Weekly Media Round Up: May 30, 2025

Gender on the Ballot Team | May 30, 2025

Welcome to the Media Round Up! This week we’re collecting and sharing our favorite gender + politics stories.

Hitting a paywall? Some sources allow a few free articles without a subscription, and your university or local library may offer free access. For example, AU students, faculty, and staff have access to popular newspapers through the library. Click here to learn more.

Prove Citizenship to Vote? For Some Married Women, It Might Not Be So Easy
Washington Post, Patrick Marley and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez

As some Republican-led states move to require voters to prove their citizenship, voting rights advocates and Democrats warn that the plans could prove “particularly tricky” for those who change their names, including women who do so when they get married or divorced. The emerging laws – which are part of a GOP effort led by President Donald Trump to strengthen requirements to cast ballots – could drive down voter participation from a “much larger pool of legitimate voters,” according to election experts. In Texas, for example, a controversial measure that could make it harder for eligible voters to get on rolls because of changed names passed the state Senate last month, and Republican advocates are hoping to advance the bill through the House by next week. Now, Democrats are bracing for changes that could decrease turnout among those who align with their party, including women and low-income voters.

Kamala’s Future Plans
Following former Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat in the 2024 general election, speculation about her future plans has gained considerable coverage. In her home state of California, Republicans – who are exceedingly unlikely to win a gubernatorial race in such a blue state – are “begging” Harris to run for governor in 2026, hoping that her entry in the race could create a “fundraising bonanza” for otherwise longshot Republican hopefuls. Harris has reportedly given herself until late summer to decide whether or not to join the fray, but California Republicans are “acting as if Harris is already in the ring,” trying to capitalize on her name recognition to energize GOP donors and generate media attention. At the national level, Harris appears to be the “early frontrunner” for the 2028 presidential election. Though Harris lost all seven key swing states and the popular vote in 2024, recent polling shows that Harris remains the Democrats’ “overwhelming favorite” in the next general election.

With Their Trans Stance, Democrats Are Pushing Women Right Out of Their Party
The Hill, Kara Dansky

In an op-ed for The Hill, opinion contributor Kara Dansky contends that Democrats’ messaging has continued to push liberal activists – a core constituency for the base – out of their party. Arguing that voters across the country have “had it” with Democrats because of the party’s “stubborn insistence” on embracing identity-based ideology and “all things transgender,” Dansky contends that the party has been sacrificing women and girls at the “altar of gender identity.” Dansky attributes the party’s 2024 electoral defeat, in part, to their stance on gender ideology issues, noting that both men and women are renouncing their party affiliation over this subject.

U.S. Will No Longer Recommend Covid Shots for Children and Pregnant Women
The New York Times, Apoorva Mandavilli and Christina Jewett

On Tuesday, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the COVID vaccine will no longer be recommended for healthy children or pregnant women, ending the pandemic-era policy aimed at protecting Americans from the coronavirus. Stating that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would drop its “yearslong guidance” that the vaccine be offered to children six months and older, Kennedy also withdrew the recommendation for immunizing pregnant women. Public health experts have denounced the decision, with some condemning the decision to stop recommending the shots for pregnant women, who are at high risk of severe illness and developing complications from the virus. The decision is part of Kennedy’s efforts to dismantle “decades of vaccine safety policies.”

Creatively Cruel: GOP’s Abortion Crackdown Means Losing A Pregnancy Could Land You In Jail
MSNBC, Ali Velshi

In the almost three years since the Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to an abortion, MSNBC’s Ali Velshi asserts that post-Roe America is turning out to be “much worse than most of us imagined.” Velshi maintains that we are witnessing the criminalization of women’s bodies: women aren’t just being arrested and jailed for their miscarriages; they are being pursued in “creatively cruel ways” as a direct result of “radical anti-abortion ideology.” Exploring the principle of fetal personhood, Velshi claims that if a fetus is considered a person in the eyes of the law, then any miscarriage could be treated as a potential homicide if a woman lives in the “wrong state.” As more states pass fetal personhood laws, Velshi believes this problem will only get worse; these laws declare that fertilized eggs have the same legal rights as people, even though they cannot survive outside of the womb.

Orwell’s ‘1984’ Is Now – Thanks to Trump’s Playbook of Reversal, Gaslighting, and Control
Ms. Magazine, Carrie N. Baker

Though the Trump administration claims to defend gender equality, professor and Ms. Magazine contributing editor Carrie N. Baker believes that the White House is weaponizing feminist rhetoric to attack women’s rights. In higher education, the Trump administration has “justified” its attack on gender studies by contending that these fields are discriminatory because they “study discrimination.” Additionally, the administration has eliminated Title IX protections against sexual harassment and assault in schools, simultaneously insisting that they are the ones who are fighting discrimination. Conservatives are also invoking women’s rights to attack other marginalized communities – the administration’s efforts to withdraw federal funding from schools who allow trans women to participate in women’s sports ultimately hurts women’s sports, but “Trump doesn’t care because, of course, it was never about supporting female athletes.” Baker fears that continuing down the current trajectory will reduce us to becoming the “controlled and manipulated” society of Orwell’s 1984.