Original Artwork: Female Breast Anatomy: Reflections on Medical Sexism

I’ve been inspired lately by anatomy and physiology art. I’m blown away by the technical skill of these artists whose work is rarely appreciated in the mainstream. They help me learn more about the female body by giving me reference images to study and draw.

My realization of how little the average person understands the biological sciences, particularly regarding women and girls, sparked this interest in our bodies. Over the years I’ve learned a great deal about medical sexism and how it increases our disconnection from our bodies. The lack of scientific research about female anatomy & physiology further trains us to ignore our body signals and specificity, since the medical field does the same. It even leads us down the path of body modification, since we don’t have an appreciation for our bodily integrity and are sold lies that we are just parts.

For my first study I’ve decided to focus on female breasts since it is one of the most surgically manipulated areas of women’s bodies. Whether we look at breast implants, cosmetic mastectomies, breast binding, or breast ironing, the negative impact to women’s bodies is ignored. We’re led to believe that we can simply add to and subtract from our body without detriment to our whole body system. And when we do face negative outcomes we’re shamed and silenced for the “choices” we’ve made. This makes it impossible for women to advocate for their health and tricks others into believing body modification is safe and commonplace. Female personhood and humanness is purposely disembodied by male supremacist ideology.

Because femaleness is erased under male supremacy, we have to work harder to learn about ourselves. Despite knowing this, I’m still gutted that when I was researching reference images of female breasts there was no standardization or consistency in the diagrams. How could the body part that provides nourishment for our species be so utterly disrespected? Please take this depiction with a grain of salt, because it’s based off the male-controlled world we live in.