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Medicine continually fails to account for the historical racism and gender-based violence Black women have experienced.
A THREAD.
A THREAD.
The Mothers of American Gynecology are known as Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey + the 11 other unnamed enslaved Black women who suffered at the hands of Dr. J Marion Sims.
White supremacy is Dr. J Marion Sims, the father of modern gynecology, being framed as a hero in the media, despite his history of performing experimental surgeries on enslaved Black women. #SayHerName
Ephraim Mcdowell is known as the father of abdominal surgery. Mcdowell robbed a grave of a late enslaved man, in order to use his body as a cadaver.
In order to escape punishment, Ephraim Mcdowell was sent to University of Edinburgh in Scotland (best med school in the western world @ the time). While he never finished his medical education, he returned and performed numerous experimental ovarian surgeries on Black women.
This article explains why we need #BlackHistorians. They casually left out the reason as to why he left Virgina and pursued medicine in the first place.
White supremacy is defining diseases based on race. Ex: Dutch colonizers diagnosed Saartjie Baartman, a South African woman, with “steatopygia, a genetic condition leading to increased accumulation of adipose tissue in the buttock region, found in women of African origin.”
She was often referred to as a “Hottentot,” a racist term characterized by savagery. This condition which promotes white supremacy and racism has been used in scientific inquiry. In 2014, an article referenced a study written in 1994 on steatopygia and “Hottentot.”
Geoerges Cuvier is known as the father of paleontology. He was Interested in Saartije Baartman, aka Hottentots (African women w/ enlarged buttocks). He believed these women have different genitalia. When Baartman died, he dissected and skinned her and cut her genitalia.
Her skull & genitalia was put on display @ French’s Museum of Mankind. They refused to return her remains to her native people for a proper burial. The French also hosted debates in 2002 about who has legal ownership of remains. This was 18 years ago. http://web.mit.edu/racescience/in_media/baartman/baartman_m&g_movement.htm
The current mistreatment of Black women within the healthcare system is not unique to the 21st century, but rather inherited practices from a history fueled by white supremacy and scientific racism.
A slave manager stated how he rarely called a physician for the childbirth of enslaved women. He states, “women , from their labor in the field, were not subject to the difficulty, danger, and pain which attended women of the better classes in giving birth to their offspring.”
These beliefs have been perpetuated throughout time. An article published in 2020 notes, “half of white medical trainees believe such myths as black people have thicker skin or less sensitive nerve endings than white people.” https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/how-we-fail-black-patients-pain
Additionally, the maternal care for Black women is still poor in the 21st century. Black women giving birth are dying 2.5 more often than white women. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/u-s-finally-has-better-maternal-mortality-data-black-mothers-n1125896
John Peter Mettauer is known as the pioneer in obsterical fistula surgery. He performed an experiment on a white woman and an enslaved woman. He repairs the fistula experienced by the white woman, however, he was unable to repair the fistula experienced by the enslaved woman.
He states, the slave shouldn’t have had sex, as an explanation as to why he couldn’t repair the fistula. Keep in mind, slaves did not have a choice and were seen as reproductive laborers.
To conduct health disparities research is simply not enough to undo the generations of trauma, abuse, and violence inflicted on the Black community in the name of science. We, Black women, deserve more. We deserve better than what’s being offered.
Oh my name is Alexis Umoye ( @UmoyeAlexis) and I’m an incoming medical student @UCDavisMed. I plan on fighting for Black women until the day I die. The end.
