Anne Sexton Love Poem: In Celebration of My Uterus

The lines of 'In Celebration of My Uterus' celebrate the poet's relief at discovering that she will not have to undergo hysterectomy, the surgical removal of her uterus. The rest of the poem celebrates womanhood in many forms. Appropriately included in a collection entitled Love Poems, it expresses a woman's love for a valued part of her self.

For some women, having a hysterectomy may pose a profound threat to their self-concept as a feminine person, an attractive sexual being for whom childbearing has been a major and highly valued social role. However, in their own study, these researchers did not find that self-concept was damaged. A primary objective of this book is to investigate whether respondents do experience this loss to gender identity, and if so, specifically how it is manifested.

Thesis Statement

According to feminist poet, this poem "finds unity where the culture propagates division: between a woman's sexuality and her spirituality, her creativity and her procreativity, herself and other women, her private and public self.

Discussion

The uterus is a woman's womb, which contains and nourishes a fetus during gestation. Most women also have two ovaries, which produce ova (eggs) and sex hormones. The normal nonpregnant human uterus weighs only approximately two ounces and is merely three inches long; the ovaries are even tinier, only one inch by one and a half inches. However, these sexual/reproductive organs carry great cultural and personal significance.

Most women do not consider the meanings of their uteruses and ovaries until they are faced with a crisis, as was Ann Sexton, whose poem is cited at the beginning of this chapter. In this book I explore the experiences of forty-four American women who have undergone hysterectomy (surgical removal of the uterus), with or without oophorectomy (surgical removal of the ovary), for benign conditions. Hysterectomy and oophorectomy offer women a unique opportunity to contemplate the meaning of their sexual reproductive organs in the context of female identity.

Her words highlight the potential challenge to gender identity that is the major theme of my research. I explore how-whether they perceived loss, stability, or enhancement-respondents dealt with possible contradictions in gender identity presented by absent sexual reproductive organs.

In popular (and even scholarly) usage, there is often confusion over precisely what body parts are removed during hysterectomy.'

In fact, one or both of a woman's ovaries may be left intact after hysterectomy unless she undergoes an additional surgery called bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (bs-o), and her cervix may even remain following subtotal hysterectomy. Furthermore, the uterus may be removed through a variety of different types of hysterectomies. While abdominal surgery is currently the most common type, comprising 63 percent of all procedures, 23 percent are performed by the vaginal method; and vaginallaparoscopic hysterectomy now represents 10 percent of surgeries

A common belief that hysterectomy rates have decreased appreciably in the United States is not borne out by fact. Following criticisms regarding unnecessary hysterectomies, the annual rates of hysterectomies did decline moderately from 7.1 per 1,000 women ...