McCray researches country music feminism, ruthenium

April 13, 2020
Josh McCray Josh McCray

UVA Wise student Joshua McCray was prepared to present two research projects at the NCUR symposium this spring until the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted his plans to discuss the evolution of feminism in country music and an intriguing proposal to use a “Trojan horse” to administer a potential cancer treatment drug.

McCray, a junior, is a biochemistry and history major who has the academic chops to tackle both research projects with relative ease but plenty of hard work was involved. The Wise, Virginia resident’s research is one of several articles that will feature UVA Wise student research that was upended by the COVID-19 crisis.

His objective in the country music research was to explore how feminism and feminist themes evolved in the music genre. The genre started in Appalachia ballads and folklore tales, he explained. Country music grew in popularity over the years but its popularity exploded in the 1990s, primarily because of the rise of female artists and feminist issues.

“The way cheating men were treated in country music changed drastically,” he said. “Country music changed from encouraging women to ‘stand by’ their cheating men to encouraging women to liberate themselves and seek revenge upon adulterous men.”

McCray contends the 1960s arrived after women began to question their roles in domestic life. They began to explore careers as the women’s rights movement began in full force, he said.

“The movement sought to increase women’s equality by campaigning for rights such as equal employment opportunities and access to safe, affordable birth control, as well as safe and legal abortion rights,” McCray writes in his research abstract. “Country music, however, has not always embraced feminist ideas. In an industry mostly dominated by men, female country artists fought against hegemonic standards to top billboards with their feminist anthems.”

McCray found through his research that the “women of country” mixed feminist ideals and themes that were designed to target a conservative market.

“Artists such as Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Reba McEntire, The Dixie Chicks, and Martina McBride used their music to bring awareness to issues such as domestic violence and gender inequality,” McCray said.

Several artists began to collaborate on albums and perform together which created a strong sisterhood of solidarity between the women of country. McCray said the discrimination of women, especially in the workplace, was also a feminist theme that became incorporated into country music.

“These changes shifted country music into a feminist light and embraced a form of feminism often overlooked by scholars known as ‘hillbilly feminism,’” he said. “The changing themes and feminist tone shift of country music developed alongside second-wave feminism and changed the genre of country music. These themes are still relevant today as women are still discriminated against on the basis of gender and continue to push for equal pay and opportunities in the workplace.”

His other research, called “Investigation of ruthenium supramolecular hexamers from a chemical and biochemical standpoint,” has an objective to synthesize hexanuclear ruthenium organometallic coordination complexes, and to investigate their potential use as metallodrugs.

“In the last couple of decades, there has been a shift from focusing on anticancer platinum complexes to ruthenium organometallic and inorganic complexes,” McCrary states. “While most of the research conducted on ruthenium focuses on mononuclear complexes, there is evidence to show that multinuclear complexes could provide an alternative model and serve as potential metal-based drugs. One proposed method of drug delivery is to encapsulate the drug within multi-metallic cages, in analogy with the ‘Trojan horse.’”

McCray said the most surprising thing from his ruthenium research was the interactions of the complexes with DNA.

“The results from the viscosity and ethidium bromide titration experiments seemed to contradict one another, which is why we cannot establish the mode of binding unequivocally,” he said.

McCray plans to attend medical school when he completes his degree at UVA Wise.

“It has always been my dream to become a physician and practice in a medically underserved area, such as the Appalachian region,” he said.

Provided by UVA Wise