Image: Entrance to the Museum Vagina Museum 2024
The London museum has named its galleries after three Black women subjected to unethical 19th-century medical experiments.
The Vagina Museum has announced the renaming of its three galleries in honour of the ‘Mothers of Gynaecology’, three women upon whom medical experiments were carried out in the 19th Century.
The Betsey’s Gallery, Anarcha’s Gallery, and Lucy’s Gallery are named after Betsey, Anarcha and Lucy, three enslaved Black women who lived in Alabama, in what is now the USA. All three women had injuries following childbirth.
The Vagina Museum explained that the three women were subjected to multiple experimental surgeries in the 1840s, performed without anaesthesia by a white physician, later lauded as the ‘Father of Modern Gynaecology’ after using the developed techniques on white women.
The gallery namings have been rolled out to coincide with Black History Month, the museum said, marked in October across the UK. Signage will be installed in the physical museum space, with an event set to take place in future.
The museum said it is aware that at least twelve women were subjected to experimental operations undertaken without their consent, without anaesthesia, during the time, and in front of an audience. Anarcha, Betsey and Lucy are the only ones whose names were recorded.
The three ‘Mothers of Gynecology’ have a 12-foot monument dedicated to them in Montgomery, Alabama.
In naming the galleries after the Mothers of Gynaecology, the Vagina Museum said it hopes to “usher in a conversation about racism in medicine, acknowledge the horrific violence that the women suffered, and reckon with the racism and injustice still faced by Black women and women of colour in gynaecological care.”
On display in Betsey’s Gallery is ‘From A to V’, a permanent exhibition exploring anatomy, health and activism. Lucy’s Gallery is currently displaying ‘The Museum of Mankind’, and Anarcha’s Gallery is currently displaying ‘Know Your Body Like Nobody Else: Cervical Screening Redesigned’
Zoe Williams, Interim Director of the Vagina Museum said: “We cannot undo the harms inflicted on Betsey, Anarcha and Lucy. In saying their names, we acknowledge the violence which has been done to these women, and the echoes of this colonial violence which continue to affect Black women to this day. “
“The Vagina Museum is proudly committed to anti-racism. We are not afraid to address aspects of the past and present which may be uncomfortable for a privileged audience to confront. As a custodian of history, it is our responsibility to usher Betsey, Anarcha and Lucy into the public discourse about racism and medicine.”
