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Carol Mendez – Acting on a Grander Scale

This article recounts one woman’s story as an immigrant to America and her struggle to find footing in this country. Eventually, she was able to achieve her success with great help from service minded people dedicated to equality and human compassion. She seems to believe very strongly in the powers of an education, activism, and communal organization. Her personal background and the strong example set by the people around her motivated Mendez to pursue various types of activism throughout her life. Her experiences translating in hospitals revealed to her some serious injustices in health care, as well as a considerable need for Hispanic doctors. All throughout her education and into her professional career, Mendez sought out new resources and new ways to better the community around her.

I read this article at a very appropriate time; just yesterday I got a job offer as a college campus organizer for a public interest lobby group. During my interview I heard countless stories from different people about the various projects they were working on. The enthusiasm was contagious and many of them were motivated by personal experience as Mendez was. I particularly enjoyed how Mendez sees activism as a means of learning. It affords one the opportunity to become involved with people you would not otherwise be in contact with. It allows you to learn about different cultures, different backgrounds, and different values that you may never have been exposed to. So, as you help others you help your own understanding of this world and of yourself.

Courtney Turner – Finding the Face in Public Health Policy

Similar to Mendez, Turner begins with her personal background. Again, her parents/guardians are a primary motivation for the activist spirit that she would cultivate as she got older. She cites her inherited competitive nature as an early manifestation of her drive to create highly resisted change. Specifically, the change she sought after was more considerate public health care, a system that did not marginalize and ignore intravenous drug users, prostitutes, and those affected by HIV and AIDS. Her means of getting involved with these issues was through interning, volunteering, and later researching in collaboration with needle exchange programs. These types of public services are often criticized for condoning illicit and irresponsible behavior. But Turner expresses her conviction that meeting with these people has shown her the truth; they deserve to be recognized instead of marginalized, and the health care system cannot ignore these people’s stories any longer. Like Mendez, Turner emphasizes the lessons she learned about leadership and collaboration through activism. She claims that her experiences outside of the classroom are the ones that contributed most to her education and expertise in public health.

Kaminsky – Choosing Nursing

Like the others, Kaminsky arrives at her knowledge of health care through a distinct career path. She was in the unique position of having an undergraduate degree in History and Women’s Studies, but decided to start a career as a nurse. This background gave her an analytic mindset as she began a career in such a traditionally female dominated occupation. In this article she chronicles how nursing became a popular female profession, how it has evolved, and where she hopes to see it go in the future. She gives a very interesting account of how nursing numbers were affected by feminism, which encouraged women to pursue careers unjustly dominated by men. Unfortunately, this had an adverse affect on how people viewed teachers and nurses because they seemed to be “settling” for traditionally female jobs. Kaminsky makes the very valid point that regardless of the history of gender relations attached to these positions, they are essential to a functioning society and should be respectable options for anyone. Beyond this, Kaminsky argues that because nursing is predominantly female, it is an arena that supports female unity and a fertile battleground for women to fight for better pay and better treatment in the workplace.

All three of these articles are good examples of what feminism and women’s studies encourage in people. I think that studying the movements of feminism and women’s rights forces you to be look at things differently, gain new perspective, and ultimately, it encourages you to become more positively active in your society. All three of these women took that mentality and sought positive change in ways that were not intrinsically related to feminism, but I think that the motives behind their actions and the determination that each of them show are skills that are sharpened by feminist study and involvement in the women’s movement.