A friend sent me an email about this awesome documentary, At Your Cervix. It’s “a film dedicated to making pelvic exams respectful and pain-free.” Pretty awesome stuff.
The documentary At Your Cervix explores the connection between the way medical and nursing students are taught pelvic exams and the reality that most women experience them as painful and disempowering.
At Your Cervix breaks the silence around the unethical methods used by medical and nursing schools to teach students how to perform pelvic exams; the most egregious being on unconsenting, anaesthetized women. At the same time, the film highlights the Gynecological Teaching Associate (GTA) Program in New York City. Fuelled by the spirit of women’s health activism, the GTA program began over 30 years ago and it has been shown to be the most effective way to teach exams and is also the most ethical and empowering to women.
I know someone who is a GTA, and it’s a pretty awesome way to try and make change within women’s health care. You can watch the trailer here, or donate some money so they can finish the project here.
Thanks to Harris for the tip.
Radical Doula 
Great post! Thanks!
Wow! Thanks to YOU for continuing the publicity.
at 31, I found a feminst clinic in Chicago. There, I was offered the opportunity to take a plastic sterlized speculum, insert it in my vaginia, and holding a mirror, look at what everyone else has been able to poke, prod, stick things into, and look at since I was a little a girl.
I hate the way this word is bandied about, but it truly was the most empowering thing I had ever experienced in my life. I cried to see this “disemodied” part of myself.
The women’s clinic offered to send me home with my speculum, and I took them up on it. I never got a chance due to a few moves out of the area, to ever go back, but that had to be one of the best pelvic exams I have ever had.
Wow, thank you so much for writing about our film! We really need help in getting the word out about our need for donations that will enable us to finish the film. We are currently raising money so we can get into the editing room and complete it!
Warm Regards,
Amy Jo Goddard
Director/Producer, At Your Cervix