earthsoul.art

There will be 600,000 hysterectomies performed in the US this year. Hysterectomy is the most performed surgery in the US only second to C-Section. (It is estimated that 90 percent of hysterectomies are unnecessary.) "The U.S. rate is twice as high as it is in Britain and four times as high as in France (West 27)."  Why?

 

There have been bizarre views of the uterus passed down throughout history including the idea of the "wandering uterus." The uterus was thought to wander about the body. Women's bodies have been exploited in every way, is this still happening today? No one completely understands the human body and how it works as a whole. I am interested in how we as humans have become so disconnected with our natural bodies and how todays medical system has contributed to that thought. I question and compare how the female body was treated 100 years ago versus today. I question the excess of unnecessary surgery. This is a call for celebration and a renewal in respect and appreciation for the female body.

 

The poem below by Anne Sexton was written on the glass walls of the gallery. ln Celebration of My Uterus   by Anne Sexton

 

Everyone in me is a bird.

I am beating all my wings.

They wanted to cut you out but they will not.

They said you were immeasurably empty but you are not.

They said you were sick unto dying but they were wrong.

You are singing like a school girl. You are not torn.

Sweet weight, in celebration of the woman I am

and of the soul of the woman I am

and of the central creature

and its delight I sing for you.

I dare to live.

Hello, spirit. Hello, cup.

Fasten, cover.

Cover that does contain.

Hello to the soil of the fields.

Welcome, roots.

Each cell has a life.

There is enough here to please a nation.

It is enough that the populace own these goods.

Any person, any commonwealth would say of it,

“It is good this year that we may plant again

and think forward to a harvest.

A blight had been forecast and has been cast out.

” Many women are singing together of this:

one is in a shoe factory cursing the machine,

one is at the aquarium tending a seal,

one is dull at the wheel of her Ford,

one is at the toll gate collecting,

one is tying the cord of a calf in Arizona,

one is straddling a cello in Russia,

one is shifting pots on the stove in Egypt,

one is painting her bedroom walls moon color,

one is dying but remembering a breakfast,

one is stretching on her mat in Thailand,

one is wiping the ass of her child,

one is staring out the window of a train in the middle of Wyoming and

one is anywhere and some are everywhere and all seem to be singing,

although some can not sing a note.

Sweet weight, in celebration of the woman I am

let me carry a ten-foot scarf,

let me drum for the nineteen-year-olds,

let me carry bowls for the offering (if that is my part).

Let me study the cardiovascular tissue,

let me examine the angular distance of meteors,

let me suck on the stems of flowers (if that is my part).

Let me make certain tribal figures (if that is my part).

For this thing the body needs let me sing for the supper,

for the kissing,

for the correct yes.

 

Anne Sexton, “In Celebration of My Uterus” from The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981). Copyright © 1981 by Linda Gray Sexton and Loring Conant, Jr. Reprinted with the permission of Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. Source: The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton (1981)