CW: Being taken advantage of, poverty, Extensive Cancer talk (after ad break)
How does one achieve immortality? Join us today to find out how two women in history have become effectively immortal (but not in the vampire way). These two women have affected the course of human history in remarkable ways, and we also punctuate the end of Black History Month by featuring two Black women to segue into Women’s History Month.
This week, we talked about two amazing Black women as we transition from Black History Month to Women’s History Month. So let’s start by looking at the quick profile of Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner, the inventor that changed the lives of all people who menstruate who many people have never heard of.
And here’s a longer account of her life and work.
For extra reading, here’s some history (and pictures) of feminine hygiene products. This is a short, fun read if you’re into this kind of history.
Next we’ll look at a woman who, without her own knowledge, has impacted pretty much every person’s life since the day she first went to the hospital in the 1950s. I’m talking about Henrietta Lacks, of course. This article was written by the author of the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
This article talks about how the Lacks family, or at least some of them, feel about what happened to Henrietta, and it talks about the past, present, and future of policy surrounding medical testing in the United States.
This is the homepage of The Henrietta Lacks Foundation. Here is what The Foundation does according to their homepage: “Helping individuals who have made important contributions to scientific research without personally benefiting from those contributions, particularly those used in research without their knowledge or consent. … The Foundation also seeks to promote public discourse concerning the role that contributions of biological materials play in scientific research and disease prevention, as well as issues related to consent, and disparities in access to health care and research benefits, particularly for minorities and underserved communities.”
Leave a Reply