It was a privilege to interview Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens, professor of History and Africana Studies at the University of Connecticut, Time Magazine designated “best historian”, and nationally recognized advocate of reproductive 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.
During the interview, Dr. Cooper Owens told the story of her journey toward becoming a historian of race and gynecology. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree, she chose to enter the workforce, but was consistently drawn to the idea of graduate school. Initially she pursued a master’s degree in African American studies at Clark Atlanta with the intention of becoming a museum curator. She notes that at this time, history “kept calling” to her, eventually leading her to a Ph.D. in History.
Her journey to the history of gynecology did not come immediately, either. Initially, Cooper Owens switched between topics of the nineteenth century and a general interest in Black women’s history. By her third year of the program, after not having declared an area of study, the topic jumped out to her in Beverly Guy-Sheftall and Johnetta Cole’s Gender Talk. A brief blurb about James Marion Sim’s brutal experiments on enslaved women led Cooper Owens to delve into the topic. She worked from scratch, with only two or three books with small sections about this topic to reference.
Dr. Cooper Owens offered advice to students who would like to study the historical connections between race and medicine: “Amplify the story that seems the most interesting…that’s the thing that draws people in…find the narrative that sounds compelling”.
She recommended a comparative model of research, focusing first on sources which interest the researcher and then finding patterns to determine who the subjects of their research will be.
She also spoke of the value of a cohort:
“Research…doesn’t always have to be solitary, there can be groups dedicated to it. You can have a cohort which inspires you and helps you to refine your thinking or even challenges you, offers constructive criticism where you need it. Those are the things that really enable me to think more broadly about how I wanted to work with the history of medicine and slavery.”
When meeting Dr. Cooper Owens, one of the first things one notices about her is her fun, eclectic sense of style. She credited her childhood growing up in Washington DC and the South Carolina low country, noting that she lived in all Black communities within these areas. In particular, growing up in the Black church and the dual purpose of fashion as both a means of self expression and a sign of reverence for God. This is something she has maintained throughout her adult life, she says, as a way of making her everyday life special.
-Lily Hebda