Black Women’s Health Matters: What next?

A recap of this month’s Black Women’s Health Matters content, and what comes next…

Throughout October I published Hysterical Women’s first sponsored mini series, Black Women’s Health Matters, in partnership with leak-proof underwear brand Modibodi. I’m so broad of the range of voices and experiences I’ve been able to feature as part of the series, and I feel like I’ve learned a huge amount in the process too.

 

Thank yous

Huge thanks goes to all this month’s contributors – Brenda, Christina, Olugbemi, Fiona and Jasmine – as well as the organisations and campaigners who generously gave their time to participate in Q&As about their work.

Thanks also to our partner Modibodi, who funded three out of five guest posts, allowing me to pay guest post contributors for their work for the first time. If you haven’t already, make sure you take advantage of 15% off Modibodi’s range of period, pee, pregnancy and perspiration-proof undies, using the discount code HystericalWomen – valid on everything except bundles and sale items.

Finally, a very big thank you to Helen Hughes, Claire Stratton, Rebecca Broad and the seven other Hysterical Women readers who kindly donated to support the series. Their combined sponsorship paid for a further two guest posts, with enough left over for me to make donations of £5 each, on Hysterical Women’s behalf, to the Terrence Higgins Trust, Decolonising Contraception, FivexMore, The Motherhood Group’s Black Mum Support Fund, and Black Minds Matter.

 

Read the series

You can find all of this month’s posts on the #BlackWomensHealthMatters archive page, or check out the full list:

• #FivexMore: ‘Black women are not listened to in labour, and our pain is not taken seriously’

• The Motherhood Group: Black mums need more support before, during and after birth

• Miscarriage: ‘I have never felt so alone as I did at that moment’

• Black Women in Menopause: ‘There was nothing for me as a Black woman’

• Black Minds Matter: ‘For some reason there’s a belief that Black people are stronger’

• Bipolar: ‘They didn’t trust my Jamaican psychiatrist, and they didn’t trust me with my own body’

• Bulimia: ‘Why are you worrying about your health when you were told that you’re fine?’

• ‘Endometriosis was perceived as a white women’s disease, but Black women’s pain is often ignored by medical professionals’

• ‘As a Black person in the US, seeing a doctor you don’t know can feel like Russian roulette’

• Decolonising Contraception: ‘White supremacy has shaped our understanding of sex and relationships’

• Black Women in Health: ‘There is already gender bias and inequality in medicine; as a Black woman you are doubly disadvantaged’

• We need to talk about racial inequalities in sexual health and HIV

 

What next?

I want to continue ensuring Hysterical Women is as diverse and inclusive a space as possible, publishing a range of women and non-binary folks’ voices and experiences. Where possible, I’d also really like to continue paying contributors from under-represented backgrounds for their work.

I’ve got lots lined up in November – including a guest post by a queer woman of colour on her experiences of PMDD (sponsored by organic period brand &SISTERS) and a post on Black women’s mental health (sponsored by WakeyTV app), as well as our November book of the month Vagina Problems by Lara Parker, and more.

 

Submissions

I’m also now seeking submissions for December and January. If you’re interested, please check out the Submissions page for guidelines, or email hysterical@sarah-graham.co.uk. Unfortunately all submissions are currently unpaid.

If you’d be interested in submitting a guest post but would need to be paid, please do email anyway and I can let you know if/when I’ve got more funding for commissioning.

 

Sponsorship and donations

Quite simply, I can’t afford to pay contributors for their work without sponsorship from brands and donations from readers. If you work for a like-minded brand and would like to sponsor a one-off guest post, or a series similar to Black Women’s Health Matters, please get in touch: hysterical@sarah-graham.co.uk or you can donate at paypal.me/hystericalwomen

 

Trans and non-binary experiences of being dismissed and disbelieved in healthcare

In particular, I’m keen to find a sponsor for a mini series exploring trans and gender non-conforming people’s relationships to ‘hysteria’. This would include trans women, as well as trans men or non-binary AFAB individuals who want to contribute, exploring how gender and ‘hysteria’ affect their healthcare experiences and interactions.

It might, for example, look at early experiences of gender dysphoria being dismissed, or trans experiences of having their hormones blamed for other, unrelated health issues. It might also explore how a trans man or non-binary person’s experience of gynaecological care varies, depending on whether they are perceived as ‘male’ or ‘female’. These posts could be published anonymously, and all contributors would be paid a fee of £100 from sponsorship and/or donations.

Whatever individual stories and issues are covered, the overall aim of the series will be to explore how healthcare bias and sexist, gendered notions like ‘hysteria’ affect people across the gender spectrum, and disadvantage anyone who’s not a cis man.

If you can help, please email me.