Reproductive Autonomy
A co-creation workshop where women voiced their opinion about how they define reproductive autonomy, and identified support systems and shortfalls they might face to maintain their autonomy. This has all been done in a lighthearted way through designing their own game of snakes and ladders.
On November 15th, I facilitated a Co-Creation workshop titled “Reproductive Autonomy” and invited a group of women-identifying individuals to share their daily experiences with reproductive health and autonomy.
The workshop was structured like the game Snakes and Ladders in order to bring levity and humor to a serious and vulnerable conversation. To start, participants paired up and were introduced to their partner by answering one question from their name tags. Next, they were familiarized with the idea of reproductive autonomy, and were asked to write or draw their idea of full autonomy in terms of their minds and their bodies. They then shared their ideas with the group. This helped others to look at this topic from different perspectives and encouraged an organic conversation about reproductive health.
Finally, they were introduced to the Snakes and Ladders game. They find out the state of full reproductive autonomy is the last block in the game. They would win the game if they made it to the last block. I explained how snakes symbolize barriers, whereas ladders are the support systems that affect their reproductive autonomy. These all took the form of stickers that they could write on and stick to their board. In the spirit of keeping things productive and positive, they had to put a ladder on the board for each snake that they identified.
Learnings
This confirmed my assumption that women are craving an opportunity to talk about this topic and learn more about other women experiences.
Also, it opened a new window for me to an everyday life of women and the micro interactions that they have with their sexual partners in order to maintain their reproductive autonomy.
It was a reminder of how a modern woman is still affected by the outdated idea of biological clock, and the struggle of maintaining a professional life while navigating it through these messages.
Snapshots from the Workshop
