Content Warning: sexual violence; gynecological and obstetric violence. Vaginismus is having a moment. A sexual disability that is medically classified as the involuntary spasming of vaginal walls, vaginismus might not seem like an obvious choice for pop culture representation. But the last decade has seen a marked uptick in its visibility: the Netflix miniseries Unorthodox… Read more →
Tag: women’s health
“Just a Pinch:” Pain, IUDs, and Consciousness-Raising
“I’m still pretty traumatized from my first [intrauterine device (IUD)] insertion experience,” TikTok user @redaces93 recounted. “Yes, they fed me the whole ‘just a pinch’ bullshit lie . . . when I screamed from the pain, the nurse put her hand over my mouth and told me to shut up.” Another TikTok user, @theperiodpositiveplace, called… Read more →
The Sixteen Year Gap: Women in Medical Trials and the Side Effects Today
Historically, women have been excluded from clinical trials creating a gender gap in pharmacology. This means that medication is geared towards men, benefiting men’s health more than women’s. After the thalidomide crisis, US laws excluded many women from drug trials for medications that were ostensibly for all adults until 1993. Despite legal changes, the issue… Read more →
Informed Transitions
Transitions can be hard, especially when one has spent decades teetering on shifting sand. With my menopause comes an emptying nest and a great and painful purge of my reproductive potential, accumulated clutter, dreams, and fears. I am 55 this year, African American, a tenured college professor, a widow, and single mother of two sons. I have… Read more →
Learning What We Do Not Know: The History and Experience of Menopause
In January 2021, I willingly underwent a procedure to implant testosterone pellets into the flesh at my hip. I had arrived at my medical provider’s clinic because of the many and varied symptoms of perimenopause that were disrupting my life. I wasn’t sleeping; I had low energy and terrible brain fog; I couldn’t regulate my… Read more →
Reproductive Designs and the Stories Behind Them: A Review of Designing Motherhood
Today almost all IUDs (intrauterine devices) look like the letter “T,” with arms that slightly droop and a string that dangles from its trunk. When inserted, the arms press against the walls of the uterus to help prevent pregnancy, and the string dangles down into a woman’s vagina as a way to check that the… Read more →
The Women’s Health Movement and the Dream of the Diaphragm
Half a century after the emergence of the women’s liberation movement, “the pill” remains ingrained in the iconography of second-wave feminism. Although the drug now comes in a sleek blister pack, the image of a retro Dialpak remains an aesthetic touchstone—a symbol of bodily autonomy now emblazoned on enamel pins, earrings, and rubber stamps. It… Read more →
Breast Cancer Care: Sexism and Knowing versus Doing
A Rise in Unnecessary Breast Cancer Surgeries A troubling trend in breast cancer treatment has surgeons scratching their heads. Since the late 1990s, more women with cancer in one breast have been opting to have both breasts surgically removed. For women without a genetic predisposition to breast cancer, this procedure – contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM)… Read more →
A Tale of Two Midwives across Four Centuries
What happens when the person who delivers most of the babies in her community is arrested? This is a tale of two midwives, separated by nearly four centuries of history, and yet remarkably alike. Six months ago, certified professional midwife Elizabeth Catlin was arrested on the grounds that she was practicing midwifery without a license…. Read more →
Between the Pages: Victorian Women’s Letters to H. Lenox Hodge
This essay was first published at Fugitive Leaves, the blog of The History Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Cracking open the accordion-notebook of Dr. Hugh Lenox Hodge at The History Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, I read from the top, thumb and index finger poised delicately at… Read more →