Reproductive Justice in Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf”

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2022

Abstract

Reproductive justice embodies the right for a woman to have a child, not have a child, and parent in a safe and healthy environment (Ross and Solinger in Reproductive Justice: An Introduction, 2017). In her article, “What is Reproductive Justice? How Women of Color Activists Are Redefining the Pro-Choice Paradigm,” Kimala Price asserts, “Women must be able to freely exercise these rights without coercion. Although reproductive justice activists acknowledge that an emphasis on gaining legal rights, lobbying, and electoral politics is not necessarily a bad thing, they argue that there has to be an intersectional analysis and the acknowledgment of oppression in order for women to truly gain freedom” (2010). Since race, gender, and class are intersectional realities that generally prevent Black women from gaining the same power as White women, it is logical to assume that Black women have fewer opportunities to exert their reproductive power. This chapter will examine reproductive justice among the Black female protagonists in the 2010 Tyler Perry film adapted from Ntozake Shange’s 1975 original choreopoem “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf.” This work examines the characters, particular scenes from the film, the words uttered by these women, as well as the emotions that these Black women use to reveal their relationships with themselves, the individuals in their lives, and each other. This chapter will also discuss the internal and external forces that influence Black women to bear children, not bear children, and parent in precarious and nurturing environments. Reproductive justice embodies a conscious fragility and/or malleability that is largely contingent on the social support networks of Black women.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Palgrave Handbook of Reproductive Justice and Literature

First Page

85

Last Page

105

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