Mothers of Gynecology - Final Paper

 Marra Thompson

Modern & Contemporary Art

Joanne Kesten

10/22/2023

Mothers of Gynecology

Medical distrust for black people has always been there since the beginning of the myth that black people have bigger pain tolerance than their white counterparts. This all started with multiple false claims made by scientists and physicians in the 1800s stating that black people were biologically closer to apes while white people were evolving more. Branching off of here, this trickles down into the belief that black people were hypersexual and were less intelligent than white people and this belief was heavily pushed onto black women slaves. With that knowledge, an artist has made an impact with that history in mind.  

Mothers of Gynecology by Michelle Browder. What is it exactly? Well, it is a monument made in 2021 that resides in Montgomery, Alabama that depicts three enslaved black women who were used in medical experimentation by Dr. James Marion Sims in the late 1840s in the same state. The monument consists of larger-than-life-sized figures, standing at 15 feet tall for Anarcha (center), 12 feet tall for Betsy (left), and 9 feet tall for Lucy (right),] and a displaced womb from Anarcha, where then the womb sits next to cut glass, needles, medical instruments, scissors, and sharp objects. The piece is made out of recycled metal because in Browder’s own words, “these women were discarded.”  

For years, James Marion Sims has been considered and hailed as The Father of Modern Gynecology for his invention of the tools used by gynecologists today and for the successful surgery method in removing vesicovaginal fistula. Before he was able to succeed, he had many failures with the operation for patients, all black and enslaved women, and the devastating facts include never giving them anesthesia, even when they had already introduced a small bit of it to the medical world, having to do countless surgeries on them and never giving them time to patch up and heal as the body should, having them always be on all fours, naked, and observed. At the same time, they were being operated on, etc. Furthermore, Sims recorded in his book that when he operated on Lucy, one of the slaves mentioned, it was filled with screaming and crying out in pain for an hour, while many other doctors watched. In his own words, he described how Lucy was in extreme pain and how he thought she was going to die when he used a sponge to drain the urine away from the bladder, which ended with her getting blood poisoning, which was controversial at the time.

When he moved to New York, he not only brought along his ‘successes’, but he also brought along the myth that black people can withstand higher levels of pain than any other race, let alone their white counterparts. This has always prevailed before Sims, but he made this myth hold more power to beliefs instead of individual withstanding. That myth still happens today with many black women being treated terribly by the medical world and with the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) citing that, 

[“In 2021, the maternal mortality rate for non-Hispanic Black (subsequently, Black) women was 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, 2.6 times the rate for non-Hispanic White (subsequently, White) women (26.6) [(Figure 1 and Table)] Rates for Black women were significantly higher than rates for White and Hispanic women. The increases from 2020 to 2021 for all race and Hispanic-origin groups were significant.”]

This entails that black women are still dying at higher rates than their white peers because of medical ignorance.

Igniting her passion for telling the stories of black people that history seems to forget, Browder first encountered the story during college stating, “I was triggered. From there, I promised myself that, one day, I will change that narrative.” and fulfilled the promise she made to herself when she saw the Sims statue one day in Montgomery, reasoning, “I was horrified. I still am. If he’s the father of gynecology, the father of modern gynecology, then they are the mothers?” With this in mind and the tools she gathered, Browder got to work on making a placeholder for those who were forgotten in pursuit of modern science. Each piece was thought of extensively with many being of metaphorical significance to the story, i.e. the tiara of speculums for Betsy, or the pennies seeped into the metal shoulders of Lucy, being that was how much slave women were being paid, or Anarcha’s missing womb being replaced by a single red rose. Browder was hopeful that this would start a conversation, explaining, “I want these people to sit with them and with the fact that these women were tortured for the sake of science and have been largely left out of the conversation. It was important to me to give them dignity and respect.”  

Since the monument debuted on September 24th, 2021, critics and artists alike have been giving praise for how the monument reflects back on history, giving a voice to the silenced, with one artist exclaiming, “The first time I ever viewed the monument, I cried. And I didn’t know exactly why.” Another artist continued the praise stating, “Just seeing that work erected in such a way as a healing device was beautiful.” New York author and journalist J.C. Hallman, who helped Browder by advising her on this project, gave a positive response stating, “The style of the monument seems so utterly appropriate. It’s the perfect combination of getting the history right and getting the art right.” 

This monument does memorialize something and people and it does so positively. It memorializes the three women, whose only names were recorded, that underwent brutal means in the name of science and were never thanked, signifying the remembrance of many other slave women who were not recorded. This also memorializes the history of medical distrust between black people and medical staff, particularly between black women and doctors, with the high mortality rates of newly black mothers and the disregard of patients because of the myth that black people have higher pain tolerance than white people. Browder does a great job of sewing in little pieces of information about black history or in the history of gynecology in general. 

I think that this monument does unify and disunify the community in Alabama and it’s because the way it unifies is that it brings together people who haven’t yet learned of this piece of history or have never heard of it at all, and they want to learn more by having conversations with others that are witnessing it at the same time, which could also advance interest in the stories of the oppressed. The monument can make conversation about the past and the present, which in this case is still very the same in terms of treatment of black people in the medical world, and the only difference would be technology. This could also potentially disunify the community because people, like medical staff and students, can still agree with the fact that since the tortured women were all for the advancement of science and it technically worked, then we shouldn’t discredit Sims because of this. While it’s true he advanced problems women were having and still are to this day, that doesn’t mean we should just plain ignore what he did to these women, which isn’t shocking sadly. If anything, this is a small stepping stone towards better trust with medical staff for black people, with the starting conversation being why.

 With the monument and the history behind it and the criticism that came with it, this does reflect the fact that people in the community of Montgomery are acknowledging the past, but it is taking a long time to make drastic changes. I think that reflects all communities when they come face to face with the troubling past that happened in that same community. Along with the fact that this reflects the community’s choice to react, this also amplifies their political and moral questions like “Would this be okay by today’s standards?” “what would you do in this situation?” “What perpetuated this back then and how can we stop that now?” Mothers of Gynecology help to make people see other perspectives in moments of history that most consider great advancement. 

With the history that inspired Mothers of Gynecology, and the positive outcome of reviews garnered from it, this is a small step in the grand scheme of trying to open up dialogue about how the treatment of black people, particularly women, has always been there. Even though, what happened during those situations has advanced into helping millions of women that have been dealing with the problems of vesicovaginal fistula or could branch off into helping many other problems associate with that type of tearing and pain like endometriosis, that still doesn’t mean we should not consider the context of it and that it’s simply the fact that enslaved black women never had bodily autonomy back then. We still don’t in today’s day and age. Not even just black women, women in general don’t have bodily autonomy and a major one that has happened that Browder has definitely foreshadowed with her monument is the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. Maybe not truly foreshadowing, but I can see how this really relates to women. I think this now has more significance now or more specifically, it has more importance to women now than ever. This is proof that people need to start fighting back metaphorically through voting, which is where the political part becomes more amplified not in just Alabama, but in the United States, spreading correctly valuable information for vulnerable people who need it most, and making the best decision they can afford to make. This may be the start of a new fight but in a different way. 

Works Cited

Mutter Edu, Staff. “James Marion Sims: Father of Modern Gynecology or Abuser?” The College of Physicians of Philadelphia | Birthplace of American Medicine. Accessed October 19, 2023. https://collegeofphysicians.org/programs/education-blog/james-marion-sims-father-modern-gynecology-or-abuser. 

Michelle L. Browder and Dr. Beth Harris, Michelle L. Browder, and Dr. Beth Harris. “Michelle Browder, Mothers of Gynecology.” " Michelle Browder, Mothers of Gynecology. Accessed October 20, 2023. https://smarthistory.org/seeing-america-2/mothers-of-gynecology/. 

Lazaro, Fred de Sam, and Simeon Lancaster. “Alabama Artist Works to Correct Historical Narrative around Beginnings of Gynecology.” PBS, February 27, 2023. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/alabama-artist-works-to-correct-historical-narrative-around-beginnings-of-gynecology. 

Magazine, Smithsonian. “Subjected to Painful Experiments and Forgotten, Enslaved ‘mothers of Gynecology’ Are Honored with New Monument.” Smithsonian.com, May 11, 2022. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mothers-of-gynecology-monument-honors-enslaved-women-180980064/. 

“Maternal Mortality Rates in the United States, 2021.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, March 16, 2023. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/maternal-mortality/2021/maternal-mortality-rates-2021.htm#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20the%20maternal%20mortality,for%20White%20and%20Hispanic%20women. 

FINAN, EILEEN. 2022. “Artist Michelle Browder: ‘These Women Deserve Dignity.’” People 98 (23): 68–71. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=160343340&site=eds-live.

Matchan, Linda. “The Statue of a Doctor Who Experimented on Enslaved Women Still Stands in Alabama. but Now There’s Also a Monument to His Victims.” The Washington Post, October 7, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/mothers-gynecology-alabama-memorial-statue/2021/10/01/cca0a788-21fd-11ec-8200-5e3fd4c49f5e_story.html. 

“Black Americans Are Systematically Under-Treated for Pain. Why?” Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy | University of Virginia. Accessed October 21, 2023. https://batten.virginia.edu/about/news/black-americans-are-systematically-under-treated-pain-why. 

TodayShow. “‘You Are Not Listening to Me’: Black Women on Pain and Implicit Bias in Medicine.” TODAY.com, July 27, 2020. https://www.today.com/health/implicit-bias-medicine-how-it-hurts-black-women-t187866. 

Holland, Brynn. “The ‘father of Modern Gynecology’ Performed Shocking Experiments on Enslaved Women.” History.com, August 29, 2017. https://www.history.com/news/the-father-of-modern-gynecology-performed-shocking-experiments-on-slaves.