Gynecology is the study and knowledge surrounding bodies with vulvas.

"Since the medieval church (...) with the support of the authorities, controlled education and the practice of medicine, the Inquisition (witch hunt) constitutes, among other things, one of the first examples of how craft practices were displaced by <professionals> and of the intervention of the latter against the right of <non-professionals> to care for the poor."

The Manufacture of Madness.

For centuries, women were doctors without a degree. They were excluded from books and official science. They learned from each other and passed on their experiences among neighbours or from mother to daughter.

The townspeople called them "wise women," although to people in power, they represented a threat.

Soranus of Ephesus is believed to have been the "father of gynecology", based on his work called "On the Diseases of Women".

Ancestral/natural gynecology is part of the wisdom of all traditional doctors - understanding traditional medicine as the "sum of knowledge, skills and practices based on indigenous theories, beliefs and experiences of different cultures, explainable or not, which are used in maintaining health and preventing, diagnosing, improving or treating physical and mental illnesses."

We have been historical survivors of gynecological-obstetric violence perpetuated under the excuse that male, white, heterosexual doctors, like Sims, could receive recognition for developing tools that we use today for our gynecological care, although these are inserted within a pharmacological system that is far from truly caring about us.

It is in honor of Anarcha, Lucy, Betsy, and all working and racialized women, that we now want to reclaim our sovereignty over ancestral knowledge and reclaim our autonomy over our bodies.

It is in honor of all people with vulvas who have survived violent practices that we now pray to remember the ancient and sacred ways of caring for our own lives, our own bodies through herbs, nutrition, and self-knowledge.

This space is created to find new ways to investigate the root of our gynecological imbalances, in order to truly heal what ails us.