Most women who run for president experience some degree of notoriety. Certainly this was the case for Sonia Johnson, who ran for president in 1984 as the candidate for the left-wing U.S. Citizen’s Party. Although Johnson held a Ph.D. in English, she spent much of her adult life as a Mormon housewife with limited involvement… Read more →
Sarah Pripas
Sarah Pripas
Contributor
How Anti-Vaccine Ideology Crosses the Political Spectrum
Vaccinations have not been a major issue in the 2016 presidential campaign so far, but perhaps they should be. Republican candidate Donald Trump has repeatedly made statements promoting the disproven idea that vaccines cause autism. Third-party candidates have also joined the anti-vaccine chorus. Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson opposes mandatory childhood vaccinations, while Green Party candidate… Read more →
“Me Before You”: Hollywood’s Disability Problem & the Perils of Assisted Suicide
The recent movie Me Before You, based on the best-selling book by Jojo Moyes, has been marketed as the tearjerker romance flick of the summer. The film stars Emilia Clarke (of Game of Thrones fame) and Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games). But the movie has drawn fierce protests from disability rights activists, who say that the… Read more →
Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles: A Brief History of Self-Induced Abortion
Knitting needles. Arsenic. Deliberately falling. These are just some of the methods that women used to self-induce abortion in the early twentieth century, when abortion was illegal. This is not simply a subject confined to history books any more. Evidence suggests that self-induced abortion is rising once more, thanks in large part to political efforts… Read more →
Exploding Myths About Medicine’s Wage Gap: Lessons From the Past and Present
It’s not news that women are paid less than men for comparable work, subject to variation across race, field of labor, and other factors. In medicine, the gap is particularly pronounced. At first glance, we wouldn’t necessarily expect medicine to be particularly inequitable. Being a physician is a high-status occupation that requires a great deal… Read more →
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 (WMCP) has been circulating around the Internet. The students pictured above are, from left to right, Anandibai Joshee, Keiko Okami, and Sabat Islambooly (whose name is misspelled in the original text accompanying the photograph). Because… Read more →