Ms. Magazine Hasn't Aged Well

At some point, women's rights became secondary to mainstream "feminist" organizations.

A recent story in the New York Times celebrates the 50th anniversary of Ms. Magazine with an interview of founders but not a word was printed about fragile state of women today.

Ms. Magazine began as a hive of innovation, energy and hope. Today it is a symptom of something that has gone wrong for women.

Case in point:

Ketanji Brown Jackson, at her hearing to become a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, declared that she can’t define the word “woman.”

“I am not a biologist,” she explained.

When Ms. Magazine began in 1972, we all knew what a woman was. She was a second class citizen who could be denied entry to top universities and professions. She could be beaten with impunity by her partner. She was forced to bear unwanted children or face the horror of a back alley abortion. If she said she was raped, she was often deemed at fault because she of her wardrobe choice.

And that’s white women. Things were worse for minority women.

“Ain’t I a woman,” asked Sojourner Truth.

The old feminist groups seem to have lost their vision somewhere along the way. Today, they hold that biological males who “identify” as women are the same as biological women. They encourage the confusion expressed by Judge Jackson, while ignoring all kinds of behaviors that are hurting women (i.e., sexually violent online porn and video games).

Transwomen are important and worthy of recognition and love. Their lives matter. This is not about trans women.

Biological women have special needs and vulnerabilities. Among other things:

• Women experience menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth and menopause.

• Women and girls are not as strong as men and elite female athletes can’t compete with their elite male counterparts.

• Because of the strength differential, women are vulnerable to abuse when biological men who “identify” as women are granted access to women’s spaces (i.e., bathrooms, locker rooms, female prisons). Especially if the biological male hasn’t identified with women long enough to surgically transition.

• Women still suffer far higher rates of sex abuse than men.

It’s a problem that Ms. Magazine and Judge Jackson don’t know how to define a women. This makes the position of women in society more vulnerable to having their needs overlooked and to abuse by males.

Arguably, the real feminists today aren’t found in the pages of Ms. Magazine.

They are people like British author J.K. Rowling, 56, who had a problem with a story about “people who menstruate.” She tweeted: ‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” Then all hell broke loose.