To read the previous entry in the Smart Women series, click here.
Women have always been fighting for the right to autonomy over their own bodies. We see it in the recent Women’s Marches. We see it in Roe v. Wade. We see it stretching back and back into history – all the way until at least the 4th century BCE, because that’s the time period when Agnodike, the first female Athenian physician, lived.
The story of Agnodike (pronounced Ahng-noh-die-key) goes like this:
During the time of Hippocrates, women were allowed to learn some basic healing, particularly those branches that pertained to childbirth. However, after Hippocrates died, ruling Athenians discovered that women were performing abortions. This led them to ban women from all fields of medicine. More than that, any woman who tried to sneak around the rules and become a doctor anyway would be executed. Try to keep in mind that in this time period, abortions were even more taboo than they are now. Children were much less likely to make it to adulthood, and thus it was important for the survival of a family line to have many children.
Anyway, Agnodike could not bear to watch the increasing number of women dying of childbirth. So she basically said, “screw the rules,” cut her hair, wore men’s clothes and went to Egypt to study medicine. There, she studied under a famous anatomist called Herophilos and obtained whatever qualifications were necessary to become a physician in those times. She came back to Athens and continued to cross-dress for the cause. She became very popular with the women of Athens – many women would refuse male aid during childbirth, but Agnodike would reveal herself to the women in labor, who would then allow her to tend to them. She was a woman working for women – she understood their pains, their anxieties in a way male doctors of the time could not.
But (and there’s always a but) soon the male doctors of the city grew angry that women preferred the services of this new hot shot from Egypt. Because they could not accept that perhaps Agnodike was a better, more empathetic doctor for her female patients, they began accusing her of seducing the women of Athens and accusing the women of faking illness. They brought their accusations to the court, where if proven, could result in nasty consequences for Agnodike. Stuck between punishment for supposedly seducing the women of Athens and punishment for studying medicine as a woman, she decided that she would rather face the consequences of what she actually did than let the men condemn her for a falsehood. She revealed herself. But before the judges could condemn her to death, a crowd of women came to her rescue: they praised her abilities and yelled at their husbands. In the end, Agnodike was acquitted and the law was changed so that women could be treated by women.
Though there is some question about whether Agnodike was a real person or just a mythical figure, there are some clear parallels to the struggle that women face in this modern era. First, of course, is the male decision to outlaw abortion. Then, the ban on female physicians mirrors the unequal gender balance in high-paying jobs. But this also shows that women show up for women. Agnodike was there for the women of Athens, and they were there for her. And that is something that I’m glad hasn’t changed.
