Feminism – Page 18 – Nursing Clio

An old photo of a group of men and women cross dressing, with they stand in a line, showing left sides

Added on May 22, 2013 Historical essay

Cross-Dressing: An American Pastime

By Tiffany K. Wayne

Whether we like it or not, clothes and fashion are important markers of status, class, gender, and sexual identity. Just ask any high school student who is trying to present their own personal style or identity and comes up against the rules and judgments of parents, teachers, and society. Most schools today have dress codes regulating the length of skirts and banning t-shirts with offensive images and drug or gang references. Some schools also have gendered dress codes, such as the Virginia school which prohibits “any clothing worn by a student that is not in keeping with a student’s gender and causes a disruption and/or distracts others from the educational process or poses a health or safety concern.”

(Left) A poster with a cartoon woman in the center, with surrounding characters "our strength is our health". (Right) slogan: Our Bodies, Our Selves, with a picture of protest underneath.

Added on May 13, 2013 Personal Essay

What’s in Your Vulva?

Thirty years ago I went to the Berkeley Women’s Health Collective to get fitted for a cervical cap. “What is […]

Added on May 12, 2013 Sunday Morning Medicine

Sunday Morning Medicine

By Jacqueline Antonovich

-Hippies, anthrax, and drum circles.
-The modern history of swearing.
-When you want that healthy, radioactive glow.
-A new old look at Mother’s Day.
-Let’s visit 1920s London – in color!
-The Google Maps of 1917.
-What can music tell us about Victorian health?

Old photo of women marching on the street, holding slogans

Added on May 9, 2013 Personal Essay

One Year of Making the Personal Historical

By Carrie Adkins

In 2009, the historian Jill Lepore told an interviewer that “as an obsessive reader of newspapers and watcher of news,” she was struck by “how impoverished our historical perspective is on most contemporary problems.” She was absolutely right. In 2012, as we, the co-founders of Nursing Clio, began to conceptualize our project, the news was making me want to lose my mind. Every day, I watched as Republicans proposed – and sometimes passed – new bills that limited access to safe and affordable abortion. And, to my horror, they didn’t stop there but instead started attacking contraception as well. Lawmakers worked to eliminate insurance coverage for birth control; Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a “slut” because she opposed those measures; and the presidential candidate Rick Santorum went so far as to state that contraception itself was “not okay.” Watching these developments, I went from bemused to angry to downright scared. We were supposed to be living in the twenty-first century! What on earth was happening here?

Abstractionist painting of country scenery, colorful river, field, tree and houses

Added on May 8, 2013 Personal Essay

A Kind of Reflection, a Kind of Declaration

By Austin McCoy

I am not accustomed to writing autobiographically, but Jacqueline asked us to reflect on our experiences blogging for Nursing Clio. First, I want to express how much I have enjoyed contributing my voice to the outstanding chorus that Jacqueline and the rest of Nursing Clio’s editors orchestrate on a daily basis. I am grateful that Jacqueline asked me to write for the blog because I appreciate the value of producing what we in The Ohio State University’s African American and African Studies Department called “relevant scholarship”—intellectual content aiding people of color and progressives in their political struggles. I thought I would write of my writing experiences generally so I can illustrate how writing for Nursing Clio fulfills a responsibility to act as an activist-minded public scholar.

Added on April 26, 2013 Personal Essay

Marketing Domesticity

By Rachel Epp Buller

One of the recurring themes in my “Women and Gender in Art History” class this semester has been the historical association of women with the domestic sphere. In the nineteenth century, we looked at examples of European art that addressed this clear cultural separation of spheres, where public = masculine and private = feminine. Of course, this cultural association of women with domesticity persisted throughout much of the twentieth century (think June Cleaver) and was cleverly marketed to women through seemingly endless inventions of domestic appliances and ever-better cleaning products.

By the 1970s, American feminist artists and writers began taking on the gendering of domesticity. Building on Betty Friedan’s arguments in The Feminine Mystique (1963), writers like Pat Mainardi critiqued the cultural assumptions that made cleaning a gendered imperative. In “The Politics of Housework” (1970), Mainardi examined the excuses used by her husband to avoid sharing the burden of household chores:

A group people gathering on the street, holding slogans for patients' rights

Added on April 25, 2013 Personal Essay

Emancipating Intimate Labor in the Care Economy

By Austin McCoy

On December 15, 2011, the Obama administration announced “administration action” to protect the nation’s 1.7 million home care workers. President Obama called for the establishment of minimum wage and overtime standards that all workers recognized in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) received. These new reforms would virtually eliminate the “elder companion exemption” in the FLSA that Congress established in 1974 which allowed home care employers to continue their exploitation of home care workers.

President Obama delivered this announcement four years after the Supreme Court decided unanimously that the case’s plaintiff Evelyn Coke, and other home care workers, were not entitled to minimum wage protections and overtime pay. Like most home care workers, Evelyn Coke worked long hours for little pay. Coke performed what scholars Jennifer Klein and Elieen Boris call “intimate labor”—she cooked, cleaned, and bathed her clients.[1] Coke worked 24 hour shifts often and she worked decades without receiving benefits. When Coke decided to sue for back pay, the Supreme Court ruled against her, reinforcing the historical stigmatization of intimate labor. Two years later, the home care workers’ movement lost Evelyn Coke. Home care workers are still waiting for Obama’s “administration action” four years after the ruling.

A group of people gathering in the street, holding slogan

Added on April 22, 2013 Personal Essay

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead?

By Helen McBride

A week ago, Saturday Night Live paid tribute to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who passed away earlier that week. The SNL sketch featured Fred Armisen as Ian Rubbish, a Johnny Rotten type, whose dislike for the British monarchy and government inspired punk-rock gems. However, as we learn in this “documentary,” when Margaret Thatcher came to power, Rubbish’s reaction left his band, the Bizzarros, and fans scratching their heads. Expecting Thatcher to be “Rubbished,” Rubbish instead did a 180 and wrote songs praising Thatcher. What in world had come over Rubbish? Well we learn soon enough that his “love” for the Iron Lady developed because, wait for it, she reminds him of his mum. So there is no changing his mind. SNLs tribute reflects a myriad of responses to Thatcher’s death. Not surprisingly, the stormy reaction across Britain and Ireland over Baroness Thatcher’s death hasn’t escaped anyone’s attention. The decision to commemorate or celebrate her death in Northern Ireland in particular, was bound to produce a split in opinion. The relationship between Northern Ireland (and the Republic of Ireland for that matter) and Thatcher has always been tense. Recent revelations from former Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson about Thatcher’s supposed mistrust of the Irish, and her equally naive and ridiculous Cromwellian solution to the “Troubles” (i.e. to simply move all the Catholics to the Republic) is just the latest in this deeply complicated relationship. Yet, the polarized responses to her death reflect not only her conservative policies that still influence British politics, but also reveal cultural norms and beliefs regarding gender and politics. Thatcher may have reminded Rubbish of his mum, but this reduced Thatcher to being a mum, not a politician, judged not for her (controversial) policies, but for her inability to fulfill feminine expectations.

Added on April 12, 2013 Medicina/Medicine

Just Add Water . . . and Sperm

By Tina M. Kibbe

As an historian of science and medicine, I am always interested in both the histories of and the latest innovations in genetic and reproductive technologies. It is unbelievable how far we’ve come in such a relatively short period of time. These technologies are usually met with a mixture of awe and fascination or resistance and fear—it seems as if sometimes we are witnessing a glimpse into the future, yet it is actually happening in the here and now. I recently came across an article that actually made me stop and say, “Wow, really?” It’s about research into a new reproductive technology, but before I get to it, I want to do a brief background of revolutionary reproductive and genetic technologies that have sparked some intense ethical and moral debates. Specifically, three groundbreaking developments which have women/gender at their very core. Three developments that, as they were occurring, perhaps seemed like they were only futuristic, fantastic things that could never really happen . . . until they did.

Added on April 10, 2013 Protest: Past & Present

Get Ready for Earth Day of Action on Reproductive Health and the Environment

By Heather Munro Prescott

In an effort to show links between reproductive justice and environmental justice, the Reproductive Health Technologies Project (RHTP) is “calling all young people” to check a presentation on “Sex, Synthetics, and Sustainability,” on April 10 at 4:30 EST. The presentation will feature representatives from the the Sierra Club Global Population & Environment Program, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, and Women’s Voices for the Earth, and special guest Stefanie Weiss, author of Eco-Sex: Go Green Between the Sheets and Make Your Love Life Sustainable. Now, as I’ve written elsewhere, this isn’t the first time that birth control activists have reached out to young people by appealing to their interest in protecting the environment.

Nursing Clio

Cross-Dressing: An American Pastime

By Tiffany K. Wayne

What’s in Your Vulva?

Sunday Morning Medicine

By Jacqueline Antonovich

One Year of Making the Personal Historical

By Carrie Adkins

A Kind of Reflection, a Kind of Declaration

By Austin McCoy

Marketing Domesticity

By Rachel Epp Buller

Emancipating Intimate Labor in the Care Economy

By Austin McCoy

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead?

By Helen McBride

Just Add Water . . . and Sperm

By Tina M. Kibbe

Get Ready for Earth Day of Action on Reproductive Health and the Environment

By Heather Munro Prescott

Search

Series

Subscribe