Black Women & The Cost of Medical Ignorance
She remembered the moment vividly. Her brother, stiff with judgment, dragged her to the hospital “like Popeye dragging Olive Oyl.” She was a teenager, living with her eldest brother and his wife—upper-class Black folks who disapproved of her joy, her parties, her freedom. She’d confided in her father about her irregular periods. But it was her brother who took her to the doctor. The physician, a blond-haired, blue-eyed man, looked at her body and asked, “How long have you lived with this disease?”
She wasn’t sick. But her ripples—her vulva—weren’t pink. And in his eyes, that meant something was wrong.
No one spoke of it afterward. Her brother assumed she was sexually active. Her father said nothing. And she was left with the memory of being misdiagnosed, misunderstood, and misjudged.
This story, shared during an interview for the Labor Pains Project, is not an anomaly. It’s a reflection of a systemic issue: Black women are routinely misread, mistreated, and dismissed in healthcare settings.
📊 The Data Speaks: Racial Bias in Healthcare
- 34% of Black women report experiencing at least one negative consequence from unfair treatment by healthcare providers: worse health (13%), avoiding care (19%), or switching providers (27%).
- A 2024 Pew Research study found that most Black Americans believe U.S. institutions—including healthcare—were designed to hold them back.
- Historical and ongoing reproductive coercion has shaped Black women’s mistrust of medical systems, from the antebellum period to today. I highly recommend A Black Women’s History of the Unites States by Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross. They dedicate an entire chapter to antebellum America’s inhumane fascination with the Black female body.
- The myth that Black people feel less pain—a legacy of colonial medicine—still influences clinical decisions, leading to inadequate care. The current, very misinformed, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, used this ideology to justify inequitable vaccination schedules and withholding federal health services.
These aren’t just statistics. They’re lived experiences. They’re the quiet traumas that shape how Black women navigate their bodies, their health, and their trust.
🗣️ Debates in the Healthcare Industry
The healthcare field is reckoning with its biases. Some key debates include:
- Standardizing pain assessment to eliminate subjective racial assumptions.
- Anti-racism training for medical professionals to address implicit bias.
- Diversifying medical education to include anatomy and pathology across skin tones and racial backgrounds.
- Reproductive justice frameworks that center Black women’s autonomy and access.
Yet, change is slow. And stories like the one above remind us that the stakes are deeply personal.
📚 Further Reading: Books That Illuminate
To deepen your understanding about this issue, here are some recommended books:
| Title | Author | Focus |
| Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine | Uché Blackstock, MD | Memoir and call to action for equity in healthcare |
| Medical Apartheid | Harriet A. Washington | History of medical experimentation on Black Americans |
| Reproductive Justice: An Introduction | Loretta Ross & Rickie Solinger | Framework for health, rights, and dignity |
| The Pain Gap | Anushay Hossain | Gender and racial disparities in pain treatment |
| Black Women’s Health: A Research Agenda | Various contributors | Policy and advocacy perspectives |
✊🏾 My Takeaway as a Black Woman and a Researcher
Pat’s story is a portal. It opens into a world where Black women’s bodies are misread, their pain minimized, their joy pathologized.
But it also opens a path into resistance—into storytelling, advocacy, and healing.
Resistance is our refusal to remain silent. After her session, Pat told me through tears that the body-mapping experience allowed her to voice sentiments to her late father and brother that she had carried internally for too long. By externalizing that invisible trauma, she reclaimed agency over her own body. She noted that this is the beginning of a new kind of internal work, and that—even in her 70s—she is excited to start. Pat is living proof that somatic body-mapping is a transformative tool for oral history. As we step into a new era, let us ensure our art and history do not dwell in past trauma, but propel us toward future freedom.
Have a Story to Share?
I am hosting two online sessions this month for anyone that wants to dip their toes in what this process feels like. We share short stories and I will construct a body-map guided by the voices in the virtual room. RSVP here!
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