Abstract
The United States is experiencing an infant and maternal mortality crisis across racial stratifications at more alarming rates than in the antebellum era and Jim Crow. Over the past fifteen years, these disparities have accrued significant media, scholarly, and medical attention. Scientific evidence has proven that racism and the physiological stress it causes are contributing factors to these birth outcome disparities. Even so, there has been a dearth of information on how harmful tropes have amplified the adverse birth outcomes for Black mothers and infants in the U.S. For this thesis, I have conducted extensive research on how the Superwoman trope impacts U.S. Black women’s health generally and gestational health specifically. This research is grounded in evidence-based findings and Black feminist scholarship and thinking including lived experience and privileging the truths of Black American women. Labor, childbirth, and the prenatal and postpartum periods are critical temporal sites which I consider using the Superwoman lens to better understand Superwoman’s impacts. Importantly, I revisit history regarding the genealogy of the term Superwoman, other harmful tropes assigned to Black women, the inherently racist nature of American gynecology, and how healthcare providers have interacted with expecting and birthing Black women historically and contemporarily. Lastly, I explore imaginings for eradicating these birth outcome disparities and underscore how much Black women have done for the future of Black birthing outcomes in harmony with today’s birthing justice movement.