Colonizing the Female Body: From Braxton Hicks to the Hymen
For centuries, childbearing women have known about the normal uterine tightening that happens during pregnancy. Yet the so-called “discovery” of Braxton Hicks contractions is credited to John Braxton Hicks, the man who documented them within the annals of science in 1872. His name still marks this uniquely uterine function today.
Midwives—the original birth professionals—had long understood these non-labour contractions. Like so many things particular to the childbearing body, they were already familiar, discussed, and accepted among women. Perhaps they seemed too obvious to imagine that the lofty institutions of science and medicine would treat them as virgin territory—ripe for “discovery” by enthusiastic conquerors.
Think about it: a phenomenon exclusive to approximately half the population, becomes a “new find” the moment a representative from the other half writes it down—his name permanently attached, like a flag planted on someone else’s island. And Braxton Hicks is hardly alone.
Anatomical history is littered with body parts that were “claimed” and named by male explorers, effectively colonizing territory already inhabited and well-known. Leah Kaminsky makes the strong statement, “Men are all over women’s bodies—dead, white male anatomists, that is. Their names live on eponymously, immortalised like audacious explorers for conquering the geography of the female pelvis as if it were terra nullius.”
The list is long:
Bartholin’s glands – Caspar Bartholin the Younger, Danish anatomist
Gartner’s ducts – Hermann Treschow Gartner, Danish anatomist
Graafian follicle – Regnier de Graaf, Dutch anatomist
Pouch of Douglas – Dr. James Douglas, Scottish anatomist
Glands of Montgomery – William Fetherstone Montgomery, Irish obstetrician
Fallopian tubes – Gabriele Falloppio, Italian anatomist
G-spot – Ernst Gräfenberg, German physician
Skene’s glands – Alexander Skene, Scottish-American gynaecologist
Halban’s fascia – Josef von Halban, Austrian gynaecologist
As Rachel E. Gross notes, “These are relics from a time when the female body was considered terra incognita for great minds of medicine to explore, stake out and claim.” That women themselves—or the midwives who had centuries of experience—might already have known about these structures seems to have escaped notice.
Even mythology has left its mark: the hymen, named after the male Greek god of weddings, has helped fuel one of the most damaging myths about women’s sexuality. Because of its name and cultural associations, the hymen is widely misrepresented as a seal proving virginity—a “barrier” that, once broken, marks a woman as unchaste. The hymen is the proverbial bodyguard of female purity, perceived as something between a chastity belt and an intruder alert system.
This is false. The hymen is a thin, flexible tissue that usually leaves the vaginal opening unobstructed. It doesn’t typically “break” during intercourse, doesn’t necessarily bleed, and cannot reveal anything about a person’s sexual history. As obstetrician Jonathan Schaffir points out, “The idea that virginity can be measured or verified is perhaps the most harmful and damaging myth.” Yet this belief has been weaponized in courtrooms, marriage negotiations, and sexual policing worldwide.
Virginity itself is not a medical reality but a social construct. The word originally meant “unmarried woman,” with no sexual implication. Over time, it became a patriarchal tool to control women’s sexuality: always gendered, brazenly heteronormative, and never equally applied to men. As Lauren Rosewarne writes, “Male virginity has never been prized nor expected to be proven.”
Language matters. Names shape perception. Calling something the “Pouch of Douglas” tells us nothing about its function; it merely memorializes its “discoverer.” As Holly Garcia states: “Naming anatomy after the people who discovered it, as opposed to describing its function, is patriarchal nonsense.”
The consequences of renaming are profound. Just as colonizers renamed lands, erasing Indigenous languages, knowledge, and histories, renaming female anatomy in honour of male “discoverers” erases women’s own knowledge and language about their bodies. The old words vanish from legitimacy. The map changes, and suddenly the inhabitants are strangers in their own territory.
Women in antiquity may not have known about their own Halban’s fascia, but I am willing to bet they knew about their own Montgomery’s glands, Bartholin’s glands, and G-spot—by names rooted in function, observation, sensation, and lived experience. If that knowledge had been preserved and expanded rather than overwritten, our understanding today might be richer.
There is a quiet movement to change this. To replace these eponyms with descriptive, accurate names free from colonial medical misogyny. Braxton Hicks contractions, for instance, were once simply called practice contractions—a term that is plain, accurate, and instantly understandable. Why not return to uterine tubes (instead of fallopian tubes), greater vestibular glands (instead of Bartholin’s), ovarian follicle (instead of Graafian follicle), and vaginal corona (instead of hymen)? And perhaps it’s time to retire the word virgin altogether.
Renaming is not about erasing history—it’s about restoring it.
Stephanie Ondrack is a retired birth doula (or maybe on an extended sabbatical) and has been with The Childbearing Society since 2003. She lives in East Van with her partner, kids, chickens, and cats.