Staff Picks
National Wellness Month: Black Women's Health
- Ariel H.
- Thursday, August 05, 2021
Collection
August is National Wellness Month⚕️
Here is a list on systemic racism and the history on the battle for control of black women's health throughout the centuries. Also, included are some wellness guides promoting self-care and healing.
Four Hundred Souls
A Community History of African America, 1619-2019
Published in 2021
"A "choral history" of African Americans covering 400 years of history in the voices of 80 writers, edited by the bestselling, National Book Award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain. Last year marked the four hundredth anniversary of the first African presence in the Americas--and also launched the Four Hundred Souls project, spearheaded by Ibram X. Kendi, director of the Antiracism Institute of American University, and Keisha Blain, editor of The North Star. They've gathered together eighty black writers from all disciplines -- historians and artists, journalists and novelists--each of whom has contributed an entry about one five-year period to create a dynamic multivoiced single-volume history of black people in America"-- Provided by publisher.
A Black Women's History of the United States
Published in 2020
"A Black Women's History of the United States is a critical survey of black women's complicated legacy in America, as it takes into account their exploitation and victimization as well as their undeniable and substantial contributions to the country sinceits inception"-- Provided by publisher.
How All Politics Became Reproductive Politics
From Welfare Reform to Foreclosure to Trump
Published in 2017
"This book tells the story of how our political struggles over race, immigration, and queer folks came to center around reproductive politics--children, households, and families. Race-based shaming of irresponsible reproductive behavior--from an account of Black "welfare queens" and Latina immigrant "breeding machines" to Clinton's crackdown on immigration following "Nannygate"--were instrumental in creating a new normal: the shredding of the government safety net for families and households, the end of the period of rising real wages and a living wage that enabled people to support families and dependents, and the immiseration of households. Laura Briggs argues for the critical importance of paying attention to reproductive politics in this new era"--Provided by publisher.
Doing Harm
Published in 2018
In this shocking, hard-hitting expose in the tradition of Naomi Klein and Barbara Ehrenreich, the editorial director of Feministing.com, reveals how inadequate, inappropriate, and even dangerous treatment threatens women's lives and well-being. Editor of the award-winning site Feministing.com, Maya Dusenbery brings together scientific and sociological research, interviews with experts within and outside the medical establishment, and personal stories from women across the country to provide the first comprehensive, accessible look at how sexism in medicine harms women today. Dusenbery reveals how conditions that disproportionately affect women, such as autoimmune diseases, chronic pain conditions, and Alzheimer's disease, are neglected and woefully under-researched. "Contested" diseases, such as fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, that are 70 to 80 percent female-dominated are so poorly understood that they have not yet been fully accepted as "real" conditions by the whole of the profession. Meanwhile, despite a wealth of evidence showing the impact of biological difference between the sexes in everything from drug responses to symptoms to risk factors for various diseases-even the symptoms of a heart attack-medicine continues to take a one-size-fits-all approach: that of a 155-pound white man. In addition, women are negatively impacted by the biases and stereotypes that dismiss them as "chronic complainers," leading to long delays-often years long-to get diagnosed. The consequences are catastrophic. Offering a clear-eyed explanation of the root causes of this insidious and entrenched bias and laying out its effects, Doing Harm will change the way we look at health care for women.
Doing Harm
Published in 2018
Editor of the award-winning site Feministing.com, Maya Dusenbery brings together scientific and sociological research, interviews with doctors and researchers, and personal stories from women across the country to provide the first comprehensive, accessible look at how sexism in medicine harms women today. In Doing Harm, Dusenbery explores the deep, systemic problems that underlie women's experiences of feeling dismissed by the medical system. Women have been discharged from the emergency room mid-heart attack with a prescription for anti-anxiety meds, while others with autoimmune diseases have been labeled "chronic complainers" for years before being properly diagnosed. Women with endometriosis have been told they are just overreacting to "normal" menstrual cramps, while still others have "contested" illnesses like chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia that, dogged by psychosomatic suspicions, have yet to be fully accepted as "real" diseases by the whole of the profession. An eye-opening read for patients and health care providers alike, Doing Harm shows how women suffer because the medical community knows relatively less about their diseases and bodies and too often doesn't trust their reports of their symptoms. The research community has neglected conditions that disproportionately affect women and paid little attention to biological differences between the sexes in everything from drug metabolism to the disease factors?even the symptoms of a heart attack. Meanwhile, a long history of viewing women as especially prone to "hysteria" reverberates to the present day, leaving women battling against a stereotype that they're hypochondriacs whose ailments are likely to be "all in their heads." Offering a clear-eyed explanation of the root causes of this insidious and entrenched bias and laying out its sometimes catastrophic consequences, Doing Harm is a rallying wake-up call that will change the way we look at health care for women.
Doing Harm
The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick
Published in 2018
"In this shocking, hard-hitting expose in the tradition of Naomi Klein and Barbara Ehrenreich, the editorial director of Feministing.com, reveals how gender bias infects every level of medicine and healthcare today--leading to inadequate, inappropriate, and even dangerous treatment that threatens women's lives and well-being. Modern medicine is failing women. Half of all American women suffer from at least one chronic health condition--from autoimmune disorders and asthma to depression and Alzheimer's disease--and the numbers are increasing. A wealth of research has revealed that women often exhibit different symptoms than their male counterparts, suffer disproportionately from many debilitating conditions, and may react differently to prescription drugs and other therapies. Yet more than twenty years after the law decreed that women be included in all health-related research and drug development, doctors are still operating with a lingering knowledge gap when it comes to women's health. And they're not immune to unconscious biases and stereotypes that can undermine the doctor-patient relationship. The consequences can be catastrophic: Too often, women are misdiagnosed, poorly treated, and find their complaints dismissed as "just stress" or "all in your head." Meanwhile, they're getting sicker. Maya Dusenbery brings together scientific and sociological research, interviews with experts within and outside the medical establishment, and personal stories from regular women to provide the first comprehensive, accessible look at how sexism in medicine harms women today. In addition to offering a clear-eyed explanation of the root causes of this insidious and entrenched bias and laying out its effects, she suggests concrete steps we can take to cure it. Eye-opening and long-overdue, Doing Harm is an empowering call to action for health care providers and all women"-- Provided by publisher.
An Untamed State
Published in 2014
Mireille Duval Jameson is a rich and self-assured Haitian woman who is kidnapped by a gang of heavily armed men. Held captive by a man who calls himself the Commander, Mireille must endure his torment until her unwilling father pays up.
White Tears Brown Scars
How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color
Published in 2020
"Taking us from the slave era, when white women fought in court to keep "ownership" of their slaves, through the centuries of colonialism, when they offered a soft face for brutal tactics, to the modern workplace, White Tears/Brown Scars tells a charged story of white women's active participation in campaigns of oppression. It offers a long overdue validation of the experiences of women of color."-- Publisher marketing.
Health First!
The Black Woman's Wellness Guide
Published in 2012
The story of Black women in America is one of triumph and grace, even with odds stacked high against them. Health First! The Black Women's Wellness Encyclopedia provides today's Black woman with a comprehensive guide to her #1 resource: herself. It empowers her with the information she needs to seek the mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional self-care necessary to achieve her full human potential. This groundbreaking book is the product of three decades of work by the Black Women's Health Imperative, the nation's only non-profit organization devoted to advancing the health and wellness of Black women and girls through advocacy, education, and research. Health First! connects the dots through every stage of the life cycle-from adolescence through maturity. It addresses Black women's most pressing health concerns-ranging from informative and reassuring conversations with experts on heart disease, reproductive health, and HIV to the crucial facts about the most urgent medical conditions that Black women face. Grounded in vital research, as well as the realities of Black women's lives, the focus is on prevention, awareness, and action, across generations and circumstances, presented in an authoritative, yet reassuring personal voice. In an age of uncertainty, Health First! provides the invaluable tools and insights that Black women need to re-prioritize their lives and establish new traditions of self-love and well-being.
Sisters of the Yam
Black Women and Self-recovery
Published in 2015
"In Sisters of the Yam, bell hooks reflects on the ways in which the emotional health of black women has been and continues to be impacted by sexism and racism. Desiring to create a context where black females could both work on their individual efforts for self-actualization while remaining connected to a larger world of collective struggle, Hooks articulates the link between self-recovery and political resistance. Both an expression of the joy of self-healing and the need to be ever vigilant in the struggle for equality, Sisters of the Yam continues to speak to the experience of black womanhood"-- Provided by publisher.
I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying
Essays
Published in 2019
In I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying Bassey Bassey Ikpi explores her life--as a Nigerian-American immigrant, a black woman, a slam poet, a mother, a daughter, an artist--through the lens of her mental health and diagnosis of bipolar II and anxiety. Her remarkable memoir in essays implodes our preconceptions of the mind and normalcy as Bassey bares her own truths and lies for us all to behold with radical honesty and brutal intimacy. From her early childhood in Nigeria through her adolescence in Oklahoma, Bassey Ikpi lived with a tumult of emotions, cycling between extreme euphoria and deep depression--sometimes within the course of a single day. By the time she was in her early twenties, Bassey was a spoken word artist and traveling with HBO's Def Poetry Jam, channeling her life into art. But beneath the façade of the confident performer, Bassey's mental health was in a precipitous decline, culminating in a breakdown that resulted in hospitalization and a diagnosis of Bipolar II. In I'm Telling the Truth, But I'm Lying, Bassey Ikpi breaks open our understanding of mental health by giving us intimate access to her own. Exploring shame, confusion, medication, and family in the process, Bassey looks at how mental health impacts every aspect of our lives--how we appear to others, and more importantly to ourselves--and challenges our preconception about what it means to be "normal." Viscerally raw and honest, the result is an exploration of the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of who we are--and the ways, as honest as we try to be, each of these stories can also be a lie.
Hood Feminism
Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
Published in 2020
"A collection of essays taking aim at the legitimacy of the modern feminist movement, arguing that it has chronically failed to address the needs of all but a few women"-- Provided by publisher.
Pushout
The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools
Published in 2016
"Fifteen-year-old Diamond stopped going to school the day she was expelled for lashing out at peers who constantly harassed and teased her for something everyone on the staff had missed: she was being trafficked for sex. After months on the run, she was arrested and sent to a detention center for violating a court order to attend school. Black girls represent 16 percent of female students but almost half of all girls with a school-related arrest. The first trade book to tell these untold stories, Pushout exposes a world of confined potential and supports the growing movement to address the policies, practices, and cultural illiteracy that push countless students out of school and into unhealthy, unstable, and often unsafe futures. For four years Monique W. Morris, author of Black Stats, chronicled the experiences of black girls across the country whose intricate lives are misunderstood, highly judged-by teachers, administrators, and the justice system-and degraded by the very institutions charged with helping them flourish. Morris shows how, despite obstacles, stigmas, stereotypes, and despair, black girls still find ways to breathe remarkable dignity into their lives in classrooms, juvenile facilities, and beyond. "-- Provided by publisher.
Body and Soul
The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination
Published in 2011
Between its founding in 1966 and its formal end in 1980, the Black Panther Party blazed a distinctive trail in American political culture. The Black Panthers are most often remembered for their revolutionary rhetoric and militant action. Here the author recovers a lesser known aspect of the organization's broader struggle for social justice: health care. The Black Panther Party's health activism, its network of free health clinics, its campaign to raise awareness about genetic disease, and its challenges to medical discrimination, was an expression of its founding political philosophy and also a recognition that poor blacks were both underserved by mainstream medicine and overexposed to its harms. Drawing on extensive historical research as well as interviews with former members of the Black Panther Party, she argues that the Party's focus on health care was both practical and ideological. Building on a long tradition of medical self-sufficiency among African Americans, the Panthers' People's Free Medical Clinics administered basic preventive care, tested for lead poisoning and hypertension, and helped with housing, employment, and social services. In 1971, the party launched a campaign to address sickle cell anemia. In addition to establishing screening programs and educational outreach efforts, it exposed the racial biases of the medical system that had largely ignored sickle cell anemia, a disease that predominantly affected people of African descent. The Black Panther Party's understanding of health as a basic human right and its engagement with the social implications of genetics anticipated current debates about the politics of health and race. That legacy and that struggle continues today in the commitment of health activists and the fight for universal health care.
Choice & Coercion
Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare
Published in 2006
In August 2003, North Carolina became the first U.S. state to offer restitution to victims of state-ordered sterilizations carried out by its eugenics program between 1929 and 1975. The decision was prompted largely by a series of articles in the Winston-Salem Journal. These stories were inspired in part by the research of Johanna Schoen, who was granted unique access to summaries of 7,500 case histories and the papers of the North Carolina Eugenics Board.In this book, Schoen situates the state's reproductive politics in a national and global context. Widening her focus to include birth control, sterilization, and abortion policies across the nation, she demonstrates how each method for limiting unwanted pregnancies had the potential both to expand and to limit women's reproductive choices. Such programs overwhelmingly targeted poor and nonwhite populations, yet they also extended a measure of reproductive control to poor women that was previously out of reach.On an international level, the United States has influenced reproductive health policies by, for example, tying foreign aid to the recipients' compliance with U.S. notions about family planning. The availability of U.S.-funded family planning aid has proved to be a double-edged sword, offering unprecedented opportunities to poor women while subjecting foreign patients to medical experimentation that would be considered unacceptable at home.Drawing on the voices of health and science professionals, civic benefactors, and American women themselves, Schoen's study allows deeper understandings of the modern welfare state and the lives of women.
Birthing a Slave
Motherhood and Medicine in the Antebellum South
Published in 2009
"The deprivations and cruelty of slavery have overshadowed our understanding of the institution's most human dimension: birth. We often don't realize that after the United States stopped importing slaves in 1808, births were more important than ever; slavery and the southern way of life could continue only through babies born into bondage. Birthing a slave depicts the competing approaches to reproductive health that evolved on plantations, as both black women and white men sought to enhance the health of enslaved mothers--in very different ways and for entirely different reasons."--P. [4] of cover.
The Big Letdown
How Medicine, Big Business, and Feminism Undermine Breastfeeding
Published in 2017
"Breastfeeding. The mere mention of it has many mothers wracked with anxiety (how will I manage with work, other kids, what if I don't make enough milk?) or guilt about not doing it (will I be hurting my child if I choose not to breastfeed? what will people think of me if I choose not to?). This hot-button issue is one we've talked about repeatedly in the media and in celebrity culture. Remember when Angelina Jolie posed for the cover of W nursing her newborn? Oh, the controversy! And when Barbara Walters complained about the woman breastfeeding next to her on a plane? She was forced to issue a public apology. Or what about when supermodel Gisele Bunchen declared that there should be worldwide law that mothers be required to breastfeed their babies for the first six months of life? All hell broke loose. This topic gets people riled up, and there has never been a narrative account that explores the breastfeeding big picture for parents and their children in today's world. THE BIG LETDOWN by author, journalist, and breastfeeding advocate Kimberly Seals Allers will change that for the better and open up a candid conversation about the cultural, sociological, and economic forces that shape the breastfeeding culture and how it undermines women in the process"-- Provided by publisher.
Undivided Rights
Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice
Published in 2016
Undivided Rights captures the evolving and largely unknown activist history of women of color organizing for reproductive justice - on their own behalf. Undivided Rights presents a textured understanding of the reproductive rights movement by placing the experiences, priorities, and activism of women of color in the foreground. Using historical research, original organizational case studies, and personal interviews, the authors illuminate how women of color have led the fight to control their own bodies and reproductive destinies. Undivided Rights shows how women of color - -starting within their own Latina, African American, Native American, and Asian American communities - have resisted coercion of their reproductive abilities. Projected against the backdrop of the mainstream pro-choice movement and radical right agendas, these dynamic case studies feature the groundbreaking work being done by health and reproductive rights organizations led by women-of-color. The book details how and why these women have defined and implemented expansive reproductive health agendas that reject legalistic remedies and seek instead to address the wider needs of their communities. It stresses the urgency for innovative strategies that push beyond the traditional base and goals of the mainstream pro-choice movement - strategies that are broadly inclusive while being specific, strategies that speak to all women by speaking to each woman. While the authors raise tough questions about inclusion, identity politics, and the future of women's organizing, they also offer a way out of the limiting focus on "choice. "Undivided Rights articulates a holistic vision for reproductive freedom. It refuses to allow our human rights to be divvied up and parceled out into isolated boxes that people are then forced to pick and choose among.
Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired
Black Women's Health Activism in America, 1890-1950
Published in 1995
Based on oral histories, government records, and manuscript collections at historically black colleges, Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired moves beyond the depiction of African Americans as mere recipients of aid or as victims of neglect and highlights the ways black health activists created public health programs and influenced public policy at every opportunity. Smith also sheds new light on the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment by situating it within the context of black public health activity, reminding us that public health work had oppressive as well as progressive consequences.
Black Man in a White Coat
A Doctor's Reflections on Race and Medicine
Published in 2015
"One doctor's passionate and profound memoir of his experience grappling with race, bias, and the unique health problems of black Americans. When Damon Tweedy begins medical school,he envisions a bright future where his segregated, working-class background will become largely irrelevant. Instead, he finds that he has joined a new world where race is front and center. The recipient of a scholarship designed to increase black student enrollment, Tweedy soon meets a professor who bluntly questions whether he belongs in medical school, a moment that crystallizes the challenges he will face throughout his career. Making matters worse, in lecture after lecture the common refrain for numerous diseases resounds, "More common in blacks than whites." Black Man in a White Coat examines the complex ways in which both black doctors and patients must navigate the difficult and often contradictory terrain of race and medicine. As Tweedy transforms from student to practicing physician, he discovers how often race influences his encounters with patients. Through their stories, he illustrates the complex social, cultural, and economic factors at the root of most health problems in the black community. These issues take on greater meaning when Tweedy is himself diagnosed with a chronic disease far more common among black people. In this powerful, moving, and deeply empathic book, Tweedy explores the challenges confronting black doctors, and the disproportionate health burdens faced by black patients, ultimately seeking a way forward to better treatment and more compassionate care"-- Provided by publisher.
Medical Apartheid
The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
Published in 2006