Subjected to Painful Experiments... Enslaved 'Mothers of Gynecology' Are Honored with new monument

[IcyPeas]

This story is absolutely shocking and hard to read. I have never heard of Anarcha, Betsy and Lucy before this. The Monument is stunning.


Subjected to Painful Experiments and Forgotten, Enslaved ‘Mothers of Gynecology’ Are Honored With New Monument
The statues acknowledge the suffering of bondswomen overshadowed by the white doctor who operated on them without their consent

For five years in the late 1840s, Anarcha, Betsey, Lucy and other unnamed enslaved women suffered at the hands of a white doctor who performed painful surgeries on the women without anesthesia, pain relief or consent.

Now, a monument honoring the Mothers of Gynecology stands in Montgomery, not far from where the procedures took place and roughly a mile from where a statue of J. Marion Sims, “the father of gynecology” who experimented on the women, still stands in front of the Alabama State Capitol.

Created by artist Michelle Browder from scrap metal, the monument includes three larger-than-life statues depicting Anarcha (15 feet tall), Betsey (12 feet tall) and Lucy (nine feet tall).

The statues incorporate meaningful—and painful—symbolism. Anarcha’s abdomen is empty, except for a single red rose where her uterus would be. Her womb sits nearby, full of cut glass, needles, medical instruments, scissors and sharp objects intended to help viewers feel the women’s pain and suffering.

Medical scissors are attached to one woman. Another wears a tiara created out of a speculum—a device Sims invented for vaginal exams. The names of Black women are welded to the statues.
...
Believing he could cure the women, Sims began experimenting on them without their permission. While other white doctors watched the painful surgeries, the naked women were restrained to the operating table, per the New-York Historical Society. Sims didn’t use anesthesia or even pain medication because he erroneously believed that Black people could withstand higher amounts of pain, a myth that persists to this day.

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more to the story in article:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mothers-of-gynecology-monument-honors-enslaved-women-180980064/

[WhiskeyGrinder]

1. K&R.

A lot better than this painting depicting Sims' work (can be disturbing):

https://exchange.umma.umich.edu/resources/41241/view#

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[keithbvadu2]

3. The Japanese in Manchuria/China and the Nazis also advanced medical knowledge by such methods.

The Japanese in Manchuria/China and the Nazis also advanced medical knowledge by such methods.

They considered their 'patients' less than human with no concern for their suffering.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Here in America, we named schools and chairs and awards for Sims, and statues of him still stand.

[Hekate]

4. This should be considered a holy shrine, with votive candles lit every day for eternity

The Goddesses are outraged for their daughters