Telling Better Stories: A Creator’s Guide for Reproductive Justice Storytelling
Stories do more than entertain or inform. They shape how people understand care, dignity, autonomy, safety, and justice.
Too often, narratives about Black women center crisis without context, strength without softness, or struggle without care. These incomplete portrayals shape not only culture, but also how Black women are understood, valued, and treated.
Telling Better Stories is a practical resource developed through In Our Own Voice’s Narrative Power for Justice Initiative (NPJI). Drawing on emerging qualitative insights and conversations with creators, this guide introduces Narrative Demand and offers tools for storytellers, advocates, writers, strategists, filmmakers, and creators working to build more complete narratives around Reproductive
Justice.
Rather than focusing only on what stories get wrong, this guide asks a different question:
What stories are missing?
The guide explores:
- What Narrative Demand is and why it matters
- How stories shape belief, understanding, and public support
- What stronger storytelling requires
- Emerging insights on care, dignity, joy, support, and full humanity
- Questions and practical tools creators can use in their work
Narratives do not simply reflect culture. They shape what people believe is deserved, legitimate, and possible.
By telling more honest, grounded, and expansive stories, creators can help build the conditions for greater understanding, possibility, and justice.