Women on the Other Side of the Knife: Women Engaged in Anatomical Learning and Dissection in Newspapers, Magazines, and Popular Culture

The history regarding women in dissection and anatomy education focused on female cadavers used to acquire knowledge. Few studies have focused on the other side of the scalpel, where women participated and produced anatomical knowledge. This article focuses on women entering into the anatomical sciences and medical research, and their historical challenges. Women had to fight for participation in the anatomical sciences. Many of the shifts for women's participation in anatomy and dissections occurred in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. At first, women joining in medical education and anatomical dissections were treated as exceptional, or even frightening, but by the outbreak of World War II, popular media outlets like Life magazine profiled female medical students partaking in dissections and anatomical training as a new normal. Newspapers and other media sources that covered women's participation in the anatomical sciences promoted the work of women, even at some points celebrating it. Other newspapers wrote about the challenges and complexities regarding women working with bodies and dissection. In the 21st century, novel writers and memoirists published stories that memorialized the struggles of women entering medicine and their desire to participate in dissections. Memoirs from women involved in medical training explained the discrimination they experienced when training on cadavers. Finally, many of the historical experiences of women facing adversity participating in dissections affect classrooms and learning environments today.