U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran four days ago pushed oil from $70 to over $80 a barrel [add news source link here]. The Strait of Hormuz — through which a fifth of global oil moves — is disrupted, and that cost ripples through every supply chain and into every household already stretched by inflation. When COVID broke down school meal programs across six states in 2020, we wrote about what low-income women do when food access collapses. The supply chain is breaking again — and so is the housing math. Rising costs hit separated and widowed mothers first. That was true before this conflict. It will be true after.
Conflict means deployments, and deployments mean loneliness — a specific, undercounted kind. Multiracial women report loneliness at 21%, with Black and Hispanic women close behind: numbers that disappear when data are aggregated. A woman whose partner ships out doesn’t show up in a headline saying men and women are equally lonely. Thirty thousand women transition out of the military each year, citing long deployments, dependent care, and being separated from their children for months at a time. For veterans, a new war resurfaces old weight — and the promotion structure they navigated, with Black women underrepresented at every officer rank, grows no more equitable under pressure.
War sharpens the question of who belongs. Families are still hanging flags as proof they belong — but with Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations escalating, the question is no longer how many generations it takes to prove Americanness. It’s whether any symbol is enough at all. For many of those same families, belonging also means access to jobs, healthcare, and education. Yet 51.6 million households were eligible for broadband assistance and only 13 million enrolled, leaving the most vulnerable further behind. When Anthropic said no to mass surveillance, it was a rare act of protection for communities with the least digital literacy and the most to lose.
Yesterday, Texas and North Carolina held the first major primaries of the 2026 midterm cycle. Despite the conflict in Iran, we are grateful that the freedom to organize still exists, at least for now.
This week, we also celebrate ten years of the Women’s Institute for Science, Equity and Race. Ten Years, Three Words (Science, Equity, and Race). One mission.