Presented by The Ohio State University Department of History and the Medical Heritage Center at The Ohio State University Health Sciences Library.
In her talk, historian Deirdre Cooper Owens reveals the United States' genealogical origins regarding not only modern gynecology but also, the roots of racialized health disparities. She will explain how the institution of U.S. slavery was directly linked to the creation of reproductive medicine in this nation. Dr. Cooper Owens provides context for how and why physicians denied black women their full humanity, yet valued them as “medical superbodies” highly suited for experimentation. Engaging with 19th-century ideas about so-called racial difference, Dr. Cooper Owens sheds light on the legacy of medical racism and what we should do to create birthing and medical equity for all.
Deirdre Cooper Owens is an Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies at the University of Connecticut. Before her most recent appointment, she simultaneously directed the Program in African American History at the Library Company of Philadelphia and a medical humanities program at the University of Nebraska. During that time, she was the only Black woman in the country who served as director of an academic medical humanities program. Dr. Cooper Owens is a popular public speaker, has appeared in several documentaries, podcasts and television newscasts as a historical expert, and is a nationally recognized reproductive justice advocate. She is an Organization of American Historians’ (OAH) Distinguished Lecturer, a past American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Fellow, and a member of the American Antiquarian Society. Time Magazine named her as one of the country’s “best historians.”
Dr. Cooper Owens has won several prestigious honors and awards for her scholarly and advocacy work in history and reproductive and birthing justice. Her first book, Medical Bondage: Race, Gender and the Origins of American Gynecology won a Darlene Clark Hine Book Award from the Organization of American Historians as the best book written in African American women’s and gender history. It has been translated into Korean. She is currently working on a popular biography about Harriet Tubman that will examine her life through the lens of disability and is also writing a historical monograph about race, medical discovery, and the C-section.
Lastly, Dr. Cooper Owens has worked for fifteen years as a reproductive justice advocate. She has worked with grassroots community groups, birth workers, artists, and served as a consultant and historical expert to hospitals, filmmakers, and the United States Congress.