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| Ms. Magazine: Break the Chains! Column |
2009-10-23 00:00:00.0 |
Dear Friend:
Id like to let you know that the Fall issue of Ms. is just about to hit the newsstands, featuring my Backtalk column entitled Break the Chains! about our modern slavery problem and how women must once again be the core of an abolitionist movement.
As I write, "We talk about slavery as if it were a sordid part of our past and not still present. ... Sadly, slavery exists today, and it is more prevalent, more profitable, and more violent than ever before. There are more people forced into slavery now than at any other time in history. Experts estimate that, today, 27 million human beings are slaves. And that number, they say, is a conservative estimate. ... Slavery persists for a number of reasons and some of them dont reflect well on us as feminists." My article details how the average American woman can act as a lobbyist in eradicating modern slavery, the victims of which, according to the U.S. State Departments 2005 Report on Trafficking, are 80 percent women and girls, with a large majority forced into the sex industry. "Women were at the core of the abolitionist movement when it started," my article concludes, "and the moral imperative has only grown. In a world with more slaves than ever before, this is our fight."
The lead story in the new issue of Ms., Paycheck Feminism, reveals that women are now the majority of paid workers in the U.S. for the first time in historyyet business practices and public policies are still based on an outdated social contract crafted in the 1930s. Authors Karen Kornbluh and Rachel Homer suggest five ways to revamp work/life policy to take into account womens lives in the new millennium.
Other great features in the latest issue include a profile of whistleblower Brooksley Born, who questioned the lack of oversight of derivatives 11 years agobut no one would listen to her. Also, Ms. takes a look at the exciting new ways that domestic workers have found to organize for decent wages and humane conditions, uncovers how anti-abortion extremists are forging a new battleground in Nebraska and reveals the wealthy health-insurance interests behind the uproar against health-care reform.
On the cover of Ms. is the magazines famed cofounder, Gloria Steinem, along with her dear friend and longtime Ms. contributing editor Alice Walker. Inside, Steinemwho turned 75 this yearshares her birthday wishes for a feminist future, while Walker celebrates her with a very personal poem.
Ms. helps us to be righteously angry (instead of depressed) about whats going on in the world, and encourages us to use that energy to move forward. Look for it on newsstands or, even better, join the Ms. community at https://store.msmagazine.com/ and have the new issue sent right to your door.
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