Monday, October 8, 2012

Deirdre Cooper Owen's Lecture


Deirdre Copper Owens’ lecture “Defining Blackness: Examining Slavery, Race, and Immigration in the Antebellum Era” explores the relationship between female slaves and the advancements made in the field of gynecology during the 20th century. Owens discusses two particular case studies in which race and status were used to justify the abuse and exploitation of women, for the cause of medicine. The first case involves Dr. James Marion Sims. He was a doctor who began his research by studying and operating on half a dozen female slaves and then later went on to establish his own hospital. At this hospital, Sims met and conducted over thirty procedures on Mary Smith, a poor Irish immigrant, before botching one and rendering her useless.  The second case Owens explores involves the stereotypes that surrounded female slaves as a result of gynecological studies. Doctor’s began to think that a female slave’s body was physically stronger and could endure more than a white woman’s body. Doctors then turned this stereotype into a racist justification for experimenting on and over-using female slaves’ bodies. Ultimately it was the female slaves’ bodies that contributed to the advancement of gynecology not the slaves themselves—for they had no control over their bodies or what was happening to them.
Exploring the less commonly known facets of slavery is essential to understanding the institution as a whole.  By Owens’ focusing her research on female slaves and their role in gynecological study, she is providing insight into their horrifyingly unique experience. The notion that female slaves contributed to the advancement of gynecology is, in my opinion, tainted. The women experimented and operated on were not willing participants nor did they have any say in what was happening to their bodies. Ultimately it was the physical and sexual abuse endured by the women’s bodies that resulted in such a fast progression of the science. The female slaves were not viewed as people or women, they were simply seen specimens necessary to figuring out what would and would not save a white woman’s life. In Owens’ lecture, she displayed a painting of one black women sitting on an examining table surrounded by three men and Dr. Sims. This painting depicts the racially unbalanced dynamic between female slaves and doctors for the other men were only there to prohibit the woman from thrashing around, due to extreme pain. Through this depiction, it becomes evident that the female slaves had no control over what was happening to them. Ultimately no type of medical discovery or advancement is great enough to justify the abuse and sexual exploitation of women. 

1 comment:

  1. I was also present at Dr. Owens’ lecture. Her research is fascinating, but at the same time, heartbreaking. The stories and facts alone were enough to make me feel incredibly sorry for the women that were experimented on. However, the pictures Dr. Owens’ showed were really what hit me and made me realize just what the women had to go through. The picture of the black woman with the white men standing around her impacted me greatly, in that it painted a clearer picture in my mind of how the women were taken advantaged of, manhandled, and abused. The other graphic pictures she showed also stuck out in my mind. They were a clear display of how much these slaves and low-class whites suffered.
    Though I agree that, “the notion that female slaves contributed to the advancement of gynecology is…tainted,” because clearly these women did not volunteer themselves to be operated on to such extremes and without any type of anesthesia, I do think that the women have to take credit in some way. These women did not only contribute to the medical findings, but played a huge role. Without them who knows how much we would know about the field of gynecology. So although crediting the women with the notion that they contributed to medical findings makes it sound like they wanted to help, which obviously is not true, it’s hard to find an alternative way to give them the “right” kind of credit without listening to a lecture like Dr. Owens’.

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