Our discussion on Sims in class seemed to have two sides to it; the girls and the guys. The girls were appalled at what Sims did to the slave women and the guys while also appalled seemed to understand the need for it. That is a generalization, I don' t mean to say that everyone in those categories thought that way. To me the reason that is that, there isn't any procedure as invasive as a gynecological exam, that a man would have to go through. As Josh said the most that a man has to go through with his "area" is turn your head and cough. For women it is way more intrusive to the body and to a certain extent your mind, as the location of the exam is an extremely private place.
I think that Sims did have some sort of sexual fascination with his profession as was suggested in class. When Sims said, "I saw everything, as no man had ever seen before" it seemed to me that he had a sexual view to what he was doing. To me if he had truly wanted to help women, he would have treated all women the same in his surgeries, regardless of their race. Sims noted in his notes of one of the slave girl's agony and blood-curdling screams during the procedures. If he recognized that enough to write it down and use it as a reason to use anesthesia on white women then he obviously knew that all the women could feel pain. To not use anesthesia on the slave girls was despicable to me, among the other things he did to them.
I do see the guys views that what Sims did was necessary for the field of gynecology. Brian brought up the question in class, of what else was Sims supposed to use for his experimental procedures. Yes what he did was horrible, but at the same time I agree with Brian. Who else was he supposed to do it on at that time? To do so on white women would be out of the question. At the time African American women were seen as nothing more that animals and property. A majority of the people then didn't care what happened to them.
I am disgusted with what Sims did to all the slave women. On the other hand I also see the need for what he did, so I think that we can't really judge his actions with today's medical standards.
Males do have one invasive exam: a colon oscopy.
ReplyDeleteJillian--Interesting observations here on how one may respond to the example of Sims differently on the basis of gender and previous experiences with the medical community.
ReplyDeleteJohn--Humorous observation, but women have colonoscopies as well. I think Jillian was referring to invasive procedures that are gender-specific.