Shema Tariq is a medical professional and academic, whose upcoming project Speculum: a history of women’s bodies through one object will bring critical conversations around women’s health to a wider audience.
Shema is a Sexual Health and HIV Consultant for the NHS and a Principal Research Fellow at University College London’s Institute for Global Health, with training in medical anthropology and epidemiology. Shema is one of six writers to receive the 2025 Non-fiction Award by Welcome Collection and Spread The Word. The programme includes a £2,000 bursary, mentoring, masterclasses, a travel and access fund, and the opportunity to be published by Wellcome Collection.
This opportunity comes at a perfect time for Shema, who is concerned about advances in women’s health and exploring how women’s bodies are viewed and treated in the medical world.
Following the Awards, we spoke with Shema about her thoughts on the speculum, women’s health in a wider sense, and her upcoming debut book.
I can’t imagine how much research must go into a project like this, but do you have a specific procedure or routine that you follow?
Firstly, when I’m talking about female bodies, I am gender inclusive. For the purposes of this book, female bodies relate to anyone who has a cervix. This includes trans masculine men and people who identify as nonbinary.
This is the first time I’ve written a book that is going to be aimed at a general public audience. I am right at the start of the journey, so my approach will evolve over the next 12 to 18 months. However, I am approaching it in the way that I approach all my research projects. I’m an academic, and have been for nearly 20 years. I will approach the literature methodically.
Currently, I am reading other books about medicine and women’s bodies to situate my work within what already exists and I’m drawing up a list of people I want to interview as part of my research process. I am figuring out what I can say that is new and how I fit in with the other writers on the female body.
I get access to the Welcome Collection’s amazing resources, which will assist with my archival research. Alongside objects, I am excited to study zines and pamphlets that have been produced by women about their bodies over time.
Although the research process will be similar to academic projects I have done previously, the writing will be very different. I have a completely different audience. So, I have the same approach, but a different way of communicating what I find.
So, it’s a big process.
Yes, it’s like I’ve voluntarily agreed to do another PhD!
Have your motivations for the research and the work that you do shifted it all since you first became an academic?
Yes, I started as a doctor and still am. I have worked in the NHS since 1999. Early in my career, I focused exclusively on sexual health and HIV. Throughout my career, the focus on women’s health has been an unwavering thread.
Yet, what has changed is my focus area. Most people follow the usual trajectory for academic careers, where you become more narrow as you go along. I’m doing it the opposite way. I started with a narrow focus on the experiences of women living with HIV, either during pregnancy or during menopause. Now, I am broadening my field of interest, going from something very specific to topics that affect anyone with a cervix.
My motivations have changed. Now that I’m further into my career, with a wealth of clinical and research experience, I want to communicate important ideas to an audience that’s beyond medicine or academia. I want to influence discourse and start debates about things that have often been overlooked.
I don’t think you can work in women’s health and not have political motivation. I feel an urgency to write about the female body in a time where I feel, for the first time in my life, that women have fewer bodily rights and autonomy than they have had before.
I don’t think you can work in women’s health and not have political motivation. I feel an urgency to write about the female body in a time where I feel – for the first time in my life – where women have fewer bodily rights and autonomy than they have had before.
Shema tariq
What is one piece of advice relating to sexual and reproductive health that you want all women to hear?
Feel empowered that you have control over your body. It is okay to express your needs and your preferences when it comes to sexual and reproductive health, whether that’s with your partner or health professionals like doctors and nurses.
The healthcare profession is obliged to listen to you and to take your views seriously. If you feel like that’s not happening, speak up.
If you’re having a procedure that you feel has not been explained properly, you deserve an explanation.
If you feel uncomfortable about having a speculum examination, you are entitled to ask for a smaller speculum.
If you are discussing your contraceptive choices and you feel like something is being forced, you are entitled to have the contraception that feels right for you.
You deserve to have autonomy and the best care that’s tailored to you. Sometimes this gets lost in consultations, and not necessarily because the healthcare professional is doing a bad job. Lack of time, miscommunication and difficulties speaking up for ourselves can result in choices being constrained.
I think a lot of women don’t know that they can feel this way, and they probably don’t speak up as much as they want to.
Feel empowered that you have control over your body. It is okay to express your needs and your preferences when it comes to sexual and reproductive health, whether that’s with your partner or health professionals like doctors and nurses.
shema tariq
It is hard. I recently had a procedure, and despite being a senior consultant, I was anxious. The problem is that lying on a couch with your legs up is a vulnerable position to be in. Yet, as women, we are conditioned not to make a fuss. I felt like I couldn’t say anything to the person doing the procedure. I didn’t want to be a nuisance. This makes me think; if I’m feeling anxious, I should be empowered to say ‘I’m a bit nervous about this procedure.’ ‘Can we take it a bit more slowly?’ ‘Can you explain what you’re doing as you’re doing it?’
What are you most excited about with your upcoming project?
This is a dream of mine, I’ve always wanted to write a book, and I feel like I waited 25 years for the idea to find me. This is the right book at the right time, and I am the right person to write it.
I’m excited to engage with the histories of the speculum, from ancient Rome and Greece to the 19th century and then to the 1970s.
I don’t want to write a polemic that is anti-speculum and sees it only as a tool of the patriarchy. It’s much more complicated than that. We shouldn’t forget that it is used in positive ways. For instance to diagnose infections, to screen for early cancer, and for fertility treatment. I want to use speculum as a tool to understand evolving attitudes to women’s bodies. Yes, let’s look at stories of power and abuse, but let’s also share stories of resistance and creativity. Let’s explore what the speculum means to different people.
I’m most excited to have conversations with interesting people as part of my research. It is a really exciting process.
What is the biggest challenge you face when using anthropology to learn about how people viewed female bodies in the medical world?
The branch of anthropology I am interested in is material culture. What do objects tell us about society? How do objects make us? Objects are not objective or neutral. Social and political decisions shape objects and how they are used. Also, how we use those objects changes us as a society.
These are the big-picture ideas I will be exploring in my project in terms of academic thought, philosophy and cultural theory.
The biggest challenge is how I communicate these important ideas in a way that is engaging and accessible to a wide audience. I don’t want to produce a dry, academic text that’s read by five people. I want this to be a book that people pick up on their commute or before they go to sleep, and they can’t put it down.
The thing I need to focus on is how to tell a story exploring these complex ideas in a way that’s engaging.
Does the challenge remain the same when you’re using anthropology to project how future societies may view female bodies?
I would never use anthropology to predict, but you can speculate.
As well as anthropology I will be engaging with other disciplines. I talk to entrepreneurs, designers, technologists and artists. This will let us look at new ways of reimagining the female body, which people are already. My job is to bring diverse voices together to consider the speculum and what it means. I will explore what work artists are doing inspired by the speculum, what doctors are saying, experiences of people who have had speculum examinations.
An important part of this book is to have a historical lens. To understand what’s happened before so we can imagine what the future will look like. Rather than predicting a future, my project is about setting the conditions for us to think about new ways of doing women’s health better as we head towards the second half of the 21st century.
As women we are conditioned not to make a fuss.
shema tariq
The speculum is an object that hasn’t really changed much in its design. Is there a reason for this? Who gets to decide this?
It is fascinating and one of my central concerns in this book. There is no easy answer. Firstly, there is a very practical reason for the speculum to look the way it does. If you want to look inside the female body and visualise the cervix, this is one way of doing it. The shape works well. Let’s not forget that the speculum is used for many good reasons. It’s used to screen for cervical cancer. It’s used to diagnose and then manage sexually transmitted infections. It’s used to perform abortions. It’s used when women or people are undergoing IVF.
Speculums have been brilliant and are an important part of the medical practice. It is interesting that the design has not changed in 2000 years. If you look at the ancient Roman speculum, you would recognise it.
When I talk to my friends or when I see patients, as soon as you mention the word speculum, people have a story. Almost everyone winces or says they’re uncomfortable. If this is uncomfortable and people don’t like it, why do we persist in doing this? Why aren’t we trying to solve the problem? This isn’t the only way of doing these examinations. Designers have made more ergonomic speculums. There are companies who are designing new ways of diagnosis with new technology, including implementing the use of small cameras. There are already a lot of different ways of doing this.
So, why aren’t we innovating more? There’s a broader question here about why women should bear discomfort and pain. Is this just part of what it is to be a woman? Is our discomfort not taken seriously?
There is a story here that is wider than the speculum. Why do some areas of health get the benefits of innovation and medical advances while other areas are left as they are for 2000 years?
For more on women’s health click here.
