Rachel E. Gross wrote VAGINA OBSCURA An Anatomical Voyage.
Since the start of humankind, the world of your vagina has been largely unknown, underestimated and misunderstood. It can seem more distant than Mars, and has more secrets than the Sphinx. The pursuit of science and health knowledge has been left to men until recently when people with vaginas have made headway into the realm of science and health. They blew it.
The impact of this neglect cannot be overstated. While huge amounts of money and dedication are poured into the understanding of penises, the female body is ignored. This misinformation and shame are still being passed down to girls.
The knowledge gap was experienced by Gross when she was prescribed rat poison to treat her vagina problem. She realized that she had no idea how her vagina worked, and that no one else did either.
She points to Darwin's journal entry, which states that a woman's purpose was to be a nice soft wife. Freud, who admitted he knew little about womankind, would influence gynecology through the 20th century and even today.
In 1993 a federal mandate required that women and minorities be included in clinical trials. The National Institutes of Health started a branch to study vulvas, vaginas, ovaries and uteruses in the year of 2014). The bioengineer opened America's first and only lab to research endometriosis after her niece was diagnosed.
The medical textbooks that were used in the 1980s referred to the disease as endometriosis. Freud's 1895 studies on hysteria suggested higher education and careers.
One of the first mental health conditions attributed to them was the word "hysteria", derived from the Greek hystera, or womb. The recent argument that hysteria was all along was added by Gross. According to a 2012 paper by Iranian endometriosis surgeons, this would constitute one of the most colossal mass misdiagnoses in human history, and has subjected women to murder, madhouses and lives.
In eight chapters, Gross explores the female body from a medical, social and historical perspective. Some passages may be wince-inducing for the squeamish. Gross manages to make palatable the sawing of corpses and the injecting of silicone into snake vaginas, without undercutting the gravity of their revelations.
She achieved this by way of personal stories, such as the first researcher to fertilize a human egg outside the body, and the OB-GYN who performs clitoral restoration surgery on women who have undergone genital cutting.
It is no wonder that the clitoris has been demonized, dismissed and left to the trash heap of history. It is the only human organ that has pleasure as its primary function.
Rachel E. Gross illustrated VAGINA OBSCURA. There is a large amount of pp. W.W.Norton and Company is $30.
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