her work, and why she believes accurate, inclusive sex education is one of the most powerful tools we have for liberation. Our conversation spanned everything from social media strategy to Christian nationalism—and what it really means to fight misinformation with empathy.

Would Charlie Kirk Be Mourned the Same if He Were Single and Childless?

PUBLISHED 10/10/2025 by

After Charlie Kirk’s assassination, many mourners grieved the untimely death of a “father and husband.” Opinions of his rhetoric aside, the unintended implication is that he would be less worthy of being mourned if he were single and childless.

As a 47-year-old male who’s never been married and has little to no interest in dating, you’d better believe I’ve been asked questions like, “When are you gonna settle down?” and “why are you still single?” But this isn’t about me venting. It’s about what’s behind these questions: the core assumption that not having a partner is lacking.

Embattled, Yet Empowering: ‘One Battle After Another’ Smashes Centuries-Old Paradigm of Black Victimhood

PUBLISHED 10/10/2025 by

Paul Thomas Anderson is not the first to subvert one Black femme stereotype after another. He’s just the whitest. However, the director’s latest film, One Battle After Another, serves to hold up a mirror to 2025 America.

Some critics have accused Anderson of writing Black women who are too sexualized, stereotypical or sidelined. However, recent interviews reveal that actors were often encouraged to go off script in order to add more authenticity to their roles. So it’s likely that many of the shades of gray used to paint these Black women as imperfect yet inspiring insurgents are derived from the Black women with whom PTA collaborates and cohabitates.

For me, the results defied history with humor and humanity.

Escaping Abuse Isn’t Easy. Here’s What Survivors and Experts Want You to Know.

PUBLISHED 10/8/2025 by

On Oct. 3, Sean “Diddy” Combs was sentenced to 50 months in federal prison, five years of supervised release and a $500,000 fine. Throughout, the question echoed: “Why didn’t she just leave?” 

“That’s the wrong question,” said Tonya King, vice president of programs at the National Network to End Domestic Violence. “We need to start asking: How can we keep a survivor safe in the first place?”

Trump Administration Attacks Teen Pregnancy Prevention Just in Time for the New School Year

PUBLISHED 9/8/2025 by

The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPPP) is a nationwide, evidenced-based program working with diverse organizations to prevent teen pregnancy. It’s so successful, it’s become a target: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a new policy this summer to restrict and possibly derail its own TPPP.

To receive TPPP funds for research and community programs, all grantees must recognize the “immutable biological reality of sex,” deny “radical gender ideology,” and refrain from promoting “anti-American ideologies such as discriminatory equity ideology.” They must also inform parents of any programs or services that “may burden their religious exercise.” Already, in the U.S., if kids get sex ed at all, it’s likely to be abstinence-only. The effect (and likely the intent) of the new policy will be to make the TPPP inaccessible to those who need it.

Young people are getting the message loud and clear: Religious ideology takes precedence over their health, well-being and rights.

Finding the Power in Single Black Motherhood

PUBLISHED 8/24/2025 by

We can say, “We knew this would happen,” and tell Black single mothers, “I told you so,” all day long, but then what? There’s something hollow in the phrase—especially when it follows public documentation of abuse.

If we are people who truly believe that Halle Bailey, Keke Palmer and Skai Jackson deserved better, then we should be extending that same belief to the women we actually know.

(This essay is part of a collection presented by Ms. and the Groundswell Fund highlighting the work of Groundswell partners advancing inclusive democracy.)