Added on Personal Essay

Happy 1st Birthday Nursing Clio!

By Jacqueline Antonovich

I can’t believe that one year ago this week, our little collaborative blog project went live. Has it really been that long? It seems like just yesterday Cheryl, Ashley, Carrie, Meggan, Adam, Carolyn and I were debating what to call this blog- Mons Pubis? Pubis Medicus? Nurse Clio? Thank God cooler heads prevailed and we went with Meggan’s suggestion of Nursing Clio (For an explanation of the name see here). As the creator, co-founder, and executive editor of this whole endeavor, I have to tell you, this has been an intensely fantastic, insane, scary, and rewarding first year. I have met some wonderful scholars, engaged in some lively debates, and formed what I hope will be life-long friendships. In every way, the blog has exceeded my expectations and I hope we continue to bring you important, relevant, and fun conversations throughout this next year.

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Added on Historical essay

Mommy, Daddy, Can I Have a Gun?

By Cheryl Lemus

My son is a bit obsessed with the game of Skylanders at the present moment. My husband and I were very late on the bandwagon of purchasing a Wii and even when we decided to; our son had to trade in his Nintendo DS and its games to purchase the game console and the starter package (we made up the difference). Since then, it has been a tug of war to maintain the number of hours he (and his sister) can play the Wii, while at the same time monitor what he is playing. When he first told me about Skylanders, one of the first things he said to me was, “Don’t worry Mommy, there are no guns and no blood,” and he was right, although I still think the game introduces him to mild violence. But then I remembered how many Saturday mornings I spent glued to the T.V. watching Bugs Bunny, while I ate a bowl of cereal. So I relaxed a bit. Yet, I was surprised that just as he mentioned Skylanders to me, he instantly reassured me that the violence included no guns and blood. At this point, you can guess that my husband and I are not gun enthusiasts by any stretch of the imagination and although my son has asked several times for a Nerf gun or something like that, we as good, but evil liberals, of course replied, “Hell no! Nerf guns will just lead you to the dark side of NRA worship,” or something like that. So by now, he knows that the question, “Mommy, Daddy, can I have a gun?” should never cross his lips. But I know very well that in many households that question would be met with a resounding, “Thank God our Johnny (or Jill) has seen the light!”

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Added on Adventures in the Archives

Adventures in the Archives: These Losses Which Are Not My Own

By Carolyn Herbst Lewis

Lately I find that my mind is muddled. I have accepted a position at a new institution, so both professionally and personally there are big changes ahead. In the meantime, I am caught in that strange space in-between. I am finishing up projects and responsibilities here, even as I am already making plans and thinking about my courses there. I look around my home and my campus office and all I see are things that need to be put into boxes. It is a strange time in which beginnings and endings are all tangled into one busy mess. No wonder it’s hard to get anything “done”.

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Added on 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:

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

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IVF shown in purple background
Added on 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.

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Added on 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.

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Added on Personal Essay

“Born This Way” Or Not: No Justification Required

To get us started, take a listen to some of Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” A few warnings: There’s skin. […]

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A sarcasm cartoon, ne man looking out of window through telescopes, a woman in the house covers her son's eyes with hands, looked panic
Added on Personal Essay

Same-Sex Marriage Does Threaten “Traditional” Marriage

Recently on Facebook some friends were passing around a quote by comedian Ellen DeGeneres who was responding to the charge […]

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Added on Personal Essay

A Tale of Two Pregnancies

By Cheryl Lemus

So I don’t know if you all aware but Kim Kardashian and Duchess Kate Middleton are pregnant. Yes I know, surprising news since both pregnancies have received very little coverage in the media. I mean you would not even know they were pregnant. Sarcasm aside, when both women announced/confirmed their pregnancies in December, I was not surprised to see the media circus that unfolded around the both of them. NBC’s Today practically wet itself when Kate confirmed her pregnancy, while Kim’s news went viral when Kanye West announced she was expecting their child during a concert. Since then, the media has been more than happy to closely monitor both women’s pregnancies (even more than their obstetricians), but in the past few weeks, more attention has been placed on Kim and Kate’s pregnant bodies, revealing a tale of two pregnancies, one the ideal (Kate) and one the reality (Kim). And the attention, praise, comparisons, conniption fits, and criticisms reflect that these two norms are clashing for the first time.

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