Page 2 - MidWeek Kauai - Apr 7, 2021

2 KAUA‘I MIDWEEK APRIL 7, 2021
Rotten
The Tales Of Two Super Women
BY CHRIS MCKINNEY
PAPAYAS
I’m currently consuming media about two very dif- ferent women on two very different platforms. I’m read- ing The Code Breaker, which is the story of Jennifer Doudna and her Nobel Prize-winning breakthroughs in gene edit- ing while I’m watching Being Serena, which is about Serena Williams’ comeback to tennis after having a baby. I can’t help but compare in my head. What’s harder? Being a revo- lutionary biochemist or being an all-time great professional athlete?
when she was 4. She would go on to win 23 Grand Slam titles and become one of the greatest tennis players of all time. Then she got pregnant and wrecked it all. I kid, but only kind of.
Unlike The Code Breaker, Being Serena isn’t about Wil- liams’ historical successes. Instead, it asks whether being a woman, having a child and staying on top is humanly pos- sible. In science, apparently it is. Doudna didn’t need to main- tain world-class physicality to do her work. She just needed to continue to use her already- world-class brain.
to the body (incidentally, it almost killed her), but as an athlete, aging looms in a more immediate fashion. Already in her mid-30s, having a child threatened her career.
The Code Breaker is avail- able in hard cover, digital and audio formats. Being Serena
is streaming on HBO Max.
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Clearly, they’re both incred- ibly hard. Doudna, who grew up in Hilo, was allowed to intuitively navigate into what would become her life’s work. She went from wondering if chemistry was too hard for her at Pomona College to leading the scientific team that showed that a protein could be pro- grammed to cut and edit DNA.
Here’s the thing: The Code Breaker is not just about Doud- na, who’s also a mother, but it’s about the giants that preceded her. Doudna’s success depend- ed not just on her brilliance and tenacity, but also on the brilliance of those around her. The fact that she had a child is merely a blip in the book.
For Williams, the decision to have a child had much more severe ramifications. It’s not just what pregnancy can do
Comparing these two gi- ants is a rather silly exercise, the kind that my friends and I would participate in over beers. Both just made me think about motherhood and the gender disparities when it comes to the decision to have children.
In the end, both women’s stories are inspirational.
Fill in the blank cells using numbers 1 to 9. Each number can appear only once in each row, column, and 3x3 block. Use logic and process of elimination to solve the puzzle. The difficulty level ranges from Bronze (easiest) to Silver to Gold (hardest). Answers are on page 7
RATING: BRONZE
On the other hand, I’m pret- ty sure Williams was born with a tennis racket in her hand. An exaggeration, but she started
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