2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

This panel brings together scholars who are united in their insistence that race be a critical category of analysis in histories of reproduction.  In keeping with the conference theme of “difficult conversations,” the panelists collectively challenge the “whitewashing” of the North American history of midwifery, the homebirth movement, and the women’s health movement in scholarship. Individual papers will consider the role race has played in the following: access to reproductive health services; disparities in infant and maternal health outcomes and the way such disparities have been interpreted; a woman’s level of autonomy over reproductive decisions; and female activists’ agendas surrounding reproductive issues.  Panelists will also engage in a dialogue surrounding historical moments in which the experiences of different groups of women of color have diverged—and thus of the ways the category “women of color” can itself be distorting.  In bringing together papers that address aspects of African American, Native American, Latina, and white women’s experiences surrounding pregnancy and childbirth, this panel will highlight the importance of analyses that are attentive to difference while considering the implications of these analyses for twenty-first century coalition-building and reproductive justice activism.