mrars

[mrars]

Modern Medical Racism | Tressie McMillan Cottom

Image: Emily E. Petersen et al., “Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Pregnancy-Related Deaths--United States, 2007-2016,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 68, no. 35 (September 6, 2019): 762-65. 

Medical racism is rampant in the United States. While medical racism can be found in fields of medicine, it is more apparent in the obstetrics and gynecology field. Women’s healthcare is inaccessible to a lot of women of color, and those who can receive healthcare suffer from racist attacks. What one can see when looking at stories of racism in the medical field, one sees doctors “stereotyping based on a patient’s race” which then influences “clinical and care decision” (Davis 89). Sometimes, this leads to diagnostic lapses. These lapses “result when medical professionals lack the ability to think about disease, illness, and discomfort -- or to make diagnoses -- outside of racial, gender or sexuality categories and associated stereotypes” (97). 

While each story is different, there have been a numerous amount of black women who have experienced medical racism while pregnant and giving birth. One person is Tressie McMillan Cottom. She had made sure to choose a doctors’ office in a good neighborhood with effective care. However, when she started bleeding while she was pregnant, she “sat in the waiting room for thirty minutes, after calling ahead and reporting my condition when I arrived” (Cottom 82-3). After talking with her doctor, the doctor stated that she “was probably just too fat and that spotting was normal” (83). He sent her home without truly assessing the situation. 

That same night, her butt started to hurt. Eventually she called the nurse, who asked her if her back hurt (84). Cottom said no, because it did not, and the nurse “said it was probably just constipation. I should try to go to the bathroom” (84). After three days, Cottom was still experiencing the same symptoms. She went to the hospital and the staff “implied that I had eaten something ‘bad’ for me and begrudgingly, finally decided to do an ultrasound” (84). It turns out that she had had two tumors that were bigger than her child. They admitted her to the hospital and one night nurse “mentioned that I had been in labor for three days. ‘You should have said something,’ she scolded me” (84). Cottom suffered from a diagnosis lapse that would cause the death of her newborn. 

Cottom also endured a threat about not getting an epidural if she was not quiet enough and the blame for her daughter’s death (84-5). Tressie McMillan Cottom is just one of millions, though, who have had similar experiences. According to the CDC, “black women are 243 percent more likely to die from pregnancy- or childbirth-related causes than are white women” (87). This percentage gap is a very clear indicator of just how much medical racism affects black women’s lives. 

Works Cited:

Cottom, Tressie McMillan. “Dying to be Competent.” Thick -- And Other Essays, 73-97. New York, NY: The New Press, 2019. 

Davis, Dána-Ain. “Pregnancy and Prematurity in the Afterlife of Slavery.” Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth, 89-114. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2019. 

#african american history #tw: death #black women's history #reproductive rights #medical racism

[mrars]

Reproductive Justice | Loretta J. Ross

Image: Bailey, Aliana Grace. Black Women’s Health Matters. January 2017. 

Once forced sterilization practices were knowledgeable to the public, various organizations in the 1980s began a reproductive justice movement. However, the term “reproductive justice itself is relatively new, conceived in 1994″ (Luna 328).  Some of these organizations were The National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO), the Combahee River Collective (CRC), and the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO). These organizations “made reproductive rights central to their political demands by linking a woman’s right to prevent reproduction using abortion and birth control with the socioeconomic context that made the choice to have a child a reality” (Nelson 139). The main reason why reproductive rights became a big issue that these organization advocated for was because “real reproductive justice could only be attained when all women had both the means to prevent the birth of an unwanted child as well as the economic means and protection from reproductive abuses necessary to bear a wanted child” (139-140). 

One of the main women that has helped bring the reproductive justice movement to the front lines has been Loretta Ross. Ross’s story with reproductive rights started in 1968, when she got pregnant by her cousin, who coerced her into having sex with him. Her family “contemplated taking her to Mexico for an illegal abortion but decided it was too dangerous” (141). From the article “All This That Has Happened to Me Shouldn’t Happen to Nobody Else’: Loretta Ross and the Women of Color Reproductive Freedom Movement of the 1980s,” it was unclear if the the pregnancy was wanted or not, but she ended up keeping the child. Her next encounter with “a lack of control and sexual violence” was in college (142). This encounter led her to having a “legal abortion in Washington DC in 1970″ (142). Then, in 1976, she received a total hysterectomy after a “misdiagnosis of venereal disease” rather than a “pelvic inflammatory infection caused by a Dalkon Shield IUD” (144). 

During the 1980s, Ross “helped build a reproductive rights movement that made the demands of women of color in control” (145-6). She even worked with the National Organization of Women (NOW), where she addressed “internal racism and help[ed] the organization to better integrate racial justice into their gender politics” (146). Reproductive justice was -- and is -- important to Ross and other black feminists because “they asserted that forced and coerced sterilizations among women of color stood as painful reminders that sexual oppression was always ‘simultaneously’ informed race and class oppression as well. Poor women of color, they insisted, were disproportionately the victims of sterilization abuse” (140). Today, Ross and other black feminists continue their work for reproductive justice. These women work and advocate to make sure that women of color have access to birth control, abortion, rape crisis centers, and more.

Works Cited:

Luna, Zakiya and Kristin Luker. “Reproductive Justice.” Annual review of law and social science 9, no. 1 (2013): 327-352.

Nelson, Jennifer. “All This That Has Happened to Me Shouldn’t Happen to Nobody Else’: Loretta Ross and the Women of Color Reproductive Freedom Movement of the 1980s.” Journal of women’s history 22, no. 3 (2010): 136-160. 

#african american history #black women's history #tw: noncon #tw: rape #tw: abortion #reproductive rights

[mrars]

Forced Sterilization | The Relf Sisters

Image: Uncredited. The Relf Sisters. June 28, 1973. The Associated Press, Montgomery. 

In the 1960s-70s, “reports of coercive, involuntary, and otherwise nonconsenting sterilization” were brought to light (Volscho 17). This was due to the racist hierarchy that is present within the United States. The hierarchy had “‘whites’ on the top and people of color on the bottom” which mapped “on to an ordering of reproductive rights. In this order, European American women are least likely to have external authorities (e.g., the state, reproductive healthcare providers) constraining their reproductive abilities, while women of color are most likely to have such institutions influencing their reproductive lives” (19). There are many contributions as to why various institutions got involved in black women’s reproductive systems, but at least one contribution is the stereotypes that were/are associated with black women. Two of these stereotypes are the Jezebel and the Welfare Queen. The Jezebel stereotype is “of a sexually aggressive ‘black’ woman promoted by media during slavery to explain the high birth rates of bonded women and numerous allegations of sexual assault claimed by enslaved women” (20). The Welfare Queen stereotype “suggests that African American women have babies simply to enrich themselves with ‘welfare money’” (20). Overall, racism within society and the medical field led to many black women experiencing non-consensual and/or coercive sterilization.

There are two women, specifically, who have experienced forced sterilization and experimentation. These women are the Relf sisters. In 1973, Minnie Lee and Mary Alice Relf were “the unwilling and unknowing recipients of tubal sterilization as well as guinea pigs for intrauterine devices and what were then experimental Depo-Provera shots” (17). According to their mother, she signed a consent form “after a nurse told her it was to gain her consent for ‘some shots’ her daughters needed. Mrs. Relf said she did not know that her daughters would be operated on” (”Sterilization”). It was also stated in a 1976 article that, “Officials of the Montgomery Community Action committee” admitted that the Relf sisters “had been receiving birth control shots at the clinic every ninety days. Caseworkers stated that these girls ‘were not bright enough to take birth control pills on schedule. Sterilization seemed the best alternative....’” (Tessler 59). 

These girls are only a couple out of many women of color to have experienced forced sterilization. It was also evident that when news of women of color receiving these sterilizations came to light, it was obvious “that poor and minority women [were] the targets of compulsory sterilization and that the operations have generally been done in programs funded by the government through the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and the Agency for the International Development” (60). Also, according “to a National Fertility Study conducted in 1970s, 20 percent of married black women had been sterilized, almost three times the percentage of married white women” (60). While news of forced sterilization has been less frequent, it continues, and poor women of color still bear the brunt of this medical racism and classism. 

Works Cited:

“Sterilization Blamed on Nixon Regime.” Bay State Banner (1965-1979), July 26, 1973.

Tessler, Suzanne. “Compulsory Sterilization Practices.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 1, no. 2 (Spring 1976): 52-66.

Volscho, Thomas W. “Sterilization Racism and Pan-Ethnic Disparities of the Past Decade: The Continued Encroachment of Reproductive Rights.” Wicazo Sa Review 25, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 17-31. 

#african american history #black women's history #tw: noncon #tw: medical #reproductive rights

[mrars]

Human Evolution | Delia, Drana, and the Zealy Daguerreotypes

Image: “Jack (driver), Guinea. Plantation of B. F. Taylor, Esq., Columbia, S.C.” Daguerreotype taken by J. T. Zealy, Columbia, S.C., March 1850. Peabody Museum, Harvard University.

During the 1850s, the study of humans and where different races came from was popular. This field of study produced two different theories, monogenism and polygenism (Wallis 102). Monogenism is the belief that all humans came from one pair of ancestors, whereas polygenism is the belief that all humans came from several different pairs of ancestors. Someone who studied these theories and firmly believed in polygenism was Louis Agassiz. In the later years of his life, he have many lectures on the subject and was held in conversation by others quite frequently. In fact, in Frederick Douglass’ Paper, it states that “Professor Agassiz has undertaken to prove that the negro does not belong to the human family. Where does he belong?” (“Cleaning” 3). 

For his studies, Louis Agassiz had daguerreotypes -- photographs -- taken for him in 1850. These photos had “two purposes, one nominally scientific, the other frankly political” (Wallis 102). While he used the photos to study the differences “between European whites and African blacks, at the same time they were meant to prove the superiority of the white race” (102). 

The enslaved men and women in these daguerreotypes were from Columbia, South Carolina. They “were brought to the portrait studio of daguerreotypist Joseph T. Zealy” (Young 30). Their names were Alfred, Delia, Drana, Fassena, Jack, Jem, and Renty. Each person was told to take their clothes off in order to make sure that Agassiz was able to study them properly. There is little known about them except for what they looked like. It is known that Delia and Drana “were the daughters of Jack and Renty, respectively” (30). It is also highly theorized, and plausible, that each person pursued an act of defiance, especially through the looks they gave the camera. Harvey Young, author of the book Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory, and the Black Body, mentions a scholar named Alan Trachtenberg, who “contends that their gaze challenges efforts to objectify them:” 

“The absoluteness of their confinement to [the role of specimen] has the unintended effect of freeing their eyes from another necessity but to look back at the glass eye staring at them. Their gaze defies the scrutinizing gaze aimed at their nakedness, and challenges the viewer of these daguerreotypes to reckon with his or her own response to such images.” (47)

Works Cited:

“Cleaning of News.” Frederick Douglass’ Paper. (Rochester, New York) VII, no. 19, April 28, 1854: [3]. Readex: African American Newspapers. 

Wallis, Brian. “Black Bodies, White Science: The Slave Daguerreotypes of Louis Agassiz.” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, no. 12 (Summer 1996): 102-106.

Young, Harvey. “Still Standing: Daguerreotypes, Photography, and the Black Body.” Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory, and the Black Body, 26-75. MI: University of Michigan Press, 2010. 

#african american history #tw: noncon #human rights

[mrars]

Foundations of American Gynecology | Betsey, Lucy, and Anarcha

Image: Anonymous. Sims Speculum. 

James Marion Sims (1813-1883) is considered to be the Father of Modern Gynecology. He got his start in the field by working as a doctor on a plantation in Montgomery, Alabama. There was an increasing need for doctors to work with women at the time, especially pertaining to reproductive health, since “Congress banned the importation of African-born slaves in 1808,” which caused “American slave owners [to become] even more interested in increasing the number of slave births in the United States” (Cooper 15). Sims created a women’s hospital on the plantation, and from 1844 to 1849, he operated and experimented on Anarcha, Betsey, Lucy, “and about nine other unidentified enslaved women and girls” who “lived and worked together in the slave hospital” as trainees and assistants under Sims (1). Simes operated on these women for “vesico-vaginal fistulae, a common obstetrical condition that caused incontinence, and that was brought on by trauma and by the vaginal and anal tearing women suffered in childbirth” (1). 

When an enslaved woman suffered from this condition, her value as an asset decreased, as she was expected to have many children (Cronin 7). Because of this, their owners wanted these women to be repaired completely. However, it wasn’t until 1845 that Sims became fully occupied with reproductive health. His first encounter with the field was with a white woman, who had been “thrown from her pony and suffered retroversion of the uterus” (8). He had been able to open her vagina enough to revert the uterus back, which gave him the theory that if he could see the inside of the vagina better, he would be better able to treat his patients that suffered from obstetric fistula (8). Because of this theory, he purchased “a pewter spoon to fashion into a speculum, which, he hoped, would aid in making the vagina visible to the naked eye” (8). 

The first enslaved woman to be treated by Sims is contended. He wrote down Betsey as his first acting patient for obstetric fistula, but many other sources claim that Lucy was first. Either way, he operated on them. Sims wrote that Lucy had “‘willingly consented’” to being operated on (8). This of course is not true. For Lucy to have willingly consented to anything, she would have to have been a freed woman. Each time he operated on Lucy, and any of the other women for that matter, he did not use anesthesia, even though a year after his operations began, news of ether being available as an anesthetic was available to him (8). Eventually, Sims had gotten the size of Lucy’s fistulae to decrease, but he still had not found a proper cure. This is when he began work on Anarcha and Betsey (9). Over the course of four years, “this process of operation and modification continued for Lucy, Betsey, and Anarcha, as well as the ‘six or seven [other] cases’, whose names we will never know” (9). By the time Sims had found a cure, which was a suture of the opening, he had operated on Anarcha 29 times, each time without anesthesia (9). One can only assume that each of the women Sims operated on, especially Lucy, had gone through just as many operation, if not more. 

While the foundations for American gynecology were laid out through the work of James Marion Sims, it came so at a painful cost. The enslaved women he worked on had to endure extreme pain over the course of four years. The pain came from both the fistulae and the operations without the use of anesthesia. These women were experimented on without consent in order for other women to not suffer permanently from obstetric fistula. 

Works Cited:

Cooper, Deirdre Owens. Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2017. 

Cronin, Monica. “Anarcha, Betsey, Lucy, and the women whose names were not recorded: The legacy of J Marion Sims.” Anaesthesia and Intensive Care 48, (2020): 6-13. DOI:10.1177/0310057X20966606. 

#african american history #tw: noncon #tw: medical #tw: experimentation #black women's history #reproductive rights

[mrars]

About This Blog

This is a research project for my African Studies class at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The posts on this page will focus on medical racism and reproductive rights struggles. I will specifically focus on African American women who have experienced non-consensual medical and scientific experimentation, non-consensual sterilization, modern medical racism, and how the struggle for Black women’s reproductive rights continues. 

Each post will contain history on the subject and a woman, or women, who experienced harsh treatment at the hands of doctors. The time range that these events occurred date from the 1850s to the present. The first post will contain the history of gynecology in America. Specifically,  how gynecology practically started with a man named James Marion Sims, who experimented on enslaved women. The second post will contain information on daguerreotypes and why they were important to theories on evolution, and the way the people behind the photographs experienced racist objectification. The third post will be about forced sterilization in the 1960s-70s, which included tubal sterilization, total hysterectomies, and Depo-Provera shots, which had been banned by the FDA at the time due to cancer scares. The last two posts will be about medical racism in the 21st century and the ways in which Black women are still fighting for reproductive rights. 

#african american history #reproductive rights #tw: noncon #tw: medical #tw: experimentation #black women's history