Did you know that Nursing Clio has an awesome Facebook page? Well we do! Even more exciting (and we know you are excited), in honor of Women’s History Month, Nursing Clio will be honoring a different woman everyday during the month of March on our Facebook page. These women, both sung and unsung, have all made significant impacts, not only in the field of medicine, but in the times and places in which they lived, loved, and worked. Here is what you may have missed so far:
About damn time! Despite its bi-partisan support from its inception in 1994, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) lapsed in 2012. Republicans and Democrats engaged in an intense debate on the terms of the bill as did the rest of the country. But on February 28, 2013, the House of Representatives renewed it. Not the watered down one. They passed the all-inclusive VAWA that provides resources for Native American, immigrant, and LGBT victims. Now we can continue the fight against domestic violence without regressing decades in the larger campaign for women’s rights. While most agree much more has to be done to end the violence, governmental intervention through VAWA is crucial to solving the problem.
We at Nursing Clio may be making “WTF? No, Seriously. WTF?” a regular feature — a place to express anger, horror, and disbelief at current news stories.
This is one of those weeks where the news – especially the kind of news circulating on feminist blogs – is making me incredibly angry. There are a lot of those weeks lately. Here are just a couple of the rage-inspiring news stories:
I witnessed a breakthrough this week, one of those “a-ha” moments that, as a teacher, is so terribly exciting. I’m teaching an undergraduate seminar this spring on Women and Gender in Art History. Since we’re a small school, though, we don’t have an art history major and many of my students come from non-art backgrounds. This means that most of the ideas and artists we’re talking about are brand-new for most of the students.
What was this “a-ha” moment? It was the realization, voiced by one of my students, that the display of women’s bodies that we see happening throughout the history of art is not really so different from the display of women’s bodies in contemporary popular culture. This may seem apparent to many of you readers, and the student in question was surprised herself that she had never made this connection. She is well-read in ideas of the male gaze, and considers herself savvy when it comes to critiquing mass media representations of women.
Prompted by the UN Committee against Torture in 2011 to set up an inquiry, the Irish government has released a report on State collusion with the Catholic Church in the treatment of girls and women in the work houses known as the Magdalene Laundries. These Laundries were run by four Roman Catholic orders of nuns.
The laundries were institutions started by the Catholic Church in 1922, in which thousands of vulnerable women were incarcerated. While in reality those sent to the laundries were products of poverty, homelessness, and dysfunctional families, the myth of the “bad girl” and “fallen woman” sent to the laundries to reform has persisted. Those that were sent to these institutions spent months or years in hard labour, with no access to education, little respect and in many cases lived in constant fear. Work included doing laundry for hotels, hospitals and prisons.
Last month a few of the co-founding members of Nursing Clio had a chance to get together at the AHA conference in New Orleans. As we sat around a table at the famous Carousel Bar, sipping on much-needed yummy cocktails, we reflected on our experiences blogging for Nursing Clio over the past ten months. Eventually the topic turned to how and why some people find our blog and the sometimes bizarre search engine results that lead readers to our site. We decided it might be fun and informative (our whole mission, right?) to allow an academic librarian to examine Nursing Clio’s stats and offer some analysis on his findings. The following is a collaborative blog post by husband-wife dynamic duo, Kevin and Ashley Baggett. Kevin Baggett is a Louisiana State University Law Librarian, and Ashley Baggett is a co-founder and regular contributor to Nursing Clio.
-Syphilis and prosthetic noses.
-Early-twentieth century crusade against kissing.
-The ideal women circa 1926.
-A new SARS-like virus?
-Nineteenth century Mormon courtship.
-A very fun time-lapse drawing of the history of music.
Well it’s the day after Valentine’s Day, faithful Nursing Clio readers, and what better way to nurse our romance hangovers than a good, old-fashioned chat about the history of porn. Now, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I spent a good deal of this past semester looking at lots and lots and lots of porn. In fact, between September and December of 2012, I probably viewed more “pornographic” images than I have in my entire life. This immersion into “adult entertainment” was not something I ever envisioned as being a part of my graduate school journey, but it’s a funny thing where one finds herself on the way to a PhD. Don’t get me wrong, as a historian of gender and medicine, I have seen my fair share of historical lady parts and man bits – just not quite from this perspective. But you see, when acclaimed cultural anthropologist, Gayle Rubin offers a graduate seminar on the infamous Feminist Sex Wars of the 1970s and 80s, you don’t hesitate to jump right into the porn fire.
The bromance has surged in popular culture in recent years to such an extent that you could be forgiven for thinking this a relatively recent concept. Although Wikipedia dates the term ‘bromance’ (only) to the early 90s, Urban Dictionary’s oldest definition is from 2004. The ‘bromantic comedy’ genre (think I Love You, Man, Superbad, or I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry) seems to be the latest incarnation of this trend capturing enormous audience interest. Although the word might be new, however, the concept certainly isn’t.
Originally I envisioned this post as a commentary on labels or stereotypes, and how they serve to sort and categorize individuals. We all do it….give labels to people in an attempt to construct an orderly inventory in our minds. However, while they can sometimes be helpful and provide a common vocabulary, labels can often limit our understanding and obstruct our view of the whole individual. I specifically wanted to address labels in relation to gender as a follow up to Ashley Baggett’s excellent post on masculinity and Adam Turner’s awesome post in which he talks about sorting and categorizing people. In the course of my writing, however, an unexpected turn-of-events occurred. I was asked to temporarily teach a third-grade class. So, I decided to look at gender and labels from a different perspective–from a third-grade point-of-view. It turned out to be an excellent source of material and I thought I would share some things I’ve learned from these plain-talking third-graders.
When our Patreon gets to $500/month, we’ll be able to compensate our writers. This has been a long-term goal of Nursing Clio; now you can help us reach it! If you enjoy our content, support us and our writers by becoming a member of our Patreon.