Gendered anti-blackness, maternal health & chattel slavery: OB/Gyn knowledge as a determinant of death of black women

Danielle McCarthy

Social Science & Medicine, 2024, vol. 353, issue C

Abstract: This archival investigation of the Southern Medical and Surgical Journal (SMSJ) focuses on the construction of the American Ob/Gyn profession's medical knowledge system alongside chattel slavery, between 1834 and 1860. I find that language, methods of clinical management of bodies and decision-making processes illustrate the pathways that obstetrical knowledge served as a determinant of death for Black women under chattel slavery. These are byproducts of the condition of possibility, my theoretical framework. The condition, or use of gendered anti-Black logic/practice, specifically the social death and biological indispensability of Black women in the context of chattel slavery, shapes the subjective nature of medical knowledge into a determinant of maternal death for Black women. Using the condition of possibility as a theoretical framework, I will lay the groundwork to reframe the Ob/Gyn knowledge system as a current and ever-present threat to Black women and girls' health. This study's sociological contribution lies in examining medical knowledge construction as a series of social interactions, informed by gendered and racial ideologies, that determine health outcomes for Black women.

Keywords: Chattel slavery; Knowledge production; Maternal health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117038

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