Inventing Female Anatomy in the Early Modern Period: Dissections and Interpretations of the Uterus

Abstract

Considered both the enigmatic emblem of femininity and the source of all women’s ailments, the uterus has long been the object of male medical speculations, fantasies, and interpretations. In early modern Europe, dissecting the uterus became central to the production of knowledge: a means to unveil the secrets of female generative power, to assert control over women’s bodies, and to assign new specificity to their elusive nature. This article explores how 16^th- and 17^th-century medical and anatomical discourse, still entwined with classical and medieval legacies on women, projected broader cultural narratives onto the uterus – oscillating between wonder and pathology, metaphor and materiality, nature and morality. By analyzing visual and textual sources, it investigates how the medical male gaze shaped the womb and therefore the female body at the intersection of science, philosophy, and the gender politics of the early modern world.