Anarchagland, an autonomous-research project in Catalonia, has renamed female sex glands after 3 slaves, Anarcha, Betsey and Lucy, who were abused as guinea pigs  by the maverick doctor J Marion Sims.    anarchagland…

Sims bought up to 20 black slave women suffering gynecological disorders and experimented on them, without anesthetics , for 4 years in his ”medical Plantation” in Alabama .

We don’t know how many of his victims died or were permanently crippled, it was a death sentence offense for slaves to write or record  anything, but Sims was a showman and boasted of operating over 30 times on 17 year old Anarcha, and almost killing Lucy outright on her first operation.

These slave women suffered torn fistulas- tears in the walls between their vaginas, urethas and rectums, so that they  leaked urine and weren’t sexually able  so their owners lost money. .. these were caused by difficult births, atrocious working conditions,  or legal rape, indeed Sims himself probably caused the condition in Anarcha by inserting forceps to pull out her baby, or by legally raping her (no note on if the child survived).

Sims succeeded in curing fistulas, by sewing up holes in their vaginas and went on to become rich and famous as the ‘Father of Gynecology’. But his abuse and hatred of women set the scene for the horrific torture and denigration practiced by patriarchal male doctors to this day.

”Several of his patients had surgery for what were considered gynecological issues: such as clitoridectomies, believed to control hysteria or ‘improper’ behavior related to sexuality. These were done at the requests of their husbands/fathers, who were permitted under the law to commit the women to surgery involuntarily.[5]”http://en.wikipedia.

J. Marion Sims, the “Father of Gynecology” (in the U.S.) endorsed the
practice of clitorectomies well into the twentieth century. The
practice of clitorectomy for psychiatric disorders became popular with
Freudian psychoanalysis. Oophorectomy, or removal of the ovaries, also
known as female castration, and hysterectomies were widespread as a
cure for psychological disorders and continued in the U.S. until the
mid-1940’s.—source here  The renamed glands are the two Skene’s glands, now the Anarcha glands, and the two Bartholin glands, now the Lucy and Betsey glands.

Skene was another US doctor, who wasn’t even the first to describe the glands, and was a big fan of Dr Sims (even carving a statue of him). Skene’s gland

Anarcha was a 17 yr old black slave forced to endure Sims experiments. She probably became a morphine addict and her baby may have died due to Sims intervention.

Anarcha’s and her companions’ forced torture led to a procedure for treating fistula and it’s fitting she be remembered  by having Skene’s gland named after her, also because her name Anarcha (‘female without hierarchy’) suggests her parents hoped she would somehow escape slavery and patriarchal culture.

Anarcha glands (Skene’s) vary in size from woman to woman. They can fill with fluid when the vagina is massaged from the inside against the outer front walls, during sex or childbirth, where the acclaimed ‘G spot’ is usually located. Many studies link the Anarcha glands to vaginal orgasms. When excitation increases they can cause ejaculation, through a ducts and an orifice just below the urethra, so it’s sometimes confused with urine. see Figure A.   (Also the Anarcha gland has recently been classified as ‘the female prostate’.)

The Betsey and Lucy glands, (Bartholin) are situated below the vagina on each side and hold a whiteish fluid which goes via ducts to the vagina when excited, providing lubricant in sex and childbirth. We don’t know if Betsey or Lucy (or the up to 20 more slaves) survived the experiments done on them.

Though the condition of fistulas was easily controlled, by 1885, the condition is still widespread especially in Africa, due to non existent primary health care, with resulting stigmatization, witch branding and terrible suffering.

It has been shown that with less than 1% of what the male hierarchy spend on weapons you could have free health and schooling worldwide.

The Anarchagland collective have made the following video which honours Anarcha, Betsey and Lucy, highlights the continuing tragedy of fistula and celebrates their own anti-patriarchal rebellion and  sexual stories.

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Here’s our video that illustrates the history of gynecology–patriarchal exploitation,

Here’s our first draft of a viral tool for body decolonization:[0 beta-teta-test] Anarcha, Lucy, Betsey y otras chicas del montón from Anarcha on Vimeo.

http://anarchagland.hotglue.me/

 glándula de ANARCHA = A la eyaculadora ó parauretral
Glándulas de LUCY & BETSY = A las lubricantes o vestibulares mayores

Sick of  body colonialism!!!!

NEVER MORE….

FROM NOW ON: ANARCHA’S GLAND!!!!!

I DON’T WANT TO CALL THE GLAND THAT MAKES ME EYACULATE RIVERS of PLEASURE with a guy’s name that says that “discover” some part of my body!

ANARCHA, was a black slave that suffered in her own flesh the experimentation of the sadist idols of skene… sims

SHE, AND ONLY SHE, can name my flesh. MEMORY.
HER flesh, MY flesh.
What makes me squirt deserves a body that can speak at her level.

DEATH to the patriarchal domination of the colonialist medical theatre!

original en castellano

Primer engendro para ilustrar la historia de la ginecología, primer esbozo de herramienta viral para la descolonización corporal. Reapropiación del lenguaje aplicado a nuestro cuerpo a través de la memoria y visibilización de lo cuerpos fundacionales de esta disciplina médica desarrollada como arma de poder patriarcal.

Al ser un germen aún este video patógeno carece de correcta ortografía, faltan créditos, hay glitches temporales en la lectura de textos… entre otras cosas. Sin embargo el proceso de incubación es irreversible para que juntas hagamos un daño irreparable a nuestro huesped:

el patriarcado, neoliberal, heteronormativo, nuclear y conservador, que vestido de institución médica impone su poder sobre los cuerpos que representan una amenaza a su equilibrio y sobrevivencia. Somos su peor pesadilla… y no se libraran de nosotras NUNCA.
Como dice la Furia… aún no ha nacido quien nos pare!

First spawning to illustrate the history of gynecology, first draft of viral tool for body decolonization. Reappropriation of the language applied to our bodies through memory and visibility,  medical discipline language developed as a tool of patriarchal power …

……..The incubation process is irreversible so that together we do irreparable damage to our guest patriarchy, neoliberal, heteronormative, nuclear and conservative dress medical institution that imposes its power over the bodies that represent a threat to their balance and survival . We are your worst nightmare … you will not rid yourselves of us EVER.
As the Fury says … he is not yet born who can stop us!

video
http://www.x0y1.net/convocatoria.html

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Anarcha
The Mother of Gynecology

Anarcha was an African American slave woman. She was one of the seventy-five slaves who worked the Wescott plantation, just on the outskirts of Montgomery, Alabama.

Anarcha went into labor one day. Three days later, she was still in labor. Dr Marion Sims was called in to assist the delivery. He writes in his autobiography that he used forceps on the fetus’s head but that he really didn’t know what he was doing since he’d had so little experience with the device. We don’t know whether the baby survived the ordeal. We do know that the mother experienced several vaginal tears from the birthing. She became incontinent afterwards due to the damage.

A few days later, the master of the plantation sent Anarcha to Dr Sims hoping he could repair the damage to his slave, as she could not hold her bowls or bladder. As her master’s chattel, her condition reduced her value considerably.

Sims took in the patient reluctantly. He put her up on his examination table, on her hands and knees and, using a modified pewter spoon to expand the walls of her vagina, he accidentally released the pressure that held her uterus in an awkward position. Anarcha felt immediate relief as the change in air pressure helped her uterus to relocate back into its proper position.

Through an agreement with her master, Anarcha became Dr Sims’s guinea pig. She regularly underwent surgical experiments, while positioned on Sims’s table, squatting on all fours, and fully awake without the comfort of any anesthesia. It was commonly accepted that African Americans had a higher tolerance for pain than their white counterparts. Commonly accepted but utterly wrong.

Anarcha’s fistula (from her vaginal tears) was repaired by Sims. Sims thus became the leading expert in repairing this damage that seemed to occur in a good number of births by slave women. Though Sims was sent many slave women with fistulas, we know from his biography that he experimented repeatedly on Anarcha, as well as two other slaves, Betsy and Lucy.

Anarcha was experimented upon, and drugged up later with Morphine, not to ease her pain as much as to stifle her moans. It has been calculated that she had been operated on, perhaps, 34 times. She, Betsy, Lucy, and countless others helped Dr Sims hone his techniques and create his gynecological tools. Though on display in museums, many of Dr Sims’s tools have modern counterparts that are used today.

Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy left no written legacy. Slaves were forbidden to read and write, a crime punishable by death.

And though science today looks back on Sims’s work ambiguously, truly unsure as to his level of success, or whether he should be credited as the father of gynecology, we now know who the mothers of modern gynecology were: they were the nameless and faceless slave women upon whom Dr Sims experimented.

Today we have just three names: Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy. It is our hope that these names will never be forgotten.

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J  Marion Sims.. Saint or Monster

Sims has continued to be cited for his groundbreaking work in medical textbooks but, since the late 20th century, historians and ethicists have questioned his practices. His experimental surgeries without anesthesia on enslaved African-American women who could not consent are considered by some to be symbolic of the violent oppression of blacks and vulnerable populations in the United States.^[1]

Physician L.L. Wall argues that Sims was operating for therapeutic purposes, with the consent of patients as can be determined, and ”within acceptable medical practices of his time”. He believes Sims cannot be judged only in relation to today’s standards.

It’s true that Sim’s experiments found a way, if it were used, to save the enormous suffering and stigmatization experienced by fistula victims, many also victims of rape or cruel and stupid childbirthing methods, also anesthesia was only starting to be used at the time.

But that’s no excuse for buying and abusing slaves to promote his illustrious career.. operating 34 times on Anarcha before trying white women (with anesthesia). Patriarchal slavers are not innocent because ‘it was accepted at the time” no more than they are today

”Several of his patients had surgery for what were considered gynecological issues: such as clitoridectomies, believed to control hysteria or ‘improper’ behavior related to sexuality. These were done at the requests of their husbands/fathers, who were permitted under the law to commit the women to surgery involuntarily.[5]”http://en.wikipedia.

Witches and women in medicine

Sims was part of a tradition which used surgery to keep women under
control. In the late nineteenth century and even up until 1946, there
was extensive use of ovariectomy for psychological disorder.
Indications included epilepsy, nymphomania, hysteria and ‘ovarian
insanity’.” (Scully 1980:49)

The tradition linking female sexual organs to our brains goes back to
Hippocrates and was used to justify castration of women who got out of
hand. An American doctor, Dr David Gilliam, writing in 1896, outlined
the case for castration by declaring that as a result “the moral sense
of the patient is elevated, that she becomes tractable, orderly,
industrious, and cleanly… My own experience in this line has been
most happy.” (Scully 1980:51)

This “wholesale unsexing of women” was at times at the behest of
husbands or fathers to enforce the submission of their women.

During this time clitoridectomy was also used to control women’s
sexuality, a custom which remains widespread in Africa and some areas
of the Middle East.

Current use of surgery

The widespread use of hysterectomy, caesarean section and mastectomy
today may be the natural successor to the overtly hostile and damaging
surgery of the nineteenth century.

radical mastectomy

prophylactic mastectomy

breast implants

> 20% of post-menopausal women in Australia have had a hysterectomy

variation in rate of caesarean sections

{note Yazzmyne: and lets not forget the unnecessary mutilation of the cervix routinely performed due to pap smear screenings most women subject to}

However, there has been an international shift of energy and
everywhere the feminine is rising, and women are coming back to
reclaim their rightful place at the heart of healing.”

——-excerpt from article :“Witches and women in medicine” by Jo Wainer

Self Sefense Gynacology trailer –WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Gynepunk is an autonomous research project on the history of gynecology, which opens up direct practical access to a self-managed DIY knowledge of our bodies, as well as an active and radical proposal to turn patriarchal history around. Gynepunk’s goal is to create efficient and affordable medical tools that allow us to take care of our own bodies. I had the opportunity to meet one of the initiators Klau Kinki (transhack activist and performance artist) in Mexico and participated in her workshop … Decolonize the female body!…

Julia Ostertag 143 subscribers

Cuerpos parlantes_espacio feminista y investigación urbana ·   Mejico

Muy contentas por recibir nuevamente a Klau con su arsenal gynepunketo. Charla: AnarchaGLAM, GynePUNK & Kaligari Cabinet
<<Se tratará de un recorrido performativo audiovisual a través de un proyecto de investigación autónomo sobre la historia de la anatomía, ginecología, obstetricia y proctología. Una propuesta activa y radical para re-escribiR esta historia por medio de bio-labs experimentales nómades, descolonización corporal, narrativas performativas viscerales y autoexploración.