Word Weavers: Loretta Ross

Loretta Ross (1953 - present) is an activist who has dedicated her life to advancing women’s rights. She helped coin the terms “women of color” and “reproductive justice,” providing the language that has allowed women across racial and ethnic backgrounds to organize collectively for their human rights and reproductive freedoms.

For Further Reading:

• Biography: Loretta Ross Transcript of interview with Loretta J. Ross 
• Eugenicists Never Retreat, They Just Regroup: Sterilization and Reproductive Oppression in Prisons 
• Loretta J. Ross 
• Calling In | Book by Loretta J Ross

This month, we’re talking about Word Weavers — people who coined terms, popularized words, and even created entirely new languages. These activists, writers, artists, and scholars used language to shape ideas and give voice to experiences that once had no name. 

History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.

Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Before we get started, a heads up that this episode
contains mentions of sexual assault and medical trauma. Hello from
Wonder Media Network. I'm Jenny Kaplan and this is Womanica.
This month, we're talking about word weavers, people who coined terms,

(00:20):
popularized words, and even created entirely new languages. These activists, writers, artists,
and scholars used language to help shape ideas and give
voice to experiences that once had no name. Today's Womanquin
has decades of activism under her belt. She helped coin

(00:40):
the terms women of color and reproductive justice, providing the
language that has allowed women across racial and ethnic backgrounds
to organize collectively for their human rights. Let's talk about
Loretta Ross. Loretta was born on August sixteenth, nineteen fifty three,

(01:01):
in Temple, Texas. She was the sixth of eight children
in her family. The family moved around a lot because
Loretta's father was in the army. She attended many military schools,
which she later credited with accelerating her reading skills far
beyond her grade level. Loretta was on track to attend
an elite college, but she encountered obstacles on her path

(01:24):
to higher education. When Loretta was just eleven, years old,
a stranger kidnapped her and sexually assaulted her. She was
traumatized for years. A few years later, she was repeatedly
coerced and sexually assaulted by a much older, distant relative.
Loretta became pregnant as a result. She was just fifteen

(01:46):
years old and still in high school. She didn't want
to have a child, but abortion wasn't legal in her
home state of Texas. Loretta ended up giving birth to
her son, Howard Michael Ross, in April of nineteen sixteen.
The stigma surrounding her teen pregnancy made her final year
of high school incredibly difficult. The racism she'd experienced as

(02:10):
one of the few black students at her school intensified,
and Radcliffe College, which had given Loretta a generous scholarship,
revoked their offer, leaving her unable to afford the school.
But Loretta refused to give up on her education. She
later said, I always knew that I could carve out
my own path and do what I wanted to do.

(02:31):
I've always known that I was not defined by my
external circumstances. During the summer of nineteen seventy, she wrote
to the historically black Howard University begging for admission. Though
it was well past the admission deadline, she was accepted
with a full scholarship. At Howard, Loretta experienced a new

(02:52):
political awakening. She joined the South Africa Support Project in
the DC Study Group, a Marxist Lendinist discussion group. Many
of her classmates embraced the Black Nationalist movement, which emphasized
black separatism and economic power. While it challenged systemic racism
in America, it also embraced traditional gender roles, and Loretta

(03:14):
struggled to reconcile the sexism inherent in the movement. She
saw how misogyny and racism intersected, creating unique and often
unaddressed challenges for black women like her. Loretta left Howard
before completing her undergraduate degree, focusing instead on local political
activism like organizing tenants for better housing. In nineteen seventy six,

(03:38):
Loretta received a kind of birth control device called the
Dalkon Shield. Loretta started to experience complications from the device,
resulting in a severe infection. Her fallopian tube eventually ruptured
and she fell into a coma. When she regained consciousness
in her hospital bed, she discovered that the doctor had
performed a full hysterectomy without her knowledge or consent. After investigating,

(04:00):
Loretta found out her birth control device had been proven
defective and dangerous before the university clinic had given it
to her. She sued the manufacturer of the Dalkon Shield
and won her case, paving the way for other women
who'd experienced sterilization as a result of medical malpractice to
receive compensation. In nineteen seventy seven, Loretta attended the National

(04:22):
Women's Conference with the mission. She felt the struggles of
black women were not fully reflected in the conference's goals,
so she and a group of other black feminists planned
to present a more fully fleshed out Black Women's agenda.
But when they arrived in Houston for the conference, they
kept encountering women from other minority groups who wanted to

(04:42):
be included. The name Black Women's Agenda no longer fit,
so Leretta and her colleagues coined a new term, women
of Color. Loretta explained it as a solidarity definition, a
commitment to work in collaboration with other oppressed women of
color who have been minoritized. The term helped provide language

(05:04):
for women across racial and ethnic groups to connect over
their shared experiences of systemic racism and misogyny, and organized together.
It wasn't the only term Loretta helped create. By the
early nineteen nineties, she'd spent years advocating for women who'd
experienced sexual assault, who needed better access to reproductive and
maternal health care, who dealt with coercion and mistreatment by

(05:27):
medical professionals, who constantly worried about how to raise their
children in safe and healthy environments. In nineteen ninety four,
Loretta and eleven other women of color collaborated to develop
the theory of reproductive justice. This framework emphasizes how historical
attempts by the government to control the fertility of women

(05:47):
are tied to its attempt to control populations of minority communities.
As Loretta explained, reproductive justice is the connective framework that
ties economic justice, human rights, reproductive rights, immigration rights, those
kinds of things together. In nineteen ninety seven, Loretta and
her colleagues formed the Sister Song Women of Color Reproductive

(06:10):
Justice Collective. Its goal is to eradicate reproductive oppression and
secure human rights for all women of color. Over the
course of her long career as an activist, Loretta has
written extensively on reproductive justice and served in leadership for
numerous advocacy groups. In twenty twenty two, Loretta received the
highly prestigious MacArthur Fellowship or a Genius Grant. She currently

(06:32):
serves as an associate professor in the Women in Gender
Studies Department at Smith College. Her most recent book, Calling
In How to Start Making Change with Those You'd Rather Cancel,
was published in February of this year. All month, We're
talking about word weavers. For more information, find us on
Facebook and Instagram at Womanica Podcast special thanks to Liz Kaplan,

(06:55):
my favorite sister and co creator. As always, will be
taking a break for the weekend. Talk to you on Monday.