Carolyn Cooper | Speculum made for enslaved women

Many Jamaican women are not doing routine tests for cervical cancer. That's because the procedure is very invasive and often painful. A Gleaner article was published last Monday with this alarming headline, 'Be gentle, Doc - Medical practitioners urged to take more care in administering Pap smears'. Doctors have to be 'urged' to be careful?

Nurse Lehurse Webster, from the Clarendon Health Department, explains how the test is done: "During the Pap smear, you use a metal object, a speculum, that is inserted inside the vaginal canal to open the passage so the practitioner can see the cervix. Because the speculum is something that is wound up, winding it back down, if you are not careful, you can pinch the client."

I know there are people who take pleasure in inserting hard objects into various holes in their body. This is a family paper, so I will not elaborate. Though God only knows what unsupervised children are watching on the Internet! Most women do appreciate a rock-hard penis in the right context. Especially if it's attached to a nurturing man who cares about his partner! But we certainly do not welcome an unlubricated metal object in our vaginal canal in the doctor's office.

Then the average Jamaican man probably assumes that his erect penis is as solid as a metal speculum. Pure delusion! Not even the firmest of the firm can rival the unyielding, rigid speculum, which never comes to a satisfactory ending for the woman. I've always assumed that the modern speculum was invented by a man. And a sadistic woman-hater on top of it!

'VIOLENT LEGACY'

I finally checked last week and found an article by Rose Eveleth published in The Atlantic magazine on November 17, 2014. She confirms that the inventor of the modern speculum was, indeed, a man, James Marion Sims. He is branded as the father of American gynaecology. Eveleth reveals disturbing facts:

"Sims' early gynaecological experiments were done on slave women who, in many cases, he purchased and kept as property in the back of his private hospital. Along with this violent legacy, Sims left behind a few medical advances and inventions - one of them being the vaginal speculum. While the design has been refined, the speculum women see today isn't all that different from the one Sims used on his captive patients."

Eveleth reports that: "The idea for the speculum came to Sims while treating a white patient who had been thrown from a horse. After he helped her 'reposition her uterus', he had an idea. He fetched a slave, had her lay on her back with her legs up, and inserted the bent handle of a silver gravy spoon into her vagina. That's right, the very first modern speculum was made out of a bent gravy spoon."

Sims performed operations on black women without anaesthesia because he assumed we don't feel pain as intensely as white people! Notice that Sims didn't put the bent gravy spoon up his white patient. She was above experimentation. It was the enslaved black women who was the appropriate object of Sims' research. The white woman would become the entitled beneficiary of the abuse of the black woman's body.

TAKING CONTROL

Since so many enslaved African women were forced to suffer as Sims developed his speculum, I believe we should honour their sacrificial legacy by taking care of ourselves. We just have to do di dyam Pap test. Even if it does hurt. It cannot possibly be as painful as the agony they endured. Sims operated on some of these captive women over 30 times. Without anaesthesia!

After years of being violated by the speculum, I decided to take matters into my own hands. The first time I asked a doctor to let me take control, there was resistance. But I knew it was in my own interest to do the Pap test. So I insisted on inserting the instrument myself. Even female doctors don't always take their time. And the speculum is always cold. When you insert the speculum yourself, you can ease it in and reduce the discomfort.

The teacher of the grade nine history class at Hillel could very well have included the speculum as one of the instruments of torture used on enslaved African women! It may not be on the curriculum, but the process of modernising the speculum is certainly a classic example of the bestiality of white Americans like Sims. And there could be no question about European civilisation versus African savagery. Sims' statue in Central Park has just been toppled as part of the revolt against Confederate 'heroes'.

Then I was amused by a comment on last week's column, 'Wa wrong wid Hillel history lesson?", posted by Fieldgar: "Ms Cooper, mi chat patois good, understand it fully and also can also write it reasonable well, in spurts. But I must say honestly that it's very taxing on the brain, reading a full-length column in patois." My response: "Nothing wrong with taxing your brain. It's excellent exercise." That's what the Hillel history lesson was all about.

- Carolyn Cooper, PhD, is a specialist on culture and development. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and karokupa@gmail.com.