A class-only approach is not only wrong; it is also wrong-headed. We need a woman-focused economic agenda that is intersectional, broad, and deep. SPARK Executive Director, Dr. Krystal Redman, outlined how to do this in a newly-released paper with Ms. Foundation For Women.
The report was also the subject of a Salon article where Dr. Redman is quoted in reference to the gendered and racialized disparities and inequities that have come to characterize the U.S. health system:
Krystal Redman, whose work with SPARK Reproductive Justice Now is highlighted in the report, agreed. “Accessibility to coverage is important,” Redman explained over the phone, noting that racial and gendered barriers to care don’t “solely go away just because someone has coverage.”
“There are many providers who have their own ideas of how a patient should be treated based on how they present,” Dr. Redman said.
As an example, Redman argued that a black woman with four children who goes to the gynecologist is more likely to be pushed into a long-acting form of contraception than a similarly situated white woman, who is more likely to have a chance to engage in dialogue with a doctor about whether she wants any more children.
Another huge example of the limits of an economics-only framework is the way that law enforcement treats white people differently than black and brown people. Just this week, Redman said, she had personal experience with that. Her husband, “a dark-skinned black man, tall, dreads, everything like that,” was pulled over “because the cop said he was following too closely behind another vehicle,” she claimed.
“We can’t overcome those small heart-flashes of, ‘Oh God, am I going to be safe?’” when things like that happen, she said, and that’s why “we need to center race” in the progressive movement.
