Exploring medical misogyny through photography

A Photography student who has explored misogyny and gaslighting in medical research is graduating with first class honours from the University of South Wales this week.

Hattie Alwen, 21, used her own experience of struggling with dysmenorrhea (painful periods) and those of her friends and family to inform her final year project, entitled Your Body, My Choice.

As part of her research, Hattie visited medical archives and photographed historic gynaecological implements to learn more about women’s health through the ages, uncovering examples of patients’ symptoms and concerns being dismissed or ignored by medical professionals.

“I wanted to use photography to expose the legacy of medical misogyny and gaslighting within our healthcare system,” said Hattie, from Frome in Somerset.

“Sadly this often masks the androcentric system that we have become accustomed to, and I felt it was important to highlight the individualised nature of pain being ascribed to women as ‘natural’.

“I wanted to harness photography’s representational power, so that it could speak for women whose pain may be invisible, but nonetheless real.”

Hattie decided to make her project completely object-based, rather than photographing women, to avoid representing only one body type in her images. Alongside the specialist medical implements, she used everyday objects, such as an apple, to represent a passage from the Bible that refers to Eve being ‘in pain’ during childbirth.

“Genesis 3:16 is part of God’s pronouncements to Adam and Eve after they have disobeyed him by eating from the forbidden tree,” said Hattie. “It states: ‘To the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth; in pain you shall bring forth children’.

“This passage was used to dissuade doctors from using anaesthetics on labouring women, as it was deemed unnatural to give them pain relief. My research into historic medical cases continually found that women were fobbed off as ‘hysterical’ and were not being heard, even in far more modern times.”

Hattie now plans to do some volunteering work at local museums and photographic archives before potentially studying a Masters degree.

“I’m very proud of myself for the amount of work I’ve put into this project and the rest of my studies, but I’m not quite done with learning yet!” she said.

Hattie has also been named a finalist in the 2025 Association of Photography (AOP) Student Awards, in the ‘Things’ category, with her selected images featuring in the awards exhibition at London’s Truman Brewery. Fellow graduate Paris Tankard won the overall ‘Best in Show title’ at the same competition in 2022, for their self-portrait.