Since the first caveman carved the first speculum out of Cheetah bones, misogyny has always
gotten in the way of doctors figuring out what’s going on with lady bits. Hey! Since
it is women’s history month, let’s take a look back at “The history of women’s
pain:”, subtitle, “Why you have to take birth control for every damn lady thing,”
with American treasure, Laurie Metcalf.
Doctor, I’m experiencing pain all over my body whenever I get my monthly visits from,
you know, the goddess of war.
That’s because your uterus is a hungry animal, pac-manning around your body, searching for
babies. Trust me, I’m the medical professional here, I know how to treat this.
Okay, you’re the doctor I guess.
Move uterus, dislodge and right thyself! Oh, you’re very tight inside.
Thank you.
By Medieval times, things had actually gotten worse; people now believed that women with
endometriosis were witches. Probably not a lot of women sought a diagnosis when the prescription
was being burned at the stake. By the Victorian era, medicine was truely advancing. General
anesthesia was improved, we began to understand bacterial infection, and doctors even started
wearing those head-mirror things. But, they still didn’t understand women when they
said “Ouch.”
Doctor, I’m having this intense pain in my lady parts.
Mmhm. Well, there are two options: I can commit you to a lunatic asylum or I can manually
stimulate you to completion.
Okay. I’ll take the orgasm one.
Ugh, fine. It’s just you’re my sixth patient today, and my fingers are exhausted so…here
we go. Ugh, women are so yucky.
That’s right, Victorian doctors invented the first vibrators because they were tired
of fingering their patients. I know we just showed you that, but I wanted to say it again
because it’s fucking amazing. Once every three-thousand years or so, men’s total
ignorance of the female body works out in our favor. Throughout the 20th century, endometriosis
was considered a career woman’s disease, and the pain, still often-thought to be all
in a woman’s head, and women’s pain still isn’t taken as seriously as it should be.
It takes six to eight years, on average, to finally get diagnosed with endometriosis.
Doctor, it’s enough. I have been coming to you for years, telling you that I am in
pain, and you have told me to lose weight, you’ve told me that I’m faking it, you’ve
told me that an Advil would cover it, and you’ve referred me to a therapist. It’s
2018, there’s no cure for endometriosis and yet you guys have developed like 45 different
pills for boners, and all you can offer me is the same old fucking birth control pill,
so I’m done, I can’t take it anymore.
I could uh, burn you at the stake.
I’ll take the birth control!
Very good. Should smile more, got a pretty face.
Now I know some of you are thinking, “Surely it’s not that bad in 2018,” but I know
others of you are thinking, “Oh my god, how did you get a microphone into my gyno
appointment from last week?” This stuff is not that far in the past. The medical community’s
indifference to women’s bodies and opinions still affects all kinds of care. Up until
2010, Canada allowed medical students to practice pelvic exams on unconscious women without
their consent, who’d come in for gynecological surgery. So congrats, if you woke up from
surgery in Saskatchewan a few years ago with the eerie feeling that your crotch had taught
a class. Don’t worry: you’re not crazy, you were assaulted, by a doctor, because nothing
says “Let’s make an entire country full of women feel crazy,” more than unconsented-to,
unconscious, secret pelvic exams. And that is why we’re still taking birth control
for diseases that have gone unstudied for centuries; because women’s healthcare is
still shrouded in the same fear, shame, and condescension that has been surrounding the
female body since some dude made up a story about some lady stealing an apple to justify
why he hates women. So ladies: next time you feel like the weight of the world is bearing
down on your uterus, it is! Happy Women’s History month! We’ll be right back.