“Acting on a Grander Scale” by Carol Mendez
Mendez begins by explaining some of her history. She was raised by her grandmother and moved to the States when she was ten. A nieces’ illness made it necessary for Mendez to act as interpreter between the English speaking doctors and her Spanish speaking family. This interested her in the medical profession early on. Mendez attended high school and eventually college. This was difficult because as an illegal resident she could not receive state funding. This encouraged her to become active in politics in an attempt to change the legislation.
Always interested in social justice and activism, feminism gave Mendez an academic and historic system of thought to channel these interests through. Though college gave her feminism, it also inhibited her participation in the previous activist groups she was a part of. Mendez discusses how she found the balance between feeling the need to volunteer and maintaining other responsibilities (like school). Though she had to sacrifice some volunteering to attend college and med school, she explains how this gave her power to impact even more people positively. She sees issues in the way the Hispanic community interacts with the medical community. As a member of both, she can work to join the two.
“Finding the Face in Public Health Policy” by Courtney S. Turner
Turner also starts her essay by giving us her background. She was raised by black parents personally aquainted with racism and violence. This shaped the way she viewed the world.
Later, she became involved with health care concerns particularly those having to do with needle exchange programs. She advocated for the legalization and implementation of such programs and worked at one for years. This is a women’s issue because for years only gay men were thought to contract HIV/AIDS. Heterosexual women particularly were not considered to be at risk.
Later, she became involved with health care concerns particularly those having to do with needle exchange programs. She advocated for the legalization and implementation of such programs and worked at one for years. This is a women’s issue because for years only gay men were thought to contract HIV/AIDS. Heterosexual women particularly were not considered to be at risk.
Turner emphasizes the importance of having power but also real life experience. This connects to Mendez’s article. Both women gained power through education to positively impact the groups they saw being in desperate need. Real experience focused their efforts and connected them to what people actually need. Mendez gained this experience through working with drug users before her graduate work and then on a regular basis as a professional.
“Choosing Nursing: A Feminist Odysse” by Jan Oosting Kaminsky
Kaminsky discusses how she came to be a nurse because of a desire to do meaningful work. This profession has had an interesting and varied relationship with both feminists and the larger community. Historically, it was devalued work or as Nightengale put it an extension of women’s homemaker responsibilities. As a result, it is a field still dominated by women. Though many second wavers looked down upon nursing they still influenced it by raising its status. Now, nurses are seen as one part of the health care team. Kaminsky argues that this puts the female-dominated field in the exciting place for women to have power.
She brings up the point that nurses enjoy a typically more flexible schedule. She explains how this helps her raise her children. I wonder if this flexibility arose due to the field being controlled and designed by women. As we discuss in class, many jobs today are difficult for mothers to navigate. Some of this could be because the jobs are designed for unencumbered bread winning males. Nursing was always designed for and by females and mothers. I wonder if this impacts its accessibility to mothers.
Follow Up:
ReplyDeleteCarol Mendez, "Acting on a Grander Scale; Finding Health Care Disparities in the Latino Community," Courtney Turner, "Finding the Face in Public Health Policy: Leadership Learning through Outreach" and Jan Oosting Kaminsky, "Choosing Nursing: A Feminist Odyssey"
All three excerpts address the topic of health care and activism. However, each author focuses specifically on different branches of health care. Some of their commentary I found very interesting. In “Choosing Nursing: A Feminist Odyssey,” Kaminsky makes the implicit explicit. She states that nursing is seen as a female dominated profession, strictly designated to that particular sex and so, feminists have chastised and encouraged women to reject this field of work and embrace male dominated professions. However, Kaminsky claims that women should value nursing more because it is a predominantly female occupation controlled by women. We often think of traditionally female occupations as oppressive, like being a homemaker, but they are not; they are only oppressive if women are stripped of choice.
Quotes that I liked:
Mendez:
“'…An activist is anyone who accesses the resources that he or she has an individual for the benefit of the common good’” (Trigg, 72)
“ Undocumented immigration status can further compound the factors that make Latinos a vulnerable population because it makes them hesitate to seek health care for fear of deportation”(Trigg, 73)
Turner:
“I realized that public health fails to adequately evaluate and address stigmatized populations... As a result, programs have neglected to address the social, physical, and mental concerns of clients seeking services”(Trigg, 110)
“Acting on a Grander Scale” by Carol Mendez is a piece about a girl with a life passion. She is obsessed with activism and has wanted to help people for her entire life. She was raised by her grandparents in Columbia. There, she was taught the value of giving. Her grandma could barely afford to keep her own water running yet she helped the community by giving water to anyone she could afford to. Once Mendez came to the United States she continued her infatuation with giving. She participated in activism throughout high school and into college. Finally, she was able to attend medical school as she has always dreamed of becoming a doctor. It is clear that the point of this article is not only to help people whenever possible but also to follow your dreams no matter what adversity you face. That is what Mendez did and as a result she reached her dreams and helped a lot of people on the way.
ReplyDelete“Finding the Face in Public Health Policy”, talks about Courtney Turner’s experiences as a woman throughout her childhood and into her professional life. While the article was packed with interesting accomplishments and experiences that Turner encountered a few things really stuck with me. Toward the beginning of the article when Turner is describing her family, she talks about how she grew up in a house with all boys. She explains how this made her “think male” on the playground. This comment in itself is sexist. While I know what she means when she says this, she is creating a divide between how boys and girls act on the playground. Even more interestingly, a few sentences later, she talks about how she refused to do household chores because her brothers were not forced to do anything around the house. When she refused to do these chores her parents called her a feminist (obviously with a bad connotation attached). The reason this is so interesting is because we started this course from the very beginning talking about the definition of feminism and why most people see it in a negative light. They way that Turner’s family treated women and the way that they used the word feminism is evidence to why feminism is given a bad name. Finally, Turner talks about how she uses feminism in her profession. She uses it to, “empower all those who were seeking to embrace something greater…to provide the unbiased support and encouragement to facilitate this change among a highly stigmatized population” (Turner 113). These are things that would not regularly be associated with feminism but because feminism can be used in so many different ways and fields, to Turner, this is what feminism helps her accomplish.
Kaminsky's "Choosing Nursing: A Feminist Odysse" talks about how nursing is and always has been primarily a female profession. Kaminsky also talks about how this is not the worst thing in the world because it is now considered a well respected field in medicine. While reading this excerpt I could not help but to think about this scene from "Meet the Parents"...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7itXTK56Jk