Expecting Inequity with Khiara M. Bridges

Welcome to the Ms. Book Club! Join authors as they delve into feminist books exploring topics ranging from the child welfare system to human rights to the intersections of race and the law.

Today, we're joined by Khiara M. Bridges to discuss her recent book Expecting Inequity: How the Maternal Health Crisis Affects Even the Wealthiest Black Americans. Bridges draws on two years of participant-observation to show how wealthier Black people try to leverage their class privilege to avoid some of the negative effects of their blackness—only to discover that in a country that has never reckoned with its horrific racial past, there is no escaping racism’s reach. Throughout the book, engaging, heartbreaking, infuriating stories of women’s experiences with pregnancy and prenatal care illustrate how race and racism matter regardless of wealth or status.

Joining us this episode is our very special guest:

• Khiara M. Bridges: Khiara M. Bridges is a professor of law at UC Berkeley School of Law. In addition to Expecting Inequity, she is the author of Reproducing Race: An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization (2011), The Poverty of Privacy Rights (2017), and Critical Race Theory: A Primer (2019).

Check out this episode’s landing page at MsMagazine.com for a full transcript, links to articles referenced in this episode, further reading and ways to take action.