#deirdre owens

[nerds-yearbook]

In 1942, a man had suddenly found himself aboard a ship on the Atlantic during World War II. He could only remember his name and where he was born. He did not remember anything else including how he got on the ship, but he was certain of one thing… that the ship was going to be hunted down and sunk by a U- Boat. He was in his own personal hell courtesy of… The Twilight Zone ("Judgment Night", The Twilight Zone, TV)

[oceanusborealis]

The Penguin: A Great Or Little Thing & Full Season – TV Review

TL;DR – A phenomenal ending to one of the great surprises of 2024 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.5 out of 5. Disclosure – I paid for the Binge service that viewed this series. The Penguin Review – To say that the DCU has had a bit of a bad run up until now might be putting it mildly. Indeed, even this year, they had the absolute disaster of Joker: Folie à Deux. So, I am not sure that I had much hope in a…

[earthphoenixstories]

White tears, brown scars and the internet jumping on a black trans person hate campaign.

I realise that a lot of the OL fandom are under 25 and are still at an age where y’all are learning and maturing and that’s great. However as someone who is close to being 40 I need y’all to do some reading for me.

White Tears, Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hand.

The black person at the centre of all this is a trans person that doesn’t identify as a woman. Yet all I see is blatant misgendering. This black person upset you, therefore their gender identity becomes meaningless.

Sadly, this behaviour isn’t new to me. I’ve watched it happen for too long many times over the years.

So of course what is the next step when white people get in their feelings? They hit the pockets of creators. Demanding refunds, getting them demonetised, trying to silence them by any means necessary.

The most recent example of this that I can think off is White Woman Whisper on TikTok. During the man vs bear debate, she pointed out that black women generally, would feel safer in a board room setting with a white man than a white woman. Oh boy did the white women get all up in their feelings about that. Within hours, White Woman Whisper had been removed from the TikTok creators program and hate white women making endless think pieces about how upset they were.

Y’know what? Tough. Sometimes y’all need to ti be told the truth even if it upsets you. I don’t trust white people, and I’m half white myself.

When a white person makes a mistake it’s “they’re young, they’ll learn. Everyone needs grace to grow and become better.”

When a black person makes a mistake it’s, “wow, that’s so disrespectful how can you think that? I hope you get fired. I’m reporting your comments to your boss, your school, I’m going to blast you on the internet.”

We don’t get “grace”, we aren’t allowed to learn and grow. There’s immediately “discourse” and the need to hold that black person “accountable.”

Where is this smoke for 99% of white folks who use their privilege as a shield.

It’s not until a whole person does something that crosses a line and stars upsetting white women that they start to get called out.

See JK Rowling and Elon Musk as examples. Queen Terfette literally named the only black adult in the series “Shacklebolt” and no one batted an eye. Her name choices were praised for being “clever” and “imaginative.”

She even did an interview where she called her fans “delusional” and no one spoke up against her. Even when she started saying openly transphobic things, she was protected. Until the dam burst and the tables turned.

And yet all that time black folks and other people of colour were calling her out and pointing out the lazy and offensive ways she talks and writes about non white people.

Which brings me to this morning, and I wake up to y’all dog piling on a black trans person for … saying that the way black trans men are portrayed made them uncomfortable.

Y’all are exhausting.

No, we don’t have to sugar coat our feelings to protect yours. No, we aren’t responsible for your actions and reactions to us. No, we aren’t being “aggressive” or “mean” or “confrontational” when we speak up for ourselves.

I’ve read some comments about disliking the discord profile pic. Okay. I mean, I personally snorted at it when I saw it. But y’know what? Y’all need to ask yourselves why you don’t like it. Is it because a black person is holding a whip? Is it because some white dudes are working the fields?

Here’s a story from the book Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the origins of American Gynaecology by Deirdre Cooper Owens.

When white slave owners wanted to punish pregnant black slaves (who were forced to work even when they were heavily pregnant), they would get a slave to dig a hole large enough for the woman’s pregnant stomach, then have the woman lie face down - her stomach in the newly dug hole.

The slave master would then proceed to whip the pregnant woman with the hopes that the unborn baby would feel the mother’s pain and behave better when they born.

Did that upset you? Did it make you disgusted and angry? I felt that way. I was so horrified I had to walk away from the book and calm down.

Black people still feel that generational trauma. We still have to live with the knowledge that is it what was recorded. Who knows what else happened to our enslaved ancestors that never got recorded? We’ll never know. That will always haunt us.

And y’all are upset over a picture that never actually happened.

Stop.

When Kendrick said “they not like us” he was talking about y’all.

[headmateelevator]

hello!! can we request a lvl 2 creator's choice headmate from fnaf with a typing quirk? anyone from fnaf would be cool! :D

order up!

name(s) - Mangle , Camellia , Cassie , Deirdre , Dianthe , Estella , Heather , Jamie , Kit , Madison , Kitt , Skipper , Valentine , Rose(anne) , Dollie , Striker , Adore , Glory , Lovesick , Blanc(he) , Bonnibelle , Camellia , Kipp , Maple , Marrow , Mink , Maeve , Mallory , Marion , Marlowe , Marrow , Martie , Mink , Manon , Morrigan , Persephone , Roseanne , Syd , Vixen.

pronouns - any / it / they / she / he / ra / radio / err / errors / toy / toys / tech / techs / bite / bites / wire / wires / ro / robots / lunge / lunges / jump / jumpscares / des / destroyed / party / partys / eat / eats / fun / funs / broken / brokens / party / parties / blood / bloods / dis / distorts / hide / hiding / active / actives / glitch / glitches / pizza / pizzas / play / plays / rock / star / <3 / <3s / :3 / :3s / ♡ / ♡s / ☆ / ☆s / sh♡ / h♡r / h♡ / h♡m / th♡y / th♡m.

gender(s) - Manglepangender , Folpine , Chigen , Raporidae, Foxtronian , Boncharic , Fnaf4rine , Fnafweirdo , Chicaweirdgirlic , Fnafbootmerchic , Fnafmesta , Oldfnartic , Fnaf2vibic , Fnaf3vibic, Fnaf4vibic , Fnaf4gender , Springlocksuitgender , Mangleplushic , Cherishfated , Fnafplushyic , Manglecieve , Manglemaxxing , Mechanicmasc.

orientations - demiaroace pansexual , mangledqueer.

role(s) - avenger , protector , mood booster , emotional funnel.

species - animatronic.

source(s) - Mangle , FNAF.

emoji(s) - 🦾 , 🔩 , ⚙️ , 🦿 , 🦊 , 🎀 , 🫀, ❤️‍🩹 , ⛓️ , ⛓️‍💥.

likes - loud music , the color pink , fnaf 2 sourcemates , playing games , stars , parties , repeating patterns , plushies , dolphins , seafood.

dislikes - pain , being alone , large crowds , sickness , corn , being itchy , sudden noises , yelling.

front triggers - source , sourcemates , parties , potential to get a new plushie (bite is DEFINITELY a plush hoarder.) , the body being hurt , any situation she could help with.

personality description - a usually very quiet but generally friendly animatronic, she enjoys speaking to friends from time to time, but likes to take time to herself and focus on things it'd like to get done. when with others she likes to play games often and likes to tell jokes to pass the time. she may often wait for others to start conversations with him, not liking to approach people, but blood will do so if alone too often.

typing quirk - (multiple suggestions , can be combined!!) (all but the first example say "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.) types in third person (ex: The mangle thinks this is a wonderful idea.) leetspeak (ex: 7h3 qu1ck 820wn f0x jump5 0v32 7h3 142y d09.) o=0 (ex: the quick br0wn f0x jump 0ver the lazy d0g.) o=☆ (ex: the quick br☆wn f☆x jumps ☆ver the lazy d☆g.) [tumblr only] pink text (ex: the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.)

faceclaims -

( 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 )

name(s) - Susie , Park , Denver , Owen , Milo , Miles , Scruff , Rudy , Ruby , Charlie , Bud(dy) , Duke , Rocky , Pebble , Scout , Luna , Lucy , Cooper , Spot , Sadie , Cailean , Catellus , Conan , Lycus , Kaleb , Mob , Mace , Morland , Haldir , Thistle , Rymuth , Pike , Foggle , Marigold , Beesbeth , Holly , Elowind , Daisy , Hazelnut.

pronouns - she / her / they / them / pup / pups / paw / paws / yip / yips / bark / barks / fluff / fluffs / friend / friends / fur / furs / soft / softs / ruff / ruffs / tail / tails / wag / wags / bite / bites / bone / bones / berry / berries / fruit / fruits/

gender(s) - girl , dognipic , pupgender , dolfem , dogbonegender , doggen , doglexic , fangic , cannix , Yarnpuppic , Cyberpup, Pupsleepyic , Dogthing , Pupenby , Zomdoggender , Pupboyflux , Herdpupic , Sportpupic , Workpupic , Terrierpupic , Housepupic , Houndpupic , Dogtailwagic , Dogboygender , Canimougirl , Girlyboypup , Mascpupnightic , Cutepupboygender , Girlmutt , Phantompuptailic , Thingmutt , Traumamutt , Yellowdogplushic , Muttdollic.

orientations - unlabeled.

role(s) - mood booster , playmate , frijōn , paichmate , ògregulator , scout.

species - human , ghost.

source(s) - Susie , FNAF.

emoji(s) - 🐕 , 🐾 , 🦴 , 🎀 , 🎁.

likes - dogs , playing games , playing dress-up , talking to friends , drawing / coloring , sourcemates of the missing kids or animatronics , parties , crowds of people , fantasy books , alice in wonderland.

dislikes - most source stuff , being alone , getting dirty , the darkness , being stuck or trapped.

front triggers - good sourcemates , any pets or animals (especially dogs!) , parties , mentions of her , stress , overwhelming anger.

personality description - a very energetic girl , who loves meeting with friends and drawing pictures in her free time. she has a big interest and love for dogs. fur also enjoys fantasy books , such as alice in wonderland and things like that. fluff is always open to meeting new people and often seeks them out in headspace to say hello.

typing quirk - o=❤️ (ex: the quick br❤️wn f❤️x jumps ❤️ver the lazy d❤️g.) quotation marks (ex: "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.") [tumblr only] pink text (ex: the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.) dog sounds (ex: the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, woof! , the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, yip!)

faceclaims -

( 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 )

[soulcluster]

here it is, what no one asked for: my ship bias list under a read more cause oof it's long

main roster

disney hans — anna, kristoff

dragon age blackwall — josie, inquisitor colum cousland — morrigan, anora, zevran fenris — hawke, isabela, bethany kaitlyn hawke — varric, fenris, cullen, alistair, loghain roland gilmore — cousland, bethany

dragon ball z android 18 — krillin bulma briefs — vegeta, goku cell — ....honestly just send me your ideas dende — gohan goku — chi-chi, bulma piccolo — bulma trunks briefs (future) — none yet

final fantasy aerith — cloud, tifa, sephiroth cid highwind — reeve, tifa clive rosfield — jill, cid cloud — aerith yuna — tidus, baralai

fire emblem citrinne — none yet cyril — lysithea eirika — seth, saleh, cormag ephraim — forde, gerik, tethys, marisa, tana frederick — olivia, sumia, cherche gerome — cynthia, lucina, laurent kagetsu — alear nel — none yet olivia — frederick, lon'qu, gregor seteth — jeralt, hanneman

fma: brotherhood ed — winry ling yao — lan fan riza — roy

harvest moon chelsea — vaughn kai — popuri, karen, leia mark (awl) — muffy molly (ap) — candace, phoebe, renee popuri — gray, karen, kai soseki — none yet vaughn — chelsea

the last unicorn amalthea — lir

legend of zelda link — mipha, malon malon — link mipha — link, zelda, revali zelda — ganondorf

marvel 616 adam warlock — gamora drax — mantis gamora — adam warlock, angela, tony stark peter quill — none yet rocket — lylla

mortal kombat fujin — none yet jax — sonja, vera takeda — jacqui

my time gwen/oc — logan, unsuur, owen, qi, heidi logan — fang, grace, builder

persona kotone — shinjiro, akihiko, ryoji ren — yoshizawa, ann, futaba, shiho, ryuji ryuji — joker, ann shiho — ann, joker shinjiro — kotone

resident evil leon — claire rebecca — none yet

star wars briayla/oc — corso, darmas, theron, lana doc — jedi knight kihanda/oc — doc, obi-wan

stardew valley abigail — sam, leah, penny, farmer eris/oc — harvey harvey — farmer

studio ghibli arrietty — spiller baron — baroness kiki — none yet pazu — sheeta

tales of kratos — anna, raine lailah — zaveid

threads of fate rue — none yet

tomb raider jonah — abigaile lara — sam, jaocb sam — lara

request roster

chrono trigger/cross serge — leena magus — none yet

cyberpunk 2077 takemura — none yet v/oc — none yet

DC lucifer — mazikeen soarnik natu — none yet

disney jack skellington — sally jane porter — tarzan, belle

final fantasy basch — none yet fran — balthier penelo — none yet zidane — garnet/dagger

fire emblem byleth — dimitri, claude, hanneman, shamir deirdre — sigurd franz — none yet gregory — none yet marianne — byleth, dimitri mikoto — yukimura, gunter quan — ethlyn rhys — none yet silas — corrin

harvest moon calvin — farmer lyla — basil, louis muffy — farmer, griffin, nami

legend of dragoon dart — shana lavitz — rose

mass effect garrus — shepard jeff/joker — shepard zaeed — shepard

metal gear solid cécile — kaz gray fox — none yet quiet — venom snake solid snake — hal, meryl

my hero academia tenya iida — ochako mina ashido — none yet

once upon a time belle — emma, ruby, ariel, killian, neal emma swan — neal, belle, ruby, graham grace — henry jefferson — belle, graham, robin, ruby milah — graham, robin, killian neal — emma, belle, robin, graham

rune factory felicity — raguna russell — none yet

tales of zaveid — lailah

*note 1: for any oc type characters I have a preference for (inquisitor, hawke, builder, assorted farmers, shepard, etc.), shipping will depend on that muse's character and if it works with my muse.

**note 2: just because a ship isn't on here doesn't mean I wouldn't ship it at all, except in the rare case of a notp

***notps: aerith/zack, cloud/tifa. these are only in a romantic sense, platonic is fine. if you see me shipping these it's because I'm close with the other mun

[kittymetalhead]

・┆✦ʚ♡ɞ✦ ┆・

Hi, welcome to our blog, we're the butterfly system. This is a mental health progress blog and also to help with coping with our negative emotions and intrusie thoughts safely (all posts will have triggers accordingly). We have BPD, Polyfragmented DID, and are schizoaffective, among other things. Many of our alters are queer. This is a safe space for anyone struggling with mental health, and our DMs will always be open to those who need it.

Do interact: Sallyface fans, traumagenic systems, metalheads, RE fans, Castlevania fans, Madoka magica fans, silent hill fans, Hannibal fans, horror fans, writers, LGBTQ+

DNI: Conservatives, homo/transphobes, misogynists, racists, etc. (Fascists), fake claimers, pedophiles, incest, nontraumagenic systems

Alter list & sign off:

Alice - 🍓

Anna - 🌷

Bee - 🔮

Blair - ⛓️

Bunni - 🫐

Candy - 🍬

Caspian - 🪽

Christa - 🌌

Clem - 🦊

Cupid - 💘

Deirdre - ✨️

Demetri - 🌨

Ellise - 🎀

Faye - 🐚

Hiro - 🦇

Iris - 🫁

Jane - 💊

Jun - ⛱️

Juno - 🕶

Kip - 🚬

Luciel - 🌕

Maeve - 🐛

Marceline - 🧛‍♀️ (Co-host)

Milo - 🕯

Neo - 🐬

Nicolai - 🫀

Nyx - 🐺

Owen - 🌲

Quinn - 👻

Remi - 🌻

Salem - 💉

Sammi - 🌊

Shiloh - 🐸

Silas - 🐰 (Host)

Skye - 🍂

Victor - 🖋

Will Graham - 🔪

Wren - 💠

Xerxes - 🪶

[butchniqabi]

started reading Medical Bondage by Deirdre Cooper Owens and i think im going to kill the next white man who looks at me funny

[chaosacademia]

after the biggest identity crisis, feelings of failure and major breakdowns, i've decided that my next academic year will be... different. i need a break from uni, which still hurts to admit. i intend to make learning enjoyable again, so i will start my year of rest and slow learning. the idea is to go back to learning at my own pace about whatever im curious about and NOT for obligation. so! this is a list of nonfic titles i am considering picking up!

- Ace: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex, by Angela Chen

- An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us, by Ed Yong

- Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation, by Sunaura Taylor

- Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity, by C. Riley Snorton

- Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space, by Amanda Leduc

- Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures, by Merlin Sheldrake

- Having and Being Had, by Eula Biss

- Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology, by Deirdre Cooper Owens

- Messalina: Empress, Adulteress, Libertine: The Story of the Most Notorious Woman of the Roman World, by Honor Cargill-Martin

- Off with Her Head: Three Thousand Years of Demonizing Women in Power, Eleanor Herman

- Sentient: How Animals Illuminate the Wonder of Our Human Senses, by Jackie Higgins

- The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World, by Michael Pollan

- The Psychopath Factory: How Capitalism Organizes Empathy, by Tristam Adams

- Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World, by Elinor Cleghorn

- Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?, by Linda Nochlin

- Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers, by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English

- Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother, by Peggy O'Donnell Heffington

[transthadymacdermot]

WIP intro: This Happy Consitution

Genre: historical fiction, gothic fiction, political drama, with some vague fantasy elements

POV: third person limited, multiple povs

Status: third draft

Setting: 1807-1810, mostly in the UK but also there's various scenes in other places such as the Arctic and Switzerland

Themes: ambition / duty / morality / honour / corruption

Ernst Leitner is an ambitious and promising young doctor fresh from medical school who, while studying a mysterious new type of whale in the Arctic, discovers a new chemical compound which can be used to bring the dead back to life. After the death of his partner, which he was partially responsible for, he devotes himself in whole to figuring out how to use the compound, and heads to England, where he finds the famous and influential politician the Duke of Tateley willing to support his endeavour in return for personal medical care. Ernst accepts, and with the help of his partner, Deirdre, and her flatmates Colette and Oliver, eventually does achieve the monumental task of Raising The Dead.

Things almost immediately go sour, however, when Ernst's recklessness leads to Oliver's death, and Oliver turns out to be implicated in a political scandal that gets worse and worse the longer you look at it. Now Tateley's scheming friends are very interested in Ernst's life, as well, and when he ends up being accused of the crime, he begins to wonder if there's anyone in his life who he can truly trust.

Characters: (there’s A Lot More Than This, so just know I’m including only the Most Important ones)

Doctor Ernst Johann Leitner: ambitious young doctor, who is mainly motivated by how much he really does just want to stop all the horrors he sees around him. It’s him who discovers the death-defying chemical. he/him

Owen "Tuck" Graves: a transmasc American whaler and journalist hiding out from his parents in London. Ernst's best friend, and a good friend of Colette. he/him

Colette Pernet: French Jewish acrobat, who lives with her father and owns the flat Deirdre and Oliver also live in. She's looking out to protect those she cares about, and them only. she/her

Deirdre Weston: Ernst's (eventual) partner, and Colette's best friend. Finds herself frequently being something of a Cassandra. she/her

Oliver Harris, esq: the youngest son of a wealthy family, who has been thrown out by his mother to fend for himself. He wants to get elected to Parliament, and aids Ernst when Ernst promises to introduce him to Tateley to further his career. he/him

Edmund Arthur Joseph William Achreton, 6th Duke of Tateley: Whig Leader of the Opposition, who has an undefined (due to the time period) chronic illness. He's Ernst's aristocratic patron. he/him

Helene Marie-Anne Adrienne Achreton, 6th Duchess of Tateley: Tateley's wife, she's practically the queen of high society. She's also a naturalist, and very interested in Ernst's work. she/her

Timothy Seymour MP: a mysterious and absurdly private member of Tateley's party who may or may not be manipulating everyone for his own ends. he/him

Lavinia "Vinney" Moore: A society lady, Tateley's best friend since childhood. She's always up to date on all the gossip. she/her

Richard Jepson MP: an advanced radical member of Tateley's party, who is also his very good friend. He finds himself frequently and unwillingly at the centre of various scandals. he/him

[maddalenafragnito]

CONVEGNO STUDI CULTURALI Bologna, 13 settembre 2024

Spermologia della nazione:

ideologia della fertilità e colonialismo di insediamento in Israele

Tecnologie di riproduzione; Sperma; Paternità postuma; Militarizzazione; Colonialismo d’insediamento

L’intrinseco legame tra ricerca medica e politiche di controllo della riproduzione non è cosa nuova: lo stesso concetto di salute “globale” origina dalla Medicina Tropicale/Coloniale/Missionaria, discipline sviluppate nel contesto del colonialismo occidentale con la funzione di regolamentare le popolazioni colonizzate per facilitare i processi di sfruttamento delle risorse umane e non umane. La ginecologia moderna, ad esempio, nasce al tramonto dell’epoca schiavista, quando la necessità di riprodurre manodopera non più importata attraverso la tratta atlantica si affida a dottori come J. Marion Sims e ai loro esperimenti a vivo su corpi di donne nere schiavizzate nelle piantagioni (Deirdre Cooper Owens 2017; Harriet A. Washington 2006). Tuttavia, l’attuale controllo della riproduzione da parte del governo israeliano tramite la pratica di prelievo e conservazione di sperma dai corpi dei soldati deceduti è uno specifico da indagare.

Prendendo in considerazione diversi testi mediali, dalle pubblicità ai film, in questo intervento analizziamo in particolare l’immaginario militarizzato della “riproduzione postuma” di cui il governo israeliano si serve per promuovere la fertilità di insediamento, attraverso l’impiego di tecnologie riproduttive, la cui storia e la cui retorica in Israele risale agli anni Trenta del secolo scorso (Boas et al. 2018; Bokek-Cohen 2016; Novick 2023). Una vera e propria spermologia, in cui il sacrificio della vita da soldato si ricompensa con paternità post-mortem e la gestazione volontaria dello sperma di morti, si fa vocazione e missione nazionale. Questa ideologia della fertilità selettiva e genocidaria, insieme ad altre ideologie promosse dal governo israeliano, come ad esempio nel campo dei diritti LGBTQI+ (Puar and Rai 2012; Shafie 2015) o del veganismo (Weiss 2016; Alloun 2020), alimenta la retorica del progresso della nazione e ne veicola un’immagine innovativa e all’avanguardia, mentre ne maschera la politica fascista.

[absmarchive]

UTSA hosts reproductive justice activists Dana-Ain Davis and Deirdre Cooper Owens

[oceanusborealis]

The Penguin: Top Hat – TV Review

TL;DR – While this is an episode of big action beats, I was more interested in the small conversations that spoke loudly. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.5 out of 5. Disclosure – I paid for the Binge service that viewed this series. The Penguin Review – Goodness, we are already at the penultimate episode of this series, which is astounding. This season has flown by, but it never felt rushed because it was…

[earthphoenixstories]

Anti-Racism Reading List

This is by no means a comprehensive list. It is however, a good start.

- White Rage by Carol Anderson

- Black Trans Feminism by Marquis Bay

- Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs

- Dear White America by Tim Wise

- Black Looks by bell hooks

- Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Stings

- Medical Bondage by Deirdre Cooper Owens

- White Tears/Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad

- Freedom Is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y Davis

- The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t and Why by Jabari Asim

- Things That Make White People Uncomfortable by Micheal Bennett

- Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male Power by Ijeoma Oluo

- On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed

- How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney

- Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Umoja Noble

- So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

- What White People Can Do Next by Emma Dabiri

- We Are Not Yet Equal by Carol Anderson

- How to be Anti-Racist by Ibram X.Kendi

- Articulate While Black by H. Samy Alim & Genera Smitherman

[xtruss]

Life-Saving Tool or Torture Device?

The Answer, Once You Learn the History of the Speculum, is a Little of Both

— March 15, 2024 | Kirstin Butler

1847 Specula. Source image: National Library of Medicine.

Many iterations came before and have gone since, but the most controversial version of the speculum started out, in 1845, as a bent spoon. That was when an Alabama-based doctor named James Marion Sims set out to treat an agonizing medical condition, and in the process established precedent for the practice of modern gynecology—in more ways than one.

Sims was attending to a patient who had been thrown off of her horse, and in landing on her pelvis, developed uterine retroversion (a tipping, or tilting backward, of the uterus). In the process of attending to her, Sims was struck by the insight that a custom-fashioned tool would allow him to see better into the vaginal canal. His first foray into speculum design was a doubly bent spoon that allowed him to separate and hold apart the vaginal walls. “Introducing the bent handle of the spoon I saw everything, as no man had ever seen before,” Sims later wrote in his unfinished memoir, The Story of My Life. “I felt I was on the eve of one of the great discoveries of the day.” Sims’s first experiments with that speculum were all done on enslaved women.

An Engraving Demonstrating the Sims Speculum (Bracket-Shaped Metal Instrument). Wikimedia Commons.

He ran a small private hospital—a “Surgical Infirmary for Negroes,” read an 1852 ad in Montgomery’s Weekly Advertiser, where he was “enabled to offer his professional services to his friends.” “It's really impossible to talk about the beginning of gynecology in America without talking about slavery because they were so deeply entwined and dependent on each other,” says Rachel Gross, science journalist and the author of Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage. Sims himself had slaves, and, Gross adds, “worked with other slaveholders to experiment on enslaved women in order to develop techniques that would help them continue to give birth, and continue to work.”

Sims used his new speculum to perform surgery on vesicovaginal fistulas, abscesses that often developed during difficult births, where the pressure of labor damaged tissue between the vagina and bladder or rectum. His surgeries on enslaved women were conducted without the use of anesthesia. Sims noted in his memoir that he operated on one woman, named only as Anarcha, 30 times.

He was lauded for his work, becoming the president of the American Medical Association in 1876 and then the founder and president of the American Gynecological Association. In a tribute written after Sims’s death, the American doctor W.O. Baldwin breathlessly wrote that the eponymous Sims speculum “has been to diseases of the womb what the printing press is to civilization, what the compass is to the mariner, what steam is to navigation, what the telescope is to astronomy.”

Baldwin’s encomium conveniently overlooked one historical aspect, however. “The speculum has been around for a really long time,” historian Deirdre Cooper Owens tells American Experience. “You can go to Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome, the site of modern western medicine, and you'll find specula that existed.” What changed with the popularization of Sims’s design were the mores around gynecology. “Most men did not perform vaginal examinations, or pelvic examinations on their female patients because of the gender ideals of the time,” says Dr. Cooper Owens. “Now, these things become a bit more nuanced when we’re talking about enslaved people, or poor people, or people who were institutionalized in asylums. They tended to be the ones that were exploited, as doctors experimented and used their bodies literally as canvases to learn from. That kind of paints the picture of American medicine that we know today.”

The 19th-Century Metal Cusco Vaginal Speculum Still Closely Resembles the Design of Most Specula Used Today. Science Museum Group, C. Firmin Cuthbert Collection.

As for the speculum itself, others refined Sims’s design in the decades that followed. In 1870, Edward Gabriel Cusco introduced a two-bladed instrument that featured a screw mechanism to hold the blades open inside the vaginal canal. Cusco’s bivalve construction was further iterated upon by T.W. Graves, a Massachusetts-based doctor. It was Graves’s duckbilled speculum—which combined elements of Sims’s curved design and Cusco’s double-bladed device—that eventually became most popular within the medical establishment.

Then a century after Sims’s crudely fashioned cutlery, the speculum came to play a central role in the battle against cervical cancer, at the time the deadliest form of cancer for women. Dr. George Papanicolaou conceived of taking a swab of cells from the cervix for examination under a microscope; the speculum made it possible for physicians to gather the cervical tissue from patients. Thus was the pap smear born, drastically diminishing the numbers of casualties as a result of cervical cancer.

However, today the incidence of advanced-stage cervical cancer is on the rise again, in part because fewer women are getting pap smears as a preventative measure. According to the National Institutes of Health, the percentage of women overdue for cervical cancer screening went from 14% in 2005 to 23% in 2019. Some of that reticence, perhaps, has to do with the long reach of Sims’s paternalistic legacy. “A pap smear is not done in a neutral environment,” Gross asserts. “When you enter an office with a doctor, a very real power dynamic becomes established where you feel like there is sort of an authority of your body.”

Vaginal Specula Today Tend to be Single-Use Plastic. Image by Whispyhistory, Wikimedia Commons.

The burgeoning “femtech” industry (a term coined in 2013 to describe technology geared toward female biology) aims to change that by making the experience of cervical cancer screenings feel less invasive—and that includes reimagining the speculum. But updating a 150-year-old design is only part of a larger picture. “People have really bad experiences getting pelvic exams and pap smears where they feel their body was violated, they weren't treated with respect or dignity,” says Gross. “That's not quite a problem with the tool, itself. That’s a problem with the culture of medicine, and the place of healthcare in our society, and how we communicate to women what this is for and what they’re allowed to know about their own bodies.”

— A Vaginal Speculum is a medical device that allows physicians and health providers to better view a woman’s cervix and vagina during pelvic exams. Most specula are made of metal and plastic, and physicians insert a portion of the speculum into the patient’s vagina to separate the vaginal walls.

[rlyehtaxidermist]

Deirdre Cooper Owens' Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology is the iconic book on the subject.

the category of “woman” has since its inception been bound up in fundamentally racial, cissexual, and class terms. “Woman” has never once been a category that all women belonged to, not because they aren’t “actually” women but because gender is a structure that mediates access to personhood, and being granted personhood has historically been a privilege reserved for the very few (white, bourgeois, cis-heterosexual, perisex, etc). JKR is not being a hypocrite by saying, on the one hand, that she wants to “protect women,” and then on the other attacks women of colour, trans women, intersex women, and so on. she is participating in the centuries-old Western tradition of policing the boundaries of gender and thus who gets counted as human. expressing incredulity at this supposed hypocrisy is just revealing that you have not engaged with even introductory level writing on the subject, which is why the charge of hypocrisy is not only unhelpful but actively obfuscates the oppressive structure of gender

[almackey]

Medicine During the Civil War Era

This is a very good panel discussion from the Organization of American Historians annual conference. The panel, moderated by Professor Catherine Clinton, consists of Professor Jonathan Jones, Professor Deirdre Owens, and Professor Jim Downs. The video’s description reads, “Historians talked about medical advancements during the Civil War era and how physicians treated diseases and diagnosed…