“The medical industry is always trying to preserve women’s ovaries to have a baby,” lamented Erin Barnett, a woman with […]
What Happens Under the Ether: Vaginismus and the Question of Consent in the Nineteenth Century
Content Warning: sexual violence; gynecological and obstetric violence. Vaginismus is having a moment. A sexual disability that is medically classified […]
Cancer DIY: Gendered Politics, Colonialism, and the Circulation of Self-Sampling Screening Technologies in Canada
Innovative. Exciting. Easy. Painless. These are just some of the words used to describe the Delphi Screener — a sterile, […]
Heterosexuality in Medicine
I walk into the examination room, dreading what is about to happen. My heart’s racing. First, they take my warm […]
Remembering the Mothers of Gynecology: Deirdre Cooper Owens’ Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology
Antebellum physician James Marion Sims has been in the news quite a bit lately as a target of activism. After […]
“There Had Been No Penetration:” Male Surgeons’ Roles in Defining Rape in Eighteenth-Century England
In July of 1715, when Mary Marsh was asked about the details of her rape, she claimed that “the Prisoner […]
Women’s Health Advocacy at Work
I realized belatedly that writing a biography of a women’s health activist as my dissertation (and wrestling with the late […]
Let’s Question All Versions of the Myth of Perfect Motherhood
I would call it a “pet peeve,” but the stakes are higher: I can’t stand policy arguments based on inaccurate […]
Adventures in the Archives: Med School Mock Trial?
Welcome to the second installment of our regular feature, “Adventures in the Archives!”
In this reoccurring series, Nursing Clio bloggers will share interesting finds in the archives and ask our readers for feedback, ideas, and analysis. It’s just like you’re sitting in the dusty archives with us!
I spent most of this past June in Philadelphia, doing dissertation research at Drexel University’s Legacy Center – a wonderful little archive devoted primarily to the history of women in American medicine. Because my dissertation focuses on the ways that women influenced the development of gynecology and obstetrics in the United States, I rely heavily on the Legacy Center’s collections, especially their extensive records relating to the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania.
Wonder Woman Wields a Speculum
Like many graduate students, I obsess about my particular academic interests and have a hard time letting them go at the end of the day. I happen to study the history of women and medicine in the United States, so I see my specialization everywhere, often to the dismay of my friends and family. I interrupt movies to point out inaccuracies and anachronisms, and I offer unsolicited historical commentary about the depictions of women on Mad Men. I lecture people about the stupidity of 1950s nostalgia, and I get angry about advertisements for Dr. Pepper. I am, in short, lots of fun at parties.