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Men Have Been Attacking Women’s Looks When They Feel Threatened for Centuries
The rise and fall of Sarah Mapp, the famous female bonesetter
She couldn’t have been petite, delicate, or demure.
In fact, in caricatures circulated of her, she was as compact as a muscled toad, and she had to have been to be a “bonesetter,” what we would view today as an 18th century orthopedist. Her other job title, more beautiful, was “Shape-Mistress.”
She was Sarah Wallin (and later, “Crazy Sally” or “Cracked Sally” or Mrs. Mapp). Her story is sadly not a new one. It’s even a contemporary one. She was a woman who threatened men, and because of this, they made sure to attack her looks.
Bonesetters were usually rural tradesmen, trained on how to reset broken bones and dislocated joints. It was an extremely physical job that required a good bit of strength as well as anatomical know-how. To set a broken bone or reduce a dislocation correctly, someone has to be able to feel where the bone shouldn’t be and guide it, sometimes brutally, back to where it should.
Wallin had to be strong, and her arms definitely so. She couldn’t have been a “delicate” or “feminine” woman but also wrench grown men’s limbs and joints back into place.
