While reading selected chapters from Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize For Reproductive Justice the importance of language stands out as a central theme. In this blog post I will focus on the issues with the rhetoric of Pro-Choice and why Reproductive Justice is a more inclusive framing of the movement.
Women of color activists believe that Pro-Choice terminology is too narrow and is really only applicable to middle class white women. It invalidates and disregards women with multiple marginal identities. Choice rhetoric assumes that legality of abortion is all we need. However legality of an option does not make the option accessible especially when systems of oppression based on race and class are set in society serving as barriers. Legality is not enough.
A Reproductive Justice framing includes the fact that women’s reproductive issues do not include just the right to an abortion. Women should also have the human right to have a child. The Pro-Choice movement completely disregards that women of color have been systemically sterilized throughout history. Women of color are also affected by environmental racism, this affects indigenous women at a very high rate. Lack of healthcare information, coverage, and culturally competent providers serve as a barrier to reproductive health services. The mainstream Pro-Choice movement, and specifically white feminists like Margaret Sanger, who is often called the mother of birth control, used eugenic rhetoric to pass the legalization of birth control.
The importance of language and platforms addressed in Undivided Rights makes me think about the white feminist “pink pussy hats” at the women’s march for the passed two years. This is yet another example of cisgender white women dismissing the fact that not all vaginas are pink and not all women have vaginas! Similar to the Pro-Choice movement only focusing on white middle class issues such as legalizing abortion, White Feminists at the women’s march support only their own issues and then go to the extent of putting a pink pussy hat on Harriet Tubman, and then have the audacity to wonder why black women and other women of color do not “work” with white women or do not care about “women’s issues”.
https://www.racked.com/2018/1/22/16920814/harriet-tubman-pink-pussy-hat-women-of-color-intersectional-feminism
What are other examples of white women throughout history and in the present excluding women of color. How can we (other white women) intervene in these situations?
I really liked what you said in your blog. But, I was confused with how using the term pro-choice is less inclusive than using the term reproductive justice. Undivided Rights is a lengthy reading. So, it would have been helpful to include an area of reference. I liked the riff section when you included the fact that not all women have vaginas. I think that sometimes people forget that. I wish that could reference the reading somewhere, but I am not sure where to reference from because your blog's topic seems very broad.
ReplyDeleteTeach. When intervening it's important to understand to use that as a teaching moment while respecting the voices of marginalized women. Speaking on behalf of the marginalized, don't necessarily speak for them. Direct them to literature and videos of women speaking of their experience, if possible.Constantly correct those who may express some bias.
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