Last month, I decided to go in for a voluntary pelvic exam. Usually, when I go for this exam it is breast cancer awareness month and free screenings are being carried out which include pap smears. Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but pelvic exams give me a lot of anxiety, so taking myself voluntarily was a big deal. This is because of a device called a speculum. The name and look of this device send shivers down my spine.
A pelvic exam cannot take place without the speculum, the duckbill-shaped device is used to stretch the vaginal walls to reveal the cervix, this allows the doctor to view your cervix and take a swab of the cells. Many books and articles claim that the process is painless, and women will only feel pressure and be slightly uncomfortable. However, if I am being honest, the exam is painful and unpleasant. Painful because of the speculum, and unpleasant because you have to lift and open your legs to a stranger.
It does not matter how many times I go in for the exam it never gets easy. I often try to give myself a pep talk to calm my nerves, which never works because the ordeal will still be painful and unpleasant. First, I have never gotten a medical professional who eases me into the process, I always get a female nurse who acts like I should drop my panties, lift my legs and hurry on up like a transaction in a grocery store. However, this process should be something that every woman is eased into because it is not easy to be vulnerable with a stranger — who will proceed to insert the archaic speculum into your vagina. I remember one experience that left me scarred. The female nurse who was examining me ridiculed me through the entire process, and went ahead to tell me;
“ Madam, you think you are the first woman I have seen today? Can you relax!”
Can you imagine trying to relax while being scolded?
She then proceeded to shove the cold metal speculum into my vagina. I walked out of the exam feeling humiliated, disrespected and violated.
These ordeals had me thinking about which human created this torture device.
“Did they have a Vagina?”
“Did they ever test it on themselves??”
The speculum has a gruesome past and it was created by a man! No surprise there. It was developed almost 170 years ago, by James Marion Sims, who is often referred to as “the father of modern gynaecology”. Ignoring the fact that he conducted unethical tests on enslaved black women without anaesthesia, under the assumption that black people did not feel pain — a belief that is carried on till today.
I would imagine that after 170 years, especially with more women gynaecologists in the world a more painless and comfortable device would have been developed, but modern medicine has still not found a replacement for the torture device. However, there have been several trials of new devices which have not succeeded. A glimmer of hope for ending the era of the speculum could come from a team of female designers from Frog Design who are trying to re-imagine the pelvic exam with a device called Yona.
I hope that in the next decade, modern science will have found a replacement for the controversial speculum. A device that will make women more comfortable during a pelvic exam, and have them leave with their dignity.
