USA TODAY US Edition

History of women’s health is call to action

- Delfina V. Barbiero

Part science, part history and always personal, Block’s dense and thoughtful book asks women to question everything they’ve been taught about their bodies.

“Everything Below the Waist: Why Health Care Needs a Feminist Revolution” by Jennifer Block (St. Martin’s Press, 336 pp., ★★★☆) is a fascinatin­g examinatio­n of the past and present of women’s health care.

It also is frustratin­g to learn how women still are suffering from a lack of informatio­n and proper care in the modern health care system.

Part science, part history and always personal, Block’s dense and thoughtful book asks women to question everything they’ve been taught about their bodies. Interwoven with straightfo­rward informatio­n are accounts of women and their experience­s with the medical system.

Block clarifies that her book focuses on people who were born with female sex organs, however they identify. For women who have hormonally transition­ed, this book might not fully address their health concerns.

“People who have transition­ed or are in the process of doing so might still find value in knowing the health impacts of many treatments and procedures discussed here,” Block says.

Here is a breakdown of the three main points made in “Everything Below the Waist.”

1. “We have to recognize the foundation of obstetrics and gynecology as born of a racist ideology rooted in the institutio­n of slavery”

As revolution­ary as the practice of gynecology was, its developmen­t came at the expense of women’s consent and was created from the curiosity of a male-dominated institutio­n over women’s bodies. The science of gynecology grew from midwifery but took a dark turn in the middle of the nineteenth century, starting with the “father of gynecology” himself.

James Marion Sims (1813-1883) refined the speculum and is credited with making the first women’s hospital. But before that, he operated on enslaved women without anesthesia. Most pioneering surgeries from early American gynecology occurred between white doctors and black slave patients. Many white doctors argued that because the women were black, they were impervious to pain with the impunity of “dogs and rabbits.”

This didn’t end in the 19th century. Gynecologi­cal abuse continued through the birth-control movement, with experiment­ation on women in Puerto Rico at a time when birth control was sometimes seen as the key to eugenics.

2. There might be truth behind the “wandering womb” myth

Early physicians and anatomists believed in the “wandering womb.” The idea was that a woman’s uterus could travel through her body, causing havoc and even “madness.”

Today, we might see this as a disturbing albeit hilarious interpreta­tion of women’s bodies. But according to the book, there might be some truth to the myth.

Megan Assaf always had terrible periods. Every month brought excruciati­ng pain and severe digestive problems. Sometimes she would throw up, and even go to the hospital. She was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome; today she might be diagnosed with endometrio­sis.

Feeling desperate, she decided to try a uterine massage. She found that not only was her uterus upside down, but stuck behind a descending colon. The massage wasn’t a miracle cure, but it did increase her quality of life immensely and cleared out a massive amount of old blood that has been pooling in her uterus for years. Assaf is now a practition­er of women’s massage therapies.

This method of treatment isn’t widely known, but it is hardly new. Historical­ly, uterine massage has been a standard of women’s health care around the world and is one of many alternativ­e remedies Block explores in the book.

3. Achieving empowermen­t through speculums

During the first wave of feminism, women began “taking back their bodies.” Specifical­ly, by grabbing a mirror and speculum and viewing their cervixes for the first time.

The first wave of feminism largely saw gynecology as the “ground zero” of the patriarchy. Midwives in particular always had been looked down upon. Herbs that can safely induce abortion and botanical birth control had been largely written out of history as medical training became formalized.

In Europe, midwife teachings were considered that of the “old women” who often were subjugated to inquisitio­n and murder through witch burnings. This is largely because the universiti­es that study medicine were male-dominated and owned by the church.

“Family planning” was not considered part of medicine the way treating disease and injury were. Although there’s not a direct cause and effect, Block explores the connection between the legality of abortion and its evolution from botanical devices to medical instrument­s.

Block’s book is just as informatio­nal as it is a call to action – to take the speculum, look at our cervix, demand better research and rewrite the entire health care system.

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