Studying Race in Women's Studies

The extent to which race and gender are intertwined becomes more and more evident as we progress through this course. The intent within the syllabus to extensively cover issues of race seemed odd and out of place within a women's studies course. After reading McIntosh's White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack and Schiebinger's Theories of Gender and Race, I have come to recognize the similarities between male privilege over females and white/European privilege over other races. The fact that white women and black men were considered the biggest threat to the European male elite and studied most extensively is fascinating. Its as if to study both females and Africans at the same time would be to study an individual so far from the "norm" that she is not even comparable or worth the time. Consequently, scientific scrutiny of the gender divide focused extensively on the familiar European female whereas inspections of race focused entirely on the males from Africa.

In the cases where black females were studied, they were not treated merely as inferior beings but more as "objects" of experimentation. Axelsen's Women as Victims of Medical Experimentation: J Marion Sims' Surgery on Slave Women, 1845-1850 conveys this terrible treatment. Sims, noted for being "the father of American gynecology," performed medical procedures on slave women without the use of ethers or other early anesthetic substitutes. Investigating the existence of anesthesia or other chemicals to make his procedures more tolerable does not appear to have been a priority for Sims.
The fact that Sims only entered (reluctantly) into the field of "women's diseases" to gain recognition within the male medical world as well as the existence of memorials that exalt his expertise is off-putting. Within the Schiebinger article, there is a evidence for similar oppression when it remarks on one anatomist's observation of one of his African females, implying either that the individual was a servant or an object of his study.

Shiebinger returns to her idea that man is connected to reason (Homo sapiens) whereas women are almost bestial. She remarks on the complex comparative study of male skulls between races. The female equivalent in this case is the pelvis (focus on procreation like the focus on breasts and lactation). I found it particularly interesting that anatomists of the late 18th century had to alter their conclusions when their findings confirmed that Europeans actually have larger pelvises than Africans (contrary to belief in the opposite due to the ease of African birth). The idea that the enlarged buttocks of Africans (specifically Hottentot) is a natural adaptation to mimick the larger European pelvis is astounding.