This Sunday is International Women’s Day, and to celebrate, we passed the mic to two organizers from Milwaukee’s International Women’s Day Coalition.
For this month’s Group Chat, Kayla Patterson and KJ Johnson talk about what womanhood means to them and why the fight for reproductive justice continues.
They also highlight the events the coalition has planned for this International Women’s Day weekend.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
KJ Johnson: What does it mean to you to be a woman?
Kayla Patterson: It means to be heard and to be present. But I guess more heavy on heard — It really just means to be outspoken and not jump to that gut reaction to shy away that I feel like we're all just kind of — since birth, right? They want to make you the dormouse. They want to make you a little bit quieter. But I really do think that, like in this day and age, in the big two six, we need to be loud and we need to be proud.
Johnson: I really like resonate with that, especially the part you're talking about being heard. Whenever I think about being like a woman, in terms of how womanhood was always described to me growing up, it's almost like, wow, they're really just trying to convince who we are based on who we are not. And I think there's something about voice that is so fundamental to that. Listeners can't see us, but I'm a white woman, and you're a black woman. So, how do you think voice shows up in identity for you as a black woman?
Patterson: I'm glad you brought up the point of race, because I think there's an expectation for me to be loud, but in the trashy, quote-unquote "ghetto," kind of way. Not in a coherent and worth listening to kind of way. It’s being black while being a woman — It's like you have that double-sided expectation to be loud, but it's also like, "No, you're still a woman, and we expect you to keep your opinions to yourself." So it's this weird back and forth.
Johnson: Would you feel comfortable sharing more about your relationship with other women in your life in general, whether that's family or strong friendships you've had, and how do you see solidarity being built within identity, specifically, womanhood?
Patterson: I can start with family — I have a sister, my mom, and it was pretty much an all-girls household, except for my dad. But a little bit more towards the political side of things — my grandmother, she was an MPS teacher. She's retired now, but in her youth, as an MPS student, she marched with Father Groppi for civil rights. So I think hearing those stories of how they made it through tough times — It's a different kind of girl power when you're like, on segregated buses, like, that's something else. And that's the kind of strength that I like to draw on.
Johnson: I like what you called out too — this type of solidarity, this type of community, while it is never praised or honored the way it should be, and often tries to be hidden, it's never been nonexistent. I can definitely relate to growing up also in an all-women household. My mom, my grandma, my older sister, my great grandma, all of the women I was around were proud to be a woman and proud of that resilience. And growing up in that environment, too, I never learned that I could ever be less than a man. For me, it really showcased how much of this is taught and how much of this is tolerated, even if it's not something that someone is taught.
Patterson: I do want to flip [a question] back to you — your work with reproductive education and young girls, that's such a beautiful profession to have. I was wondering how you got into this work?
Johnson: I'm a fierce reproductive justice advocate. The reason why that is, I genuinely do not believe we could achieve any level of sustainable social justice without adequate reproductive justice. Because when we're talking about reproductive justice, we're talking about quality of life. And reproductive justice, the impacts of the lack of it often fall on people who are assigned female at birth because our bodies are quite literally hidden from us. So if we're talking about medical neglect, here’s an example: The clitoris is the only human organ designed purely for pleasure. We did not have a fully depicted medical diagram of the clitoris until 2006, and it took a woman to do it. But our fallopian tubes were named in the late 1800s, early 1900s by some French doctor who was a man. So, historically speaking, this ownership over the woman's body exists in spaces that we may not expect it to. And I think the medical model is an easy model to point at, because we can see how the neglect of women's health care has led to preventable deaths. We have also seen how the weaponization of women's health care leads to preventable deaths — there's a reason why the infant and maternal mortality rate is as high as it is in the United States, especially for black women.
Patterson: I do want to shout you out and Reproductive Justice Action — Milwaukee. People don't realize that when they say that Wisconsin is one of the better states for abortion, that's still a very, very, very low bar. And I think one thing that made that clear is when Planned Parenthood had that moment of getting their funding cut. It was like — where can you go now? I think a lot of people don't realize that the fight for reproductive justice does not end at the state level… It's always kind of up in the air in the country as a whole, but especially in Wisconsin. It takes understanding, like what you're saying, the deeper work in the communities, making reproductive care widely accessible, as any other kind of health care needs to be.
Johnson: March 7 and March 8 are International Women's Day weekend. And on March 7, we are having a vendor market and workshops, along with a keynote speaker and poetry performance, followed by a march and rally on March 8. I'm really excited for this event, because I think it is a very unique coming together of community and skill building, skill sharing and uplifting solidarity. What is it that you hope people take away from it?
Patterson: Definitely the workshop aspect —I want people to get the notepad out and take notes. In a time like this, I think people want to shrink away… but we can’t shrink down in a moment like this. And I [hope people] feel empowered through these workshops — We have a ‘Know Your Rights’ workshop because ICE terror is very real. So be ready instead of getting ready when the time comes. And a note on International Women's Day, it's International Working Women's Day. And one of our slogans this year is our demands on the wage gap. Iif I remember correctly, last year, a lot of people wanted to hear more about women in the workplace and how we fight back. I think that's a huge one that people should be paying attention to. Then we got yoga — we're thinking about this in a very like, mind, body, spirit way. We're trying to make sure that our ladies have the resources and the skills that they can take out and use for the rest of the year and be more in tune with themselves as women in their community.
You can visit Milwaukee’s International Women’s Day Coalition Facebook page to learn more about this weekend's festive events.
