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A review by bahareads
Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology by Deirdre Cooper Owens
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
5.0
Medical Bondage is ultimately a historical telling of the impact of this medical scrutiny on the lives of enslaved women and poor immigrant women; it is also the story of the white medical man who fixated their gaze on these two groups. Cooper Owens examines the work lives of enslaved women patients and nurses through the lens of racial formation theory, can understand the science of race but also the contradictions in slavery and medicine that allowed "inferior" group to perform professional labor which required smarts.
She builds on two arguments: Reproductive medicine was essential to the maintenance and success of southern slavery and Southern doctors knew enslaved women's reproductive labour. She writes this to serve as a counternarrative to socio-medical histories that do not question the veracity of hagiographic top-down histories about great white medical men."When these women fell ill, a physical state where most people were allowed to be weak, white society objectified and treated them as stronger medical 'specimens.' As a consequence, enslaved women vacillated between the state of victim and of agent."
Cooper Owens looks at enslaved women and Irish women. She shows that whiteness was fluid during the 19th century and our modern category of whiteness cannot be applied to historical actors. Race was fluid to fit a doctor's medical needs at any given time. Looking into women's successes and losses during this time helps readers to see the hidden history within slavery. It allows an understanding of women's experiences in medicine and slavery that gives a better picture.
The growth of gynecology was the maintenance of sound Black female reproductive bodies. It served to perpetuate the institution of slavery. Slavery, medicine, and capitalism are intimate bedfellows. Cooper Owens explains that the combination of training and cultural socialization as an African-American woman has influenced her to read the sources differently than other authors. She says we are both benefactors from the work done but we also receive the burden.
She builds on two arguments: Reproductive medicine was essential to the maintenance and success of southern slavery and Southern doctors knew enslaved women's reproductive labour. She writes this to serve as a counternarrative to socio-medical histories that do not question the veracity of hagiographic top-down histories about great white medical men."When these women fell ill, a physical state where most people were allowed to be weak, white society objectified and treated them as stronger medical 'specimens.' As a consequence, enslaved women vacillated between the state of victim and of agent."
Cooper Owens looks at enslaved women and Irish women. She shows that whiteness was fluid during the 19th century and our modern category of whiteness cannot be applied to historical actors. Race was fluid to fit a doctor's medical needs at any given time. Looking into women's successes and losses during this time helps readers to see the hidden history within slavery. It allows an understanding of women's experiences in medicine and slavery that gives a better picture.
The growth of gynecology was the maintenance of sound Black female reproductive bodies. It served to perpetuate the institution of slavery. Slavery, medicine, and capitalism are intimate bedfellows. Cooper Owens explains that the combination of training and cultural socialization as an African-American woman has influenced her to read the sources differently than other authors. She says we are both benefactors from the work done but we also receive the burden.