Green, who lost her parents young, was raised by her aunt and uncle. While still at school, her aunt died from cancer, and three months later her uncle was diagnosed with cancer, too. Green went on to earn her degree in physics at Alabama A&M University, being crowned Homecoming Queen while she was at it, before going on full scholarship to University of Alabama in Birmingham to earn her Masters and Ph.D. There Green would become the first to work out how to deliver nanoparticles into cancer cells exclusively, so that a laser could be used to remove them, and then successfully carry out her treatment on living animals.
her studies thus far are only on head and neck cancers, but her theory is this treatment platform would work on all types of cancers. But needs $$$$ to keep doing research.
It seems the issue is how to target the cancer cells and in her head and neck cancer tests, she had success in mice by utilizing fda approved immunotherepy antibodies to deliver nano particles to mark the tumor. Then she could proceed to blast the shit out of cancer with fuckin lasers.
she was ready or prepared when opportunity arose
I’m so proud of her. I wish more young black women would go into science.
#BLACKGIRLMAGIC
Yes!!!!! If she really does cure cancer, watch her name & face disappear behind some white man.
Women have more power and agency in Shakespeare’s comedies than in his tragedies, and usually there are more of them with more speaking time, so I’m pretty sure what Shakespeare’s saying is “men ruin everything” because everyone fucking dies when men are in charge but when women are in charge you get married and live happily ever after
I think you’re reading too far into things, kiddo. Take a break from your women’s studies major and get some fresh air.
Right. Well, I’m a historian, so allow me to elaborate.
One of the most important aspects of the Puritan/Protestant revolution (in the 1590’s in particular) was the foregrounding of marriage as the most appropriate way of life. It often comes as a surprise when people learn this, but Puritans took an absolutely positive view of sexuality within the context of marriage. Clergy were encouraged to lead by example and marry and have children, as opposed to Catholic clergy who prized virginity above all else.Through his comedies, Shakespeare was promoting this new way of life which had never been promoted before. The dogma, thanks to the church, had always been “durr hburr women are evil sex is bad celibacy is your ticket to salvation.” All that changed in Shakespeare’s time, and thanks to him we get a view of the world where marriage, women, and sexuality are in fact the key to salvation.
The difference between the structure of a comedy and a tragedy is that the former is cyclical, and the latter a downward curve. Comedies weren’t stupid fun about the lighter side of life. The definition of a comedy was not a funny play. They were plays that began in turmoil and ended in reconciliation and renewal. They showed the audience the path to salvation, with the comic ending of a happy marriage leaving the promise of societal regeneration intact. Meanwhile, in the tragedies, there is no such promise of regeneration or salvation. The characters destroy themselves. The world in which they live is not sustainable. It leads to a dead end, with no promise of new life.
And so, in comedies, the women are the movers and shakers. They get things done. They move the machinery of the plot along. In tragedies, though women have an important part to play, they are often morally bankrupt as compared to the women of comedies, or if they are morally sound, they are disenfranchised and ignored, and refused the chance to contribute to the society in which they live. Let’s look at some examples.
In Romeo and Juliet, the play ends in tragedy because no-one listens to Juliet. Her father and Paris both insist they know what’s right for her, and they refuse to listen to her pleas for clemency. Juliet begs them – screams, cries, manipulates, tells them outright I cannot marry, just wait a week before you make me marry Paris, just a week, please and they ignore her, and force her into increasingly desperate straits, until at last the two young lovers kill themselves. The message? This violent, hate-filled patriarchal world is unsustainable. The promise of regeneration is cut down with the deaths of these children. Compare to Othello. This is the most horrifying and intimate tragedy of all, with the climax taking place in a bedroom as a husband smothers his young wife. The tragedy here could easily have been averted if Othello had listened to Desdemona and Emilia instead of Iago. The message? This society, built on racism and misogyny and martial, masculine honour, is unsustainable, and cannot regenerate itself. The very horror of it lies in the murder of two wives.
How about Hamlet? Ophelia is a disempowered character, but if Hamlet had listened to her, and not mistreated her, and if her father hadn’t controlled every aspect of her life, then perhaps she wouldn’t have committed suicide. The final scene of carnage is prompted by Laertes and Hamlet furiously grappling over her corpse. When Ophelia dies, any chance of reconciliation dies with her. The world collapses in on itself. This society is unsustainable. King Lear – we all know that this is prompted by Cordelia’s silence, her unwillingness to bend the knee and flatter in the face of tyranny. It is Lear’s disproportionate response to this that sets off the tragedy, and we get a play that is about entropy, aging and the destruction of the social order.
There are exceptions to the rule. I’m sure a lot of you are crying out “but Lady Macbeth!” and it’s a good point. However, in terms of raw power, neither Lady Macbeth nor the witches are as powerful as they appear. The only power they possess is the ability to influence Macbeth; but ultimately it is Macbeth’s own ambition that prompts him to murder Duncan, and it is he who escalates the situation while Lady Macbeth suffers a breakdown. In this case you have women who are allowed to influence the play, but do so for the worse; they fail to be the good moral compasses needed. Goneril, Regan and Gertrude are similarly comparable; they possess a measure of power, but do not use it for good, and again society cannot renew itself.
Now we come to the comedies, where women do have the most control over the plot. The most powerful example is Rosalind in As You Like It. She pulls the strings in every avenue of the plot, and it is thanks to her control that reconciliation is achieved at the end, and all end up happily married. Much Ado About Nothing pivots around a woman’s anger over the abuse of her innocent cousin. If the men were left in charge in this play, no-one would be married at the end, and it would certainly end in tragedy. But Beatrice stands up and rails against men for their cruel conduct towards women and says that famous, spine-tingling line – oh God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace. And Benedick, her suitor, listens to her. He realises that his misogynistic view of the world is wrong and he takes steps to change it. He challenges his male friends for their conduct, parts company with the prince, and by doing this he wins his lady’s hand. The entire happy ending is dependent on the men realising that they must trust, love and respect women. Now it is a society that is worthy of being perpetuated. Regeneration and salvation lies in equality between the sexes and the love husbands and wives cherish for each other. The Merry Wives of Windsor – here we have men learning to trust and respect their wives, Flastaff learning his lesson for trying to seduce married women, and a daughter tricking everyone so she can marry the man she truly loves. A Midsummer Night’s Dream? The turmoil begins because three men are trying to force Hermia to marry someone she does not love, and Helena has been cruelly mistreated. At the end, happiness and harmony comes when the women are allowed to marry the men of their choosing, and it is these marriages that are blessed by the fairies.
What of the romances? In The Tempest, Prospero holds the power, but it is Miranda who is the key to salvation and a happy ending. Without his daughter, it is likely Prospero would have turned into a murderous revenger. The Winter’s Tale sees Leontes destroy himself through his own jealousy. The king becomes a vicious tyrant because he is cruel to his own wife and children, and this breach of faith in suspecting his wife of adultery almost brings ruin to his entire kingdom. Only by obeying the sensible Emilia does Leontes have a chance of achieving redemption, and the pure trust and love that exists between Perdita and Florizel redeems the mistakes of the old generation and leads to a happy ending. Cymbeline? Imogen is wronged, and it is through her love and forgiveness that redemption is achieved at the end. In all of these plays, without the influence of the women there is no happy ending.
The message is clear. Without a woman’s consent and co-operation in living together and bringing up a family, there is turmoil. Equality between the sexes and trust between husbands and wives alone will bring happiness and harmony, not only to the family unit, but to society as a whole. The Taming of the Shrew rears its ugly head as a counter-example, for here a happy ending is dependent on a woman’s absolute subservience and obedience even in the face of abuse. But this is one of Shakespeare’s early plays (and a rip-off of an older comedy called The Taming of a Shrew) and it is interesting to look at how the reception of this play changed as values evolved in this society.
As early as 1611 The Shrew was adapted by the writer John Fletcher in a play called The Woman’s Prize, or The Tamer Tamed. It is both a sequel and an imitation, and it chronicles Petruchio’s search for a second wife after his disastrous marriage with Katherine (whose taming had been temporary) ended with her death. In Fletcher’s version, the men are outfoxed by the women and Petruchio is ‘tamed’ by his new wife. It ends with a rather uplifting epilogue that claims the play aimed:
To teach both sexes due equality
And as they stand bound, to love mutually.
The Taming of the Shrew and The Tamer Tamed were staged back to back in 1633, and it was recorded that although Shakespeare’s Shrew was “liked”, Fletcher’s Tamer Tamed was “very well liked.” You heard it here folks; as early as 1633 audiences found Shakespeare’s message of total female submission uncomfortable, and they preferred John Fletcher’s interpretation and his message of equality between the sexes.
So yes. The message we can take away from Shakespeare is that a world in which women are powerless and cannot or do not contribute positively to society and family is unsustainable. Men, given the power and left to their own devices, will destroy themselves. But if men and women can work together and live in harmony, then the whole community has a chance at salvation, renewal and happiness.
In the immortal words of the bard himself: fucking annihilated.
a restaurant in my hometown got a review that said the servers should “show some skin” so the owner added a potato skin special to the menu and all the proceeds from the special go to the west virginia foundation for rape information services (x)
Debbie Reynolds tells the story about how Fred Astaire encouraged her to keep working hard on the dance routines for Singin’ in the Rain. (x)
Okay, we need to talk about this because I haven’t heard near enough about what a freakin’ boss Debbie Reynolds was on Singin in the Rain. Because that was the first dance role she’d had EVER. She had gymnastics training so she knew how to move her body, but she hadn’t danced before, and here she was thrown right into the deep end with Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor. Kelly in particular was a huge asshole to her and gave her a lot of crap because she wasn’t performing to his standards, even though she was putting on tap shoes for the first time and he was Gene Fucking Kelly. Hence the nervous breakdown under the piano and encouragement from Fred Astaire. (Kelly, to his credit, owned up to the assholeness after the fact and said he was surprised Reynolds was willing to put up with him afterwards.)
And she DID IT. She didn’t give up busted her ass and danced until her feet bled (literally, she had to not be carried off the set after filming “Good Morning”) and she held her own alongside two of the best dancers in Hollywood then or ever and she smiled through what by all accounts was one of the most physically demanding movie musicals ever. She worked through her self-doubts and met the challenge and made history.
Debbie Reynolds. Carrie Fisher. The badass is strong in their family. Never forget it.
One of the things I like about this: they’re doing it without shouting down women.
Because “that doesn’t happen to guys” *IS* a feminist issue. Male victims of abuse being dismissed, blamed or ridiculed because they weren’t “manly” enough is a part of patriarchy. And you can raise awareness of that without dismissing other feminist issues or bringing it up as a “counter argument” to problems women face.
MRAs, take note. This is how you actually support men’s rights.
Today marks the 26th anniversary of the École Polytechnique massacre, in Montreal, Canada. A cowardly, misogynic act which left 14 promising women dead, simply because they were women:
Twenty-five-year-old Marc Lépine, armed with a Mini-14 rifle and a hunting knife, shot 28 people, killing 14 women, before committing suicide. He began his attack by entering a classroom at the university, where he separated the male and female students.
After claiming that he was “fighting feminism” and calling the women “a bunch of feminists,” he shot all nine women in the room, killing six. He then moved through corridors, the cafeteria, and another classroom, specifically targeting women to shoot. Overall, he killed fourteen women and injured ten other women and four men in just under 20 minutes before turning the gun on himself.[1][2]
His suicide note claimed political motives and blamed feminists for ruining his life. The note included a list of 19 Quebec women whom Lépine considered to be feminists and apparently wished to kill.[3]
On Saturday, a United States district judge ruled that doctors may turn away women who have had abortions and transgender patients on the basis of religious freedom.
In his verdict, Judge Reed O’Connor argued laws that would otherwise forbid gender-based discrimination require doctors “to remove the categorical exclusion of transitions and abortions (a condition they assert is a reflection of their religious beliefs and an exercise of their religion) and conduct an individualized assessment of every request for those procedures.“
In other words, doctors would have to argue on an individual basis their refusal of a patient.
This requirement, O’Connor said, “imposes a burden” on doctors’ ability to exercise their religion. Read more
golly, having to treat people like actual people seems so very difficult for some.
do you ever watch something and think “this was written by a man”
i was up late night watching an episode of criminal minds fairly recently, for lack of a better thing to do. in the opening scene there are these two girls getting into their car in like a supermarket parking lot, not very well lit, in the middle of the night. another car drives up right behind theirs and won’t move out of the way so this one girl is like “im gonna go see what this guy’s problem is” and gets out of the car, in a poorly lit parking lot, to confront a man who was behaving aggressively to them.
so that was the precise moment i realised that episode was written by a man.
I was watching an episode of CSI where the entire reason they were going forward with the case was that ‘no woman would wear a bra this expensive without also wearing the matching panties’. What porn logic is this? I was, at that moment, wearing the exact bra the Jane Doe was wearing and fuck no I didn’t spring for the matching panties. Even if I did, I wouldn’t wear them as often as a bra. Panties I wash daily. Bras? Not so much.
But in CSI World, police resources were being mobilized on how irregular it would be for a woman to wear a $36 bra, but not caring about how she would look in just underthings.
Never mind not matching, but that they think $36 is expensive for a bra is probably the number one sign it was written by a man.
In Star Wars Padmé goes for Anakin while Ewan McGregor is around
myblog 