EP84: Deirdre Cooper-Owens on Medical Bondage, Racial and Gynecological Trauma

What She Shares:

  • The relationship between slavery and modern medicine
  • Learning to read between the lines of the medical literature produced during slavery
  • The emotional strain of researching archives of enslaved people
  • Her own gynecological experience as a black woman

What Youโ€™ll Hear:

  • The racist background of gynecology and obstetrics
  • How the presumption that Black bodies feel less pain is founded in slavery
  • Understanding that the first men practicing gynecological surgeries were interested in protecting an economic system
  • Recognizing the Mothers of gynecology while respecting their privacy
  • Having an embodied since of history and homeland
  • Examining the legacy of anti-blackness and xenophobia in medicine
  • How nonviolent direct action helped fan the popularity of her book
  • Using education to dismantle the anti-black medical system
  • Attending to the maternal health of Indigenous women
  • How race and class still affect how a person is treated in a medical office
  • Allowing the present to be a part of historical studies
  • Considering that stress responses signify a healthy, coherent system
  • Understanding that black women face higher maternal health risks because of institutionalized anti-blackness, not because of their race

Deirdre Cooper Owens is a griot, and a teacher who performs may functions in her community, especially in this 21st century. Her practice is rooted in the West African and Gullah traditions of gathering and telling stories. Sheโ€™s an award-winning historian and popular public speaker as well as a Professor in the History of
Medicine and Director of Humanities in Medicine Program at the University of Nebraska- Lincoln. Dr. Cooper Owens is the author of “Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology.”