The concept of health brings up images of doctor visits at a clinic, eating balanced meals, or exercising at the gym. Feminism is not just theory, but practice, that centers on care and well-being of everyone, including health. The Feminist Health Justice Collective wanted to expand the idea of health, focusing on open education as empowerment for anyone to access. The team, consisting of faculty and students, built an online database from scratch. 

Combining a variety of media from podcasts to academic articles, their database helps users understand feminist health justice by organizing different concepts as “structural frameworks.” These include fatphobia, environmental health, housing justice, carceral system and abolition, and much more. Since health justice is an expansive idea, these frameworks on the site allow users to click through these different terms, where they are broken down and given different materials to learn more about each concept and how it relates to health justice. The layout of the site is innovative in its effort to ease understanding how all of these intersecting ideas are related. Azisa Todd, a community-based activist, shared how the “structural frameworks help compartmentalize structures of oppression and help emphasize that nothing happens in isolation.” 

The database opens up the conversation of feminist health justice to anyone, not just those in academia. The curated content prioritizes accessibility and inclusivity, to accommodate different media and learning styles. The open access articles also allow anyone to read information. Furthermore, community collaboration and multiple knowledge were integrated since the conception of the website. A variety of voices is important to the continuation and expansion of the database. An updating feature of the site allows users to watch a video of community organizers, activists, or others who are working on the ground to explain what a certain issue/framework means to them. Outside perspectives and consistent feedback helped this database improve from where it started a few years ago. While the database isn’t an exhaustive list of materials, individuals of any background can apply this database knowledge to their lives and understand how we move these conversations to broader perspectives. 

We thank the Feminist Health Justice Collective Team for sharing their backgrounds and experiences and everyone who has contributed their time and knowledge to the database. If you are interested in learning more about the Feminist Health Justice Collective or want to contact them, visit their site.