Gender – Page 32 – Nursing Clio

A picture of a pregnant woman holding her stomach with hands

Added on September 26, 2012 Historical essay

A Pregnant Woman is Not a Worker

By Cheryl Lemus

So I was dealing with a bout of insomnia tonight and while I was sitting in front of my computer (which I know does not help), I came across a Huffington Post piece on The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), which has just been introduced in the Senate. The bill, which mirrors one introduced to the House in the spring, would require that employers make workplace accommodations for pregnant workers. You know, like giving a pregnant worker regular bathroom breaks. But, not surprisingly, it faces opposition by, that’s right, Republicans. Republicans see things a little differently. See, to them, that baby bump and its need for “accommodations” will kill profits. Don’t you know that requiring an employer to allow a pregnant woman to carry a water bottle during work or making them give her routine bathroom or rest breaks will cause an economic burden? The GOP, made up of primarily desperate white men clinging to their hegemony, are not surprisingly holding steadfast to their antiquated notions of pregnant women (and women in general). With many big businesses funding (and running) the GOP, the party of “pro-life” reveals its true colors yet again by stipulating that an individual’s well-being should not get in the way of profits. At the same time though, most Americans do not recognize a pregnant woman as an employee. Although there are 77 million women in the workforce, many of whom are working in low-wage jobs, a pregnant worker is not the norm. A pregnant woman is not a worker.

Added on September 21, 2012 Adventures in the Archives

There’s No Crying in the Archives!

By Jacqueline Antonovich

I remember my first time fondly. The year was 2010. It was a hot summer day in downtown Denver and I was excited, yet nervous. Would I know what to do? Would I be good at it? What if it was boring? Would I get to wear those cool white gloves? Ah yes, the first trip to the archives is always a special time in a grad student’s life (Hey – get your mind out of the gutter!). I was an MA student at the University of Wyoming and I had traveled down to the Colorado State Archives to do my thesis research on female juvenile delinquency in Progressive-Era Denver. On my way to the archives, I imagined what my first research experience would be like – perhaps I would be sitting in an old, dusty room with only an antique lamp to illuminate my precious manuscripts and documents. Maybe I would make friends with the elderly archivist, who would surely offer me a hot cup of tea. The possibilities were endless!

Added on September 18, 2012 Historical essay

“My Job is Not to Worry About Those People”

There is a lot of controversy over Mitt Romney’s latest “off the cuff” comments he made to a room full of donors:

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. These are people who pay no income tax. My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Let the memes commence! Of course, there have been a lot of reports refuting these so-call facts and rightly attacking Romney for his misconstrued perceptions of who does not pay what. (BTW, Romney, how much did you pay in taxes for the last 10 years? Just asking.) I’ll let them hash out how wrong Romney is and always will be.

I want to concentrate on one line: “My job is not to worry about those people.”

Added on September 17, 2012 Announcement

Men: Masturbation Equals Liberty!

Men for True Liberty is writing to ask for two speaking slots at the DNC in Chicago in August. The speeches will educate convention goers and the public about the threat to men’s freedom and liberty. When Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan won in 2012, we were led to believe that the economy would be restored to its former glory. Men’s reproductive rights were not even a blip on the radar. Yes, we had heard about the war on women in 2012, but what did that have to with men? What did that have to do with the economy and jobs? Our naivety led us to think politicians would never try to control men’s reproductive rights. Well, we realized too late what a big mistake it was to separate reproductive rights from the economy and now it’s time for us to atone for our egregious errors.

Added on September 14, 2012 Historical essay

What’s So Bad About Eugenics?

Surprisingly, I have been asked that question on more than one occasion. I have had students ask me during class and once after a conference presentation. The last time I was confronted with this question was in my summer class, when an earnest young student asked, “If you take the racial prejudice out, what’s wrong with eugenics?” The student continued to press his point: “What’s wrong with a program that has the goal of improving the human race and now that genetics is so advanced, surely we could make sure that people have the best genes and traits. Wouldn’t that make for a healthier, happier population?” Hmm. So much to think about here. A program that uses cutting edge science to improve the human race by ensuring that individuals have only the best genes or traits so that people will be healthy and happy? Indeed, what is so bad about that? Who can say, “NO” to having the best genes, being healthy, and being happy? This is precisely the reason why eugenics was fairly easy “to sell” in the early twentieth century. For the sake of brevity, let’s set aside the vast complexity of the science of genetics and pretend that we could just pluck out the “bad” genes and insert the “good” ones on DNA strands so that in a few generations we might have a utopian world filled with people swimming in the luxurious, healthy, and happy waters of the “best” gene pool. At this point, I have two questions. What determines which genes or traits are the “best,” and in this program of improving the human race, who makes the determination of which ones are the best? Me? You? Or what about a panel of experts? Afterall, we are talking about using science and a panel of objective scientific experts seems like an appropriate choice to make these important decisions. Or is it? While we ponder that for a moment, let’s take a look back.

Added on September 12, 2012 Historical essay

First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage: A Night at the Drive-in

Sex education is tricky stuff. We’ve heard some about it already here on Nursing Clio. And many of us awkwardly shuffled through it one way or another in public school. The only real “talk” I remember from my parents was a noticeably scientific explanation from my microbiologist father, which pretty much cleared up my curiosity at the time, I recall. The public school side of it was mostly anatomy

Added on September 10, 2012 Interview

Feminist Conversations: Elizabeth Reis Talks Intersex

Elizabeth Reis is a professor of women’s and gender studies at the University of Oregon and is the author of Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). This year (2012-2103) she is a visiting scholar in the History of Science Department at Harvard University. This interview originally appeared in Feminists for Choice and is reprinted with permission.

1. What was the motivation behind writing Bodies in Doubt?

So much of the “history” of intersex begins in the mid-1950s with a critique of John Money and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins University. This was an important period, of course, because Money’s protocols became widely adopted, but it was hardly the beginning of the story of the medical management of intersex. As an early American historian, I wondered what happened to those born with unusual bodies in earlier eras. I wanted to find out how the gradual process of medicalization affected our understanding of how male and female bodies were supposed to look.

Added on September 6, 2012 Personal Essay

The Blame Game in Autism

The interwebz have been abuzz this week, debating Moises Velasquez-Manoff’s editorial in the New York Times on autism and immune function. Although Velasquez-Manoff is a little late on the autism/immune function thesis (which has been posited in research projects since at least 2005), it’s his use of autism stereotypes and ableist language that put this article on my radar. It’s the assumption that autism is a sign of a broken or damaged child that has made me question both his interpretation of that thesis and the implications for the families of children with autism – and the autists themselves.

Michelle Obama in pink dress, standing on the stage giving a speech

Added on September 5, 2012 Historical essay

Democrats’ Success and Gender Equality Depends Upon Identity Politics

Women speakers made the greatest impact on the first night of the Democratic National Convention. Clearly the Democrats aimed to exploit the Republican Party’s woman problem. Women like veteran Tammy Duckworth, republican defector Maria Ciano, NARAL president Nancy Keenan, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Lily Ledbetter, citizen Stacy Lihn, and Michelle Obama, all ventured to speak explicitly about a range of policies that the Republicans remained vague about during the RNC last week. Many of them explicitly placed very controversial issues like income equality, contraception, and Obamacare on the table, and not just during the early evening speeches, but during prime time.

Added on August 29, 2012 Medicina/Medicine

The Flip-flop over Foreskin

This is a guest post by Elizabeth Reis, professor of women’s and gender studies at the University of Oregon. Professor Reis is the author of Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). This year (2012-2103) she is a visiting scholar in the History of Science Department at Harvard University.

The American Academy of Pediatricians recently released a statement saying that the health benefits of circumcision outweighed the risks. This pronouncement contradicts the Academy’s earlier ruling, just thirteen years ago in 1999, which stated unequivocally that the health benefits of the procedure were slim. The 1999 statement reversed a previous one made in 1989 that said there were good medical reasons for it; but a few years earlier, in 1971, the Academy had officially concluded that it was not a medical necessity. Clearly, circumcision is one of those surgeries about which opinion shifts back and forth over the years.

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