Today, the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was jointly awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their innovative work that led to the life-saving mRNA COVID vaccines. Ms. Karikó, a Hungarian-American biochemist and researcher at Penn Medicine is one of (now) 61 women who have received this award, while Dr. Weissman, a physician and researcher also at Penn Medicine, is one of over 890 male laureates. This wonderful announcement stirred my feminist passion and also reminded me of my lifelong interest in science. Maybe I could have been a scientist. If I was born 20 years later, could things have turned out differently?
Continue reading
Lifestyle
How I Became a Feminist
Like becoming a goddess, it didn’t happen all at once. It was a process. Thinking back, I realize I had many early signs that continued as a constant thread with growing awareness and frustration at the social inequities. The world just didn’t seem fair. At first, I wondered why. Then, in succession, I grumbled, got angry, and eventually depressed. And, if you can believe it, my AHA! moment, what I consider the birth of my feminism, came with the issue of a very mainstream magazine.
Continue reading
What Would Barbie Do?
Several years ago, a friend who was getting married for the second time happened to have a fascination with Barbie. Maybe it was a hobby or a whimsy or a fetish, whatever you call it when an adult collects Barbie stuff. You know Barbie. Everyone knows Barbie, the doll that has been around since 1959, Mattell’s weird ideal of the perfect girl/woman that no living female could ever achieve.
Continue reading
accidental goddess 