Sunday Morning Medicine

The history of the condom.
Use these old slang terms to impress your friends.
Mascara used to be a lot more complicated.
The stereotype that we wish would go away: Hollywood and the Helpless Husband.
The treadmill prison.
North Korean women can now ride bicycles.
That time when Denver almost exploded.

To Sophia on Her Sixth Birthday. With Love, Your Feminist Historian Mom

Happy Birthday baby girl! Today you are six. It really does seem like yesterday that I held you in my arms just minutes after your birth. I remember thinking at that moment (and throughout my pregnancy) that having a girl was not going to be easy. As a historian I am painfully aware of hard it was/is to be a female. Yes, women have achieved quite a bit, but there are many individuals (male and female) who think gender equality will lead to the end of human existence, and who are hellbent on placing women within the box of inequality.

Breast is Best… in Art?

Breasts are everywhere in popular culture. This is nothing new. And yet I’ve been struck in recent years by the resurgence of the breastfeeding body in visual culture and contemporary art. It’s apparently a big deal (i.e., magazine-cover newsworthy) that Salma Hayek, Alanis Morrisette, Tori Spelling, Kourtney Kardashian, Angelina Jolie, Christina Aguilera, and many other celebrities breastfeed their babies.

Let’s Talk About Sex…. But Only If We Really Have To…

This may come as a shock to some of you, but I have a difficult time talking about sex.
[I will pause a moment while my friends, colleagues, and former students pick themselves up off the floor and recover from the raucous laughter that I’m sure they just engaged in.]
Okay. Let me clarify: I have a difficult time talking with my son about sex.

The Baby in the Double Helix

Sunday Morning Medicine

The history of the wandering womb.
Presidential courtships throughout history.
What day of the week are you most likely to die in a hospital’s care?
Graphing every idea in history.
The history of the exclamation point!
Maps!
New documentary explores death and the Civil War.
Parents eat more fat.
Pubic hair exists for a reason, according to science.

People marching on the street, holding a sign of elephants in the womb

Paul Ryan? Really???

This morning Mitt Romney named Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate. Now, I find Paul Ryan objectionable in a number of ways – he has cited Ayn Rand as the “one person” who inspired his political career, for God’s sake, and never mind that she was a pro-choice atheist while he is an anti-choice Catholic – but we at Nursing Clio are particularly interested in issues of gender, sexuality, and medicine, and so I would like to take this opportunity to explain why Ryan poses a particular threat to women, gays, lesbians, and, well, anyone who cares at all about women, gays, and/or lesbians.

Adventures in the Archives: “Trust Me, You Won’t Feel a Thing”

Welcome to our new regular feature, “Adventures in the Archives!”

In this reoccurring series, Nursing Clio bloggers will share interesting finds in the archives and ask our readers for feedback, ideas, and analysis. It’s just like you’re sitting in the dusty archives with us!

Earlier this summer I was enjoying a productive day in the archives of the Dittrick Medical History Center in Cleveland, Ohio. After lunch, I decided to take a break from the materials I was focusing on (the institutional records of Women’s General Hospital, 1878-1984) and spend a little time skimming through an interesting journal titled “Record of Operations, Woman’s Hospital, September 1, 1920.” The volume looked like an old-fashioned hotel registration book. But the lines of each page were not filled with sloppy signatures and addresses. Instead, someone with very neat handwriting had been tasked with keeping a detailed accounting of every surgical procedure performed by the hospital’s staff.

A poster showing a group of women in vintage clothes, one woman standing in the center holding a white paper, singing, the other sitting down looking at her

See Sally Menstruate

Sunday Morning Medicine

Awesome Abe Lincoln.
Kids’ chemistry sets used to be way cooler (and way more dangerous)!
Revolutionary War tune found in the pages of a school boy’s math book.
Is the Komen Foundation misleading women?
The 1948 Olympics and the Flying Housewife.
Medical Muckraking .