How Did Ms. Magazine Miss 10/7? How did Dignity Also Miss It? 

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As we approach the anniversary of that dreadful day, I consulted some of my unpublished work to answer this question.

I have published often in the feminist academic journal titled Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence. They are absolutely excellent on the issue of sexual violence against women. However, Dignity did not publish anything about 10/7 in late 2023 or at anytime throughout 2024. Only in March of 2025 did they finally address the subject, but the journal covered their backside by careful even-handedness.

In March of 2025, Dignity published a piece about 10/7 written by two Israeli feminists, Shulamit Almog and Gal Amir. It is titled "Wells of Pain, Walls of Silence: October 7 and Sexual Violence Against Women at Wartime." It is a good piece. Almog and Amir are careful to point out, and correctly, that rape has increasingly become a weapon of war in general, not only an essential part of the "massacre" and kidnappings that Hamas perpetrated on 10/7; they also note the strangest silence among feminists that followed it. The Haifa authors describe the worldwide "rape denialism" as due to "sympathy for Palestinians" and a desire not to play into the "stereotype that Arab men are violent rapists."

In 2024, even the UN's Pramila Patten was forced to conclude that "overwhelming evidence and findings existed" that "rape and gang-rapes occurred across multiple locations of Israel and the Gaza periphery during the attacks on 7 October 2023."

To some extent, Almog and Amir's descriptions of so many other war-time rapes of women in both the ancient and contemporary world do, perhaps unintentionally, normalize or diminish the importance of what Hamas perpetrated or, rather, what was unique about 10/7. One is meant to think that whatever happened is not all that distinctive. I would argue that in some ways it is.

For example, feminists usually sympathize with the rape victims and not with their rapists; they do not view rape as a justified act of "resistance." In addition, war-time rapes are not usually filmed and shared both with the victims’ families and with the entire world.

Dr. Donna Hughes, Dignity's Editor, linked to this piece on her LinkedIn site but presented it as a discussion of "the reasons that women remain silent after sexual assault."

However, in July of 2025, Dignity also published a piece by none other than Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women. It is titled "Response to a Political Critique and Personal Attack Against a United Nations Report that Presented New Evidence About Prostitution as a Cause and Consequence of Violence Against Women and Girls.” Here, Alsalem is defending herself against criticism leveled against her by those who want to view prostitution as "sex work" and not, as Alsalem would have it, as "violence against women."

Alsalem remained silent about Hamas's violence on 10/7, and then, on July 7, 2025, nearly two years later, in a press conference, when so much credible forensic and witness information was already known, she also called for “immediate global action” to halt what she described as an unfolding “femicide” in Gaza, saying that the “scale and nature of the crimes inflicted on Palestinian women and girls by Israeli forces are so extreme that existing concepts in legal and criminal frameworks can no longer adequately describe or capture them.” Alsalem's language was extreme, exaggerated, false, perhaps even hallucinatory. She reported that Israeli forces raped the very Palestinian women whom they were, according to Alsalem, intent on genocidally exterminating.

I happen to agree with Alsalem in terms of her opposition to those who consider prostitution and trafficking as "sex work"—which is Dignity’s position as well—but based on Alsalem's silence about Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Qatar and their unending attacks on Israel, America, and their own people, I am disappointed in Dignity's even-handedness and its late-to-the-party coverage of 10/7.

A strange even-handedness indeed.

Here's another example of how a feminist magazine covered (or failed to cover) 10/7.

Ms. Magazine remained silent on 10/7/23, but then like Dignity, they buried the Israel-specific story amidst those in other war zones--in the usual agonizingly even-handed of ways. Of course, rape as a weapon, not as a spoil of war, has occurred in Bangladesh, Congo, Rwanda, Sudan, Bosnia, etc. However, on October 7th, 2024, a year later, and to the magazine's credit, Dr. Stacey Keltner published an important article at Ms. titled "Combating the silence around Hamas' sexual violence and the commission she founded are working to seek justice and address and prevent future war crimes."

Although that is a rather overblown title, the article featured only one Israeli feminist, Cochav Elyakam-Levy, who founded the Dvora-institute for Gender and Sustainability Studies. Cochav and her team published a report at the end of 2024, titled "Kinocide: The Weaponization of Families." Cochav is described as having traveled to the United Nations at least three times. According to Keltner, Cochav was "devastated" when none of the UN agencies responded, despite the fact that Cochav had been super careful to compare what happened on 10/7 to similar atrocities in Iraq, Syria, Rwanda, Bosnia, Myanmar, and other conflict zones, as if there are no unique features in each case. (Since then, Cochav has published a far more extensive report about 10/7.)

As to why Ms. Magazine focused only on Cochav remains something of a mystery. Aha! Dr. Keltner presents Cochav as "a staunch critic of Netanyahu's attacks on women's rights in Israel...and (on) ethnonational segregation between Arabs and Jews." One of Cochav's earlier reports "emphasized the great harm to all Israeli women, but especially Arab-Israeli women." This might explain it a bit. Keltner could have at least mentioned the work of Dr. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari on 10/7 or Qanta Ahmed's ongoing coverage of the forensic evidence found in Israel along the Gaza strip, almost immediately after 10/7.

Still, I welcome Ms.'s article--even if it only appeared a year after 10/7/23. But I have another concern. The author of the Ms. piece is an academic intellectual, with many areas of expertise, none of which concern Israel, Judaism, Jewish history, the nature and history of Islam, the history of the Middle East, or the history of Islamic terrorism. (This is typical of so many other American feminist academics.)

Dr. Keltner is the author of a book about Julia Kristeva, a French cultural theorist and philosopher. She has also contributed an article to a book about the philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir. Dr. Keltner is interested in the "intersections of phenomenology, psychoanalysis, gender studies, and social theory." She is a co-founder of Gender and Women's Studies. I would probably enjoy a conversation with her very much. And I must congratulate her on an apparently good piece--except not one that is based on any expertise whatsoever.

C'mon girls, Ladies, Women: We can do better than this. Can't we?