Leading Ladies

The first reading by Carol Mendez discusses the idea of female power. Carol was an illegal immigrant growing up and had a tough time when her parents dies. She lived with her grandmother who eventually could no longer raise her and moved to the US to live with her aunt and uncle. The one line I particularly liked was when Carol said that her grandmother "taught her to be self-sufficient, to work earnestly for advancement, and to serve others" (68). She participated in activist groups and eventually attend college thanks to the help of her counselor and a scholarship. She now is attending medical school and working with trying to give opportunities to illegal immigrants to earn citizenship.

Courtney Turner's article took a different approach. She worked on public health issues and switching needles for drug users. She also had an interesting childhood growing up and she learned at an early age that she wanted to help others. I can relate to this because I also grew up "thinking male". I had all guy friends and loved sports and being competitive. She now works with the people listening to their personal stories about HIV and forgets about them being a drug user but get engulfed in their pain. She works trying to them to use needles and have safe sex even if it looks like she is promoting it. She rather have them doing it safely if their going to do it.

Jan Oosting Kaminsky's article is about her path to nursing. She worked with a non profit organization in South Africa with promoting HIV/AIDS prevention. This experience made her want to purse a medical career. After 9/11 hit it made her want to continue on her path to become a nurse. She attend John Hopkins University School of Nursing and worked with pediatrics in the ICU. She talks about the important relationships with the doctors and how there are more male doctors then females. The relationship between feminism and nursing is complicated because it is a predominately a women based job where feminist want women to get into more male based jobs and equal them out. Being able to purse your dreams and do what you want is a feminist view though. I can relate to this, because my mom is a nurse and really loves her job. She likes helping people and being able to do something for them.