Their worlds often resist the container of politicized terminology that is often the exclusive province of college-educated people. But working-class women have seen the most devastating outcomes of gender inequality. Impoverished mothers with hungry children, abused wives too poor and rural to access the legal system, work that is not only undervalued and underpaid but makes their fingers bleed.
The truth is: The LGBTQIA+ movement could have never come to visibility if it weren’t for the active participation, resistance, resilience, and pushback spearheaded by trans, gender non-conforming, and non-binary leaders of color.
The U.S. has the highest maternal death rate of any developed country. Senate Republicans are intent on passing legislation that would increase the cost of pregnancy and prenatal care for all women, increase the cost of not getting pregnant, and increase costs for pre-existing conditions unique to women, without a single hearing or consulting any outside experts.
As another seemingly-hidden queer and feminist figure throughout the civil rights and women’s rights movements, Pauli Murray stands to receive more recognition for the work that she did. Born in 1910, Murray became a trailblazer in religious, academic, and legal spheres. While studying at Howard University, Pauli made a bet with her professor that Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 constitutional law that upheld legal segregation, would be overturned within 25 years.
A disadvantaged group of people is always going to be more at risk of mental health issues than their more privileged counterpart — meaning that women of color, queer women, socioeconomically disadvantaged women, and women with other marginalized identities are especially at risk for mental health issues.