“We need to talk about the disproportionate rate of miscarriages and stillbirth among black women – I trust healthcare individuals but not the healthcare service”.

This quote from a focus group participant, conducted by Cambridge academic Dr. Kenny Monrose for the Black British Voices Project, illustrates the broken relationship between the healthcare service and the black community. A 2018 study found that black women were five times more likely to die in childbirth than their white counterparts.

These figures for many may come as a shock, but for black communities across the UK, this is unsurprising and represents just one element of a longstanding, complex history of medical racism and misogynoir. 

(Misogynoir is the dislike of, contempt for or ingrained prejudice against black women, according to the Google dictionary)

Dating back generations, and with origins in eugenics, scientific racism and slavery, black women have persistently had their pain and suffering questioned by medical professionals. 

Eugenics is the study of how to make humans reproduce to maximise characteristics judged desirable.It was widely discredited as racist during the 20th century according to Oxford languages. 

The Strong Black Woman

These professionals make assumptions about our capacity for endurance and resilience. The ‘strong black woman’ trope is terrifying and familiar to us all. In every room we enter, we change ourselves to satisfy the white male gaze. We smile, let others walk in before us, and nod along when spoken to. 

This performance of ‘acceptable femininity’, has been drilled into us as necessary for our survival because if we are seen as aggressive and intimidating, we will also be seen as unworthy of care. 

Ultimately, this shape-shifting does not help us. The wise words of Audre Lorde remind us that silence will not protect us. We cannot separate our blackness from our womanhood. 

We will always be seen as intimidating, because that is how we have been historically and socially constructed to appear. It is not the job of black mothers to convince medical professionals that they are truly in pain, whether that be mental or physical. When ‘women’s issues’ such as reproductive or gynaecological health are dismissed by medical professionals, it is not difficult to imagine how negatively this can impact health outcomes for black women, who face discrimination due to their race and gender. 

Healthcare, like many other institutions, represents yet another area where black women are not protected and are expected to ‘make do’. We are not given the same levels of care and protection that many white women receive. While white motherhood is praised, black mothers are expected to fail. They also have to deal with stereotypes such as the ‘missing black father’. 

Negative Stereotypes

Just think about how differently the media spoke about Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle holding their baby bumps. In two Daily Mail articles (2018, 2019), Middleton was described as ‘tenderly’ and ‘protective’. In contrast, Markle was criticised for ‘virtue signalling’ and accused of being unsympathetic to people who didn’t have children. 

Although the idea of representation is being criticised as an empty buzzword, and a tick box exercise for businesses that want to seem ‘woke’, it does have consequences for communities like ours. 

Stereotypical images, such as that of the ‘mammy’ who cares for white children, overshadows how diverse and complex black women’s experiences can be. 

In the media, black women are stigmatised. At the same time, the idea that we only exist to care for and cater to whiteness persists. 

Black single mothers are demonised as overly sexual. They are blamed for issues such as youth violence and educational underachievement. Supposedly depriving their sons of male role models, the black single mother is marked out as dangerously subverting the idea of the perfect nuclear family. 

What we don’t see in the media are the unique challenges black mothers face in creating joy for children while balancing the emotional work of preparing them for a world that was not designed for them. White parents may encourage colour-blindness and assume that discussing race with their children is unnecessary, but not having to think about race during childhood is a luxury that black communities don’t have.

The burdens of black childhood

When black parents remind black children about their behaviour, they are not simply disciplining them. They are trying to teach their children to navigate a world where blackness is demonised and devalued. The freedom of childhood is an experience that black children do not have equal access to. Their innocence is often interrupted by racism in everyday life. While motherhood is a complex journey for all, the particular burdens shouldered by black women to keep children safe must be explored. 

On days like International Women’s Day, the media becomes saturated with images of ‘female empowerment’ which cater to a very specific category of woman: the white, middle-class ‘girlboss’. Clawing her way to the top and smashing the glass ceiling (all with a child perched on her hip), the white middle-class ‘girlboss’ is seen as the epitome of female success. ‘Girlboss’ narratives praise the white middle-class woman who is able to blend motherhood seamlessly with career achievement, but often neglect the ways whiteness makes these doors easier to open. 

Black mothers, in contrast, do not only face a gendered glass ceiling, but must also navigate a world of work where aspects of their racial and cultural identity, such as hair and dialect, are seen as ‘unprofessional’. 

The myth of meritocracy

Ignoring these intersectional barriers, girlboss feminism suggests that poor and working-class black mothers are to blame for the difficulties they face. Our society accepts the myth of meritocracy and assumes they haven’t worked hard enough.

In a meritocracy, people are in positions of power because they have earned it. 

The goal should not be for black mothers to blend into a corporate world which is built on, and continues the capitalist, colonial structure. 

Instead, the position of black mothers should serve as a catalyst for a radical re-imagining of what female empowerment could mean. What does feminist liberation look like beyond the limits of the patriarchal, imperialist and capitalist structures of the corporate world? 

The issues that black women and children face are complex. Black communities continue to work towards solutions. The impactful work of women like Candice Brathwaite who fights to ‘Make Motherhood Diverse’ is an example that comes to mind. 

However, the British press’ treatment of Meghan Markle after she opened up about her struggles with mental illness reminds us just how far we have to go. If this is how a lighter-skinned, privileged woman married into the royal family is treated, how would they treat a darker-skinned working class woman? 

As black women watching this unfold, we hold our breath and wonder when there will be a turning point? When will people decide to listen? Momentary shock and outrage will not save black women – only structural change and action will. 

Aisling Gilgeours is a postgraduate student in Marginality & Exclusion within the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge.

Maya McFarlane is an undergraduate student in Human, Social & Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge. She is also the Women’s and Non-Binary officer for the Cambridge SU BME Campaign.