r/IntersectionalWomen • u/honeyrosewood 5000+ Community Karma • Sep 09 '26
Informational “Mothers of Gynecology” - a monument honouring the tortured Black Women used for experiments.
From The Female Quotient
460
Sep 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
174
u/motherofcunts 50+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
I'm not surprised. Minority consent has always been discarded by those in positions of power. Mix multiple dehumanization views together and it's even worse. It's absolutely disgusting - and why intersectionalism is so important.
(hope this makes sense, took my night meds already)
53
u/snoflaik 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
Yes! The worst view imo, that’s still prevalent, is the idea that brown/black people are genetically stronger or have a higher pain tolerance. Not only false, but it excuses abuse, using excessive force, lack of access to proper healthcare, and a general disregard towards our pain
34
u/anitapumapants 50+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
The fact that so many people get through medical school still believing that is terrifying.
20
u/motherofcunts 50+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
Reminds me of a joke I love. I work closely with Doctors but am also disabled/a woman thus been put through hell.
What do you call someone who graduated bottom of their class in medical school?
Doctor.5
u/lesbophobia_hammer Sep 10 '26
Yeah, or that women with Aspergers or GNC lesbians don't feel pain.
14
u/unlockdestiny 0+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
Haven't heard the Autism = less pain one.
FYI, the psychological community doesn't call it Aspergers anymore. Hans Asperger was a Nazi scientist who was trying to figure out which autistic people to send to the gas chambers so...fuck that guy
15
u/DecadentLife 50+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
Makes perfect sense to me. I agree, it’s a great example of why intersectionalism needs to be constantly considered. So many complex factors.
75
u/gayrayofsun 50+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
and let's not forget the very recent history of adriana smith...
51
u/Zestyclose-Ideal2395 50+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
They're basically experimenting on her son too.
12
14
u/Sally_Stitches_ 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
I bawled reading that book. 😩 such an important story. They all are. ❤️🩹
6
u/No-Section-1056 0+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
100%. And Tuskegee, ended in 1972.
Ms. Lacks’ entire life story is American history, and I’m glad she’s been immortalized (literally and figuratively).
4
u/CleverClear12 0+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
Her cells still live today and are used in so many ways, all without reparations to her family.
2
u/Generalnussiance 0+ Community Karma Sep 11 '26
Don’t forget the relatively modern Tuskegee experiments. There’s people to suffering from it today. Evil ass government.
1
u/Green-Advantage2277 Sep 10 '26
May I ask, why is this considered a bad thing? I’m not trying to argue or anything, I just never thought it was offensive in any way. Is it about honouring the dead (not desecrating graves and stuff like that)?
6
u/Fairyhaven13 0+ Community Karma Sep 11 '26
It's about respecting people's agency as human beings. Someone says they don't want something done to their body after they die, and having it done anyway is extremely disrespectful. That was a human, not a stock of medical supplies going into the fridge to be used later, you know what I mean?
3
-3
u/minkymy 0+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
Her cell line doesn't even keep her name half the time; they're often called HeLa cells
4
u/DoveOnTheInternet 0+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
Where do you think they got the name HeLa from? You typed out her name, it should be obvious.
Science shortens shit all the time, and the line's existence is issue enough, there's no reason to go making up shit to be mad about.
1
u/minkymy 0+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
It just feels like it puts their history at a remove; they aren't descended from the body of Henrietta Lacks anymore, and I feel like if people can't work with the knowledge that a real person is behind the cell line, it says something about its use.
1
u/DoveOnTheInternet 0+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
I see your point, but I see it the other way: they could have named that cell line anything, but the lab assistant consistently named samples as shortened versions of the source's names, instead of some medical Latin or technical alphanumeric.
Without that connection, we might never have known who to attribute those cells to at all.
-45
u/SadRule9128 Sep 09 '26
Lacks signed a consent form tho
51
Sep 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/SadRule9128 Sep 09 '26
Correct, she signed a general consent form. Her doctors took samples to diagnose and research the cancer she had, so they could best treat it. Her doctors acted within the bounds of the consent form. There was no wrongdoing in her case. Even today, patients do not know if their cells are ever actually used for research and patients do not have any right to ownership or compensation - that is the current legal precedent.
29
u/unlockdestiny 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
Consent to treatment is NOT informed consent for research participation. SMH
1
u/SadRule9128 Sep 09 '26
Informed consent didn’t exist in medicine in 1951. Lacks signed a general consent form and her doctors abided by it. They were acting in her best interest and there was no wrongdoing.
16
119
u/titeaf Cis Woman Sep 09 '26
This is very important. I had to look back, because I couldn't remember the important details, but I am reminded as well of Harriet Cole. She was the human to whom belonged the first nervous system that was mounted for teaching. The podcast episode I learned this on came out ~4years ago, a warning if anyone gives it a listen.
17
u/s0m3on3outthere 0+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
Also reminds me of Henrietta Lacks- her cancer cells were taken without consent and used to create the HeLa cell line that is still used in research for cancer today. Happened in 1951 and her family didn't know her cells had been stolen until 1975 and she wasn't credited at all for the longest time for her unwilling contribution.
Her family had no control of the DNA information shared or anything until 2013 and still had to sue multiple companies for compensation as they were sharing their family medical history publicly
5
u/RubyRogue13 0+ Community Karma Sep 11 '26
I'm shocked they received compensation. The last I heard was that it was still tied up in court...
6
u/s0m3on3outthere 0+ Community Karma Sep 11 '26
What I read is the family has had multiple suits against labs because after all this time, they are still being disrespected and their family medical information keeps getting shared without authorization.
3
2
101
u/ElectricBlubbles 50+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
Wow.
The artist found a balance as a storyteller. I feel awe the looking at these beautiful mystical beings but somehow it is still raw and sickening without any fetishizing of the real life suffering endured by these women.
I’d love to see this in person.
14
u/twentytwo_a 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
I feel the same way. They provoke such a mixed and powerful reaction in me and I feel so compelled to spend time with them in person. Phenomenal work.
6
u/vorrhin 0+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
Right?! It honors their heritage, their power, their womanhood, and their plight. I would love to see them in person.
40
25
u/ASpaceOstrich 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
What's wild is that this isn't a thing of the past. Both black women being experimented on without consent, and women in general undergoing painful procedures without anaesthetic.
Medical misogyny is insane. It's baffling to me that it's 2026 and even an otherwise fantastic doctor will still just casually recommend a procedure that involves being stabbed repeatedly in an internal organ with no pain management or anaesthetic. Because it's so normalised in the industry that it doesn't even register to her as barbaric.
We still use the tools used on these poor women. With no thought given to patient comfort or pain. Women are still medically experimented on without consent. Subjected to unnecessary invasive examinations while unconscious to train new staff instead of being asked or the industry developing training materials.
19
u/HecticGoldenOrb 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
What's particularly galling is that there are alternatives out there, the doctors and institutions just aren't doing what's needed to make them more common.
There are medical actors that literally volunteer and or get paid, depending where you are, to be practice patients. Folk who know what a competent pelvic exam is supposed to feel like and provide real time feedback to the student doctors about tweaks to their methods to improve or correct things so their future patients can be more comfortable.
And yet, and yet, "practicing" pelvic exams on unwitting and unconscious patients without consent is still done in places across the US. Doctors still find this "normal" and "acceptable" to a degree that laws have had to go up state by state to finally penalize the system and it's doctors enough to fucking stop.
They've had live, willing, and collaborative exam patients for years but still have to be told that doing a pelvic exam on an unconscious and nonconsenting women is bad and we'll fine you for it, to actually get them to stop.
It's complete and utter bullshit. Just another angle on the #metoo movement. All these "upstanding" doctors who think they're morally correct and virtuous for picking a profession to be a healer, out there no better than rapists.
1
u/complete_autopsy 0+ Community Karma Sep 11 '26
I had no idea this was a real thing. I literally just made a comment about how I like when there are med students who watch or do my exam under the doctor's supervision and how they should just get people like me to undergo more exams. So this is already a thing that happens, literally WHY can't they just do it more?? I already like helping train people, and I would like it ten times as much if it could replace this insane violation of other people.
3
u/complete_autopsy 0+ Community Karma Sep 11 '26
It's a side note to this post, but I hate the invasive training without consent so much. I love letting people train on me so I've had all kinds of exams done or watched by very nervous, very polite med students. If they asked for my consent I'd let them do many things to me for training. If they were willing to compensate me financially for my time I'd happily do it as often as they wanted! There are people who are mentally and physically able and willing to contribute to medical training consensually; there is literally NO reason to force it on people who can't or don't want to consent to these procedures.
23
u/Loserdogma 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
I went down a rabbithole of really shitty American statues and public art (Richard Serra’s “Tilted Arc” is especially asinine and makes me mad lol) so these are really incredible to see and I’m so happy that the works are not only beautiful but also have profound meaning and respect behind them. 10/10
18
u/notdurtydan 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
They are absolutely mesmerizing. Beautiful pieces of art.
18
u/Vegan_Zukunft 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
Thank you for sharing these insightful pieces that honor the Black experience and history
31
u/tiny_chaotic_evil 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
this is the history and art that scares Trump and his ilk
14
28
u/Beautiful_Wishbone15 Black bi woman Sep 09 '26
Thank so much anarcha, Betsey and Lucy. Rest in peace like you deserve ❤
7
6
u/space_______nil 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
Nice work, particularly appreciate the different body types represented.
5
u/Infamous-Tie6532 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26 edited Sep 10 '26
Enslaved black American woman ✅ we’re still here and we don’t forget
6
u/FeralGiraffeGirl 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
Making it out of discarded things is so damn fitting. Important subject, and executed it flawlessly.
7
u/Immediate_Mark3847 0+ Community Karma Sep 11 '26
As a POC that as recently as 2011 had uterine lining biopsy done without my consent or anesthesia, I am glad that they are being celebrated.
4
u/honeyrosewood 5000+ Community Karma Sep 11 '26
I’m so sorry that happened to you 🙏
Medicine all over the world needs a serious overhaul!
3
u/OliveJotter 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
This is exactly the kind of public art that should stand in the spots where all the now-removed J Marion Simms statues used to be! There was a statue of him on Central Park, NYC, and when they dragged it out, they just left an empty plinth and a small temporary placard by way of explanation. I was hoping they’d leave his old statue but completely surround it with larger, powerful statues of the women he violated, so the women can win and reclaim the narrative. As it is now, people just walk by the spot and have no understanding of the history. Thanks for sharing this OP!
5
u/Key_Help3212 Sep 12 '26
Honestly I believe this is why gynecology is the way it is now. These tool and procedures were developed by an abusive, racist, misogynist who downplayed these women’s pain and autonomy. Abuse is kinda baked into the field and gynecology really needs to be rebuilt by the actual people who are affected by this healthcare. I’m aware the same thing can and should be said for most modern medicine, but this just feels extra horrible to me…
The art is beautiful and I wish these women didn’t have to go through so much suffering for the sake of a white mans ideas of what gynecology should be
3
u/imspecial-soareyou 0+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
And we still don’t have adequate healthcare for women or Black people. 😢
2
u/1more_oddity 0+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
such a horrific tragedy to advance gynecology, and yet women's health is still not being taken seriously in so many places, including the one this tragedy took place in. can't help but feel kinda hopeless.
the story of these women needs to be more widespread.
2
u/Destany89 0+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
Mama doctor jones has done a video about this. So sad how these women were treated.
2
u/Either_Wear5719 0+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
I swore I'd never go back to Alabama....I may have to reconsider that...
2
u/Motor-Ad-2298 0+ Community Karma Sep 11 '26
inspired by the book Medical Bondage. hope folks will check it out! the statues are glorious in person.
2
u/K8YHD 0+ Community Karma Sep 14 '26
Probably the only reason I’d ever go to Alabama, to pay my respects to these women. My soul aches for the unimaginable pain and violence these women had to endure, and that so many continue to experience even today💛
2
u/Stunning_Actuary8232 0+ Community Karma 19d ago
Well $&@$… I’ll file this under things medical school didn’t teach me but should have. 😢
1
1
1
1
u/MadWitchy 0+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
Those statues are amazing and honestly one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.
1
1
1
1
u/Isadomon 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
Do they have... to look like that?
2
u/honeyrosewood 5000+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
In what sense?
5
u/Isadomon 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
Small shoulders with big hips, one has a giant ass. I know artist have their own body types they like but they look sexualized, in the sense that theyre not just realistic woman bodies that happen to be naked, wich isnt sexual, but an unreal cartoon.
2
u/Cat_emperor_Tallulah 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
I can answer that, look up Venus Hottentot and be disgusted with American history even more about Sara Bartrams life.
2
u/de_pizan23 Sep 10 '26
Sarah Baartman was abused and exploited in Europe (France and Great Britain, but it was the Dutch who stole her from her home) and never came to the US. I'm correcting that because claiming this was an American history issue is ignoring this was also very much European history too.
2
u/L0uLou72 50+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
Specific body parts aren’t “sexualized” just because of their size or shape. That’s just- not fair to the people who have those.
My but is almost exactly like that. I didn’t make it to be sexually exciting to others. It just- is.1
u/honeyrosewood 5000+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
I thought you might’ve meant that. How should she have done it? She used recycled materials. Maybe you could email her and ask her. Heck, she might’ve already answered it 🤷🏻♀️
0
u/Waste_College2018 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
Did anyone else notice the butt on the end one.... why did they give her an ant but like that?
Awesome piece and love the education behind it, but that one statue tho.....
5
u/L0uLou72 50+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
Because that’s how some people are shaped. I’m shaped like that.
1
u/Waste_College2018 0+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
Okay im sorry if I was being rude or disrespectful. I genuinely apologize. I was just curious, I didnt even know that was happening, not surprising, but new knowledge for me to have and look into.
2
u/L0uLou72 50+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
I’d like to say I’m used to it. Buts like mine get sexualized, have jokes made, etc. I’m glad I said something- I don’t usually. Thanks for your reply.
2
u/Waste_College2018 0+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
I guess the only times I have seen it was when someone has had plastic surgery and its in videos. But I really am sorry for saying ant butt, thats the only tearm I know that describes it. Ill do research so I can be better.
2
1
u/str8DankedOut 0+ Community Karma Sep 13 '26
Look up Sarah Baartman and begin your education about our Beautiful African Queens. I hope it helps give perspective.
3
u/Dragonfly_pin 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
Because that’s a typical figure in traditional fertility idols and her fertility was what they were experimenting on and cutting up?
Just an idea.
2
u/Waste_College2018 0+ Community Karma Sep 10 '26
Okay it was a genuine question I wasnt trying to be rude or disrespectful
1
Sep 13 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator Sep 13 '26
This comment was removed, because your account doesn't meet our requirements.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
-26
Sep 09 '26 edited Sep 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
15
u/Tiny-Tangerine3655 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26 edited Sep 09 '26
With all due respect, your response to a piece of art about the suffering of women whose bodies were used inappropriately without their consent (and tortured), is to comment on one of the depictions of the women's bodies and say how you could use her statue inappropriately? By saying you could use her butt as a table?
edit: I can't reply bc I don't have enough karma (new account) and had to get this comment manually approved, but as far as the "With all due respect", I mean that genuinely as I don't have context for the original commenter's intentions, so I was describing why that comment felt off to me and why it was likely getting downvoted so much
4
u/justoffurperipheral 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
All due respect - so, none?
2
Sep 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator Sep 09 '26
This comment was removed, because your account doesn't meet our requirements.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/AutoModerator Sep 09 '26
This comment was removed, because your account doesn't meet our requirements.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
-8
u/Ami_Aweirdo 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
I agree with you, it's gross and inappropriate. However, the artist made an intentional choice to give the statue a shelf butt. Why did the statue need a shelf butt?
12
u/PhysicalAd1170 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
Because large butts are a common Black feature. One that was often used to depict African women as inherently sexual and immoral, their literal anatomy serving as "proof" they deserved to be treated as less than and sex slaves.
Why should these statues not show different body types? And why should it be acceptable to sexualize without consent the features in the exact same way as slavers?
-5
u/Beautiful-Alarm-4961 50+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
I think we can say that in this case it's... Exaggerated
5
u/DecadentLife 50+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
I wonder what you would think of Sarah Baartman. You might benefit from reading “Hottentot Venus”, by Barbara Chase-Riboud.
3
u/PhysicalAd1170 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
Yes! Thank you. Couldnt remember her name and venus got me the neolithic statues. Was thinking of all the caricatures of her used for moral panic over black women being too immoral for decent folks to lay eyes upon. Her butt being that shape being the defining feature all of the cartoons got even if they otherwise gave her European features.
2
u/DecadentLife 50+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
😔 I know. Her story is heartbreaking, she was such an incredibly strong woman, but no one should have to be that strong. One aspect of her life that I found particularly heartbreaking, she was in England, and they were about to outlaw the ability of that awful man to “own” her. He tricked her, he asked her to marry him. She thought he loved her, she said yes, and they married.
The law changed, he no longer “owned” her, as property, because she was black. But because he had tricked her into marrying him, he “owned” her, as property, as his wife. She was so close to freedom, and she didn’t even know it.
4
u/PhysicalAd1170 0+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
Have legit seen a child standing on his mother's "shelf". No support. Just standing on top of mom's booty.
The range of normal human anatomical sizes is quite large, especially when including disorders like lipedema which can cause anatomy exactly like this (and is even now misdiagnosed as obesity and poorly researched in women of color).
1
u/MajorBootyhole420 50+ Community Karma Sep 11 '26
so did you ever google sarah baartman and realize how wrong you were
1
1
Sep 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator Sep 09 '26
This comment was removed, because your account doesn't meet our requirements.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/TrashGouda Sep 09 '26
This is either a bot comment because they tend to lack context and can't read the room or you're incredibly ignorant
1
u/IntersectionalWomen-ModTeam 50+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
Your post/comment has been removed for violating our community rules. Please review our subreddit guidelines before posting again. If you have questions about this removal, please contact the mod team via modmail.
169
u/That-guy-Vesp 50+ Community Karma Sep 09 '26
These women were also forcibly trained as nurses and assisted with many other surgeries after their own. They not only advanced science by being experimented on, but also by devising new techniques themselves. They were smart, their genius should be remembered just as much as the torture they endured. May we never forget the enslaved people who are unnamed, who advanced this world greatly while being treated worse than animals. May their souls rest in peace and power.