So, yeah… gay marriage is legal now. It’s kind of a big deal. That was about all I could offer […]
Why Stonewall Needs Compton’s
One night in August 1966, a group of trans* women and queer youth rioted against years of stigmatization and routine […]
“I Would Just Want To Fly”: Lydia Pinkham, Women’s Medicine, and Social Networks
“I had been completely run-down. I would try to do my housework and could not. I would want to just […]
Making WIC Work
I can spot a WIC participant from three checkout lanes away. There is usually a growing line of unsuspecting shoppers […]
Being the Same and Different
This time last year, I’d just returned from three months at the University of Vienna being the Käthe Leichter visiting […]
The International History of Women’s Medical Education: What Does Imperialism Have To Do With It?
For the past several years, this 1885 photograph of three medical students who attended the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania […]
Crimes Never Committed: Thoughts on The Imitation Game
Spoiler Alert: This isn’t exactly a movie review (if you’d like one, I recommend Alex von Tunzelmann’s review in The […]
Tuning In for Public Health: The Promise of Televised Health Education in 1950s America
During a recent well-child check up, the nurse asked how much television my son watched. Although not common a generation […]
Women in Tech from ENIAC to MOM
On September 24, as I enjoyed my second coffee of the morning and caught up on news, a photo caught […]
On the Verge of a Nervous Breakthrough?: Interpreting Mental Illness
By Mary Elene Wood
A highway patrol officer straddles a woman who lies on her back by the side of a highway. His arm lifts high into the air, then, with what looks like substantial force, he strikes her in the face with his clenched fist. He does this over and over again. Early in July, news programs around the country quickly spread the story of a California Highway Patrol officer caught on videotape violently beating Marlene Pinnock, a 51-year-old homeless, presumably mentally ill, woman, along the side of a freeway in Los Angeles. The California Highway Patrol claimed that the officer was only trying to stop the woman from walking out into traffic, yet journalists across the U.S. decried, in one writer’s words, “the lack of training given to law enforcement officers to handle such people, even though officers all too often are society’s frontline mental health care providers.”
