Gender Issues In Listen Up ! New Voices For Reproductive Justice

1) Intersectionality

Intersectionality is how women’s experiences within a culture vary depending on race, class, ethnicity, nationality, disability, age, sexual orientation, region and religion (Burn 8). For example, in the film, “Listen Up! New Voices for Reproductive Justice,” the director emphasizes how current mainstream women’s issues are a reflection of the issues females in the white middle class sector face. Thus, since mainstream women’s issues are more common, the world has trouble understanding how mainstream problems are different for women of diverse backgrounds. This is exemplified by Loretta Ross, who has been fighting for people to realize that women of color encounter different issues (such as abortion) that are separate from the mainstream:

. . many times [they] are prevented from having children that [they] want to have, as well as the right to terminate a pregnancy when [they] want to” (Listen Up! New Voices for Reproductive Justice, 00:07:20).
This term matters to gender equality and social justice because it forces people to both think outside the box, and to realize that gender issues are not as straightforward as it seems. That is, it forces people to dig deeper and to recognize that gender issues are unique for each person and stems from many social factors, such as race, class, ethnicity etc. Thus, intersectionality helps individuals understand how these different factors result in different issues faced by an individual; ultimately, allowing individuals to determine different effective resolutions in order to solve these diverse