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Week 2 - Gender stereotpyes
I found this lecture left me with much to think about and much to question about my own beliefs and perceptions of the world. I found the slides about the difference between sex and gender and girls and boys brains particularly interesting. I had learnt about the difference between sex and gender previously in the subject //Health, Culture and Society//, but was eager to explore this deeper and in relation to its impact on the health of women.



GENDER: the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.

The lecture and tutorial made me question the notion of gender being “socially constructed”. If gender is socially constructed, does that mean that we just made it up? And if societies have just made it up….. why? Why have we, as human beings, cultures and societies, created this notion of masculine and feminine roles, behaviours and attribute. What is the purpose or function of gender and gender roles/stereotypes?

 I imagine it would have had something to do with people wanting to be able to understand their worlds and I believe most people feel more secure if they believe that the understand others and are able to classify and, to some degree, con trol them. Perhaps that is how it got created and perhaps it served an important purpose long ago, I don’t really know, but currently, in the 21 st  century, I am struggling to see any useful purpose/function of the notion of gender. I have been thinking hard this past week trying to come up with one good reason why it would be helpful that gender and gender roles and essentialism //(Essentialism is a word I learnt while Google searching this week - it is the view that for any specific entity, such as an animal, a group of people, a physical object or a concept, there is a set of attributes which are necessary to its identity and function) //and I really couldn’t come up with anything. I did a quick Google search to see if I was missing some huge and obvious way in which gender and gender roles were helpful and productive and did more good than harm, but I came up with nothing (nothing sensible at least). Not one reason.

Yet they are so entrenched in our society. Almost everyone, both men and women, seem to unconsciously practice gender stereotyping at some point. Now that I am consciously thinking and critically analysing everything I see and hear and read, I see gender stereotypes everywhere. Even amongst people I know well and who I know to be very supportive of equal rights, opportunities and access for men and women, seem to gender stereotype without knowing it. For example one of my cousins has books at her house about “how to raise boys” ……..opposed to raising girls. But why should we be raising them differently? What’s wrong with trying to raise a human being, instead of a girl or a boy? Surely even if men and women/girls and boys, were actually different it wouldn’t matter how we raise them?

 Another cousin has a bracelet with “MOB” writ ten on it, which stands for Mother of Boys (because she has 2 sons). On the website it says that characteristics of mothers of boys are: Laid Back, Independent, Referee, Tough, Funky, E <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">xpert Toilet Cleaner, Sports Commentator, Supermarket Filler, Motivational Speaker, and Master of the Deep Breath, and characteristics of mother of girls are: Calm, Patient, Feminine, Make-up Artist, Fashion Stylist, Mind Games Specialist, Baker, Negotiator, Coordinator of all things Pink, and Eternally Armed with Hairspray.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">This is so obviously gender stereotyping! And while this is meant to be completely harmless and just a bit of fun, you can see the negative repercussions of these stereotypes when we look at research about how men and women use space differently, have higher rates of domestic violence, less likely to have the top positions in the workforce, more likely to have eating disorders etc. You really start to wonder if the notion of gender is actually quite detrimental to the health and wellbeing of both men and women. What’s wrong with just being people? I <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> have heard to a sort of ‘movement’, that is relatively new I think, (though I’m sure there would be some parents/families have been doing it for some time) called “gender-neutral parenting”, where parents make conscious efforts to not encourage one gender over another, no matter what sex the child is. It aims to avoid forcing children to <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; line-height: 1.5;">comply with stereotypical gender norms and to explore all genders without judgement.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">There is one slightly extreme version of “gender-neutral parenting” that I have come across in which two parents from the UK decided not to reveal the sex of their child so that no one could enfor <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.5;">ce <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">any gender on the child. [|http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9] [|028479/Couple-raise-child-as-gender-neutral-to-avoid-stereotyping.html]

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">As this is a relatively new concept it w <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; line-height: 1.5;">ill be interesting to see in the future how these children grow up and what type of adults they become. I believe there are some psychologists that argue that these children will feel lost and confused and feel like they don’t have a place in society or don’t fit in. However I think that everyone feels these things at some point. There are many women and men, who have been brought up to be feminine and masculine that also feel lost and confused. I think it would be better to be teaching all children that all feelings and attributes are human ones, rather than male or female ones. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;"> I think it would be better to teach children how to be (compassionate, honest, fair etc.) rather than how to act and behave.

= = =<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Week 3 - Women in media and advertising = = =

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Something that I have been thinking about a lot since the lecture about the portrayal of women in media, advertising and popular culture is the issue of ‘intent’ vs. ‘impact’. Prior to this lecture I probably would have looked at ads such as the ones below and thought “those ads are kind of weird/creepy/not very nice/quite unrealistic”, but I probably would have dismissed them as ads, thinking “oh they're just trying to sell a product, they aren't really being serious, it’s all pretty harmless”. But having seen in this lecture and in previous lectures the rates of body dissatisfaction and eating disorders, the rates of domestic violence among women, the rates of depression and anxiety etc., you start to think about whether these media representations of women may actually be contributing a great deal to these false ideas, such as “you can’t be successful if you're not big-breasted, skinny-waisted” or “being subordinate, inferior and weak is sexy” (as seen in the ads glorifying violence against women in the lecture) and then in turn impacting very negatively on the health and wellbeing of women of all ages.

American Apparel online clothing store - the stance and position of the women is very different to the men. The men appear to be standing in a completely normal stance and it appears the pictures couldn't care less about their bodies, whereas the women are all in 'sexy', provocative positions aimed to show off their tummies, breasts and bottoms. It appears American Apparel feels that for the men the products will sell the products, but for women their bodies will sell the products. []

And so while the intent of these ads is merely to sell their products and make money, I don't think this should ignore the harmful impact this is having, not only on women's beliefs about themselves, but societies beliefs and attitudes towards women. Just because an ad isn't advocating violence against women or a body ideal, it certainly shouldn't be an excuse to exploit these images in order to make money for their company. I'm sure many people, like I did previously would have focused mostly on the intent of the ad, rather than the true impact it is having on all of us.

Even to organisations that most people would think were working for a good, just and fair cause (eg. PETA fig hting for animal rights and foundations promoting organ donations - see right), but surprisingly these organisations portrayal of women is just as harmful and demeaning than any commercial fashion/beauty/alcohol etc. brand. But even the intent may be a bit more moral, I don't think trying to bring about positive change in one area/ for some can be justified if at the same time it has a negative impact in another area/on others.



Luckily there are some really great movements which have been started by organisations but led by people and society, like the #notbuyingit movement started by MissRepresentation, in which people are encouraged to publicly highlight and draw attention to advertisements that are offensive and demeaning to women. From now on, I will definitely not be buying it!

= Week 4 - The 'right' time to have a child =

This lecture made me realise how complex “the right time” to have a child/children is. It made me realise how many of my assumptions and expectations of how my life would turn out, were actually quite unrealistic. Up until the age of about 17 I think my views of families and children and if/when to have them were heavily influenced by what I saw in movies and read in books. Movies in particular, always seem to portray a world where everything works out and lives happily ever and accomplishes everything they ever wanted too without any worries and everything happens all at the right time and just falls into place. The tutorial and the timeline activity really made me realise that this doesn’t actually happen in real life – and that I will most probably have to make some choices/sacrifices.

The lecture also made me think, not only about __when__ is the right time to have children, but also made me think about whether I actually want children in the first place, or whether I have just been fed this idea that children are the source of all happiness and fulfilment in a woman’s life. I’m still not sure…….

But looking at the theories that were mentioned in the lecture about if and when women decide to have children, there were 2 theories that stuck out to me as ones I could relate to. I think the one I can relate to the most is the //gender equity theory//. I don’t think I would have much interest in having children if there was suddenly going to be too great an imbalance between my hypothetical partner and I. Certainly having children comes with sacrifices, but if the amount/extent/severity of the sacrifices were going to be unequal (particularly in terms of responsibility of care and opportunities in the workforce) that would be a really big drawback. In the article by Peter McDonald he says that low fertility in one country compared to another, is due to low gender equity, whereas high fertility is due to high gender equity. Gender equity is expressed in “individually oriented social institutions and family-oriented social institutions”. I can certainly understand how women who feel they have to compromise too much would opt to give ‘having children’ a miss and I find the accusations of selfishness of women who choose not to have kids very insulting (See [] and []). If this research is accurate and this is the case (that women with higher IQ’s are less likely to have children), it shouldn’t be automatically decided that this is the fault of these particular women. In line with the //gender equity theory//, I would think that this research merely indicates the fact that our societies are failing to accommodate these women and their desires – women shouldn’t have to change, social/political systems should.

Just briefly, the second theory I could relate to, though to a lesser extent, was the //post-materialistic values theory//. There are a couple of things that I would perceive to be drawbacks to having children, including having less time and money to travel and having responsibilities that keep you grounded in one place and limit your flexibility in daily, weekly, monthly and yearly schedules. While these things are definitely things I think about, if I really wanted to have kids these things wouldn’t stop me from having them, they might just influence when I have children and how many I have.

Finally, reflecting on a question that was on one of the lecture slides about technology making it easier to manage the work/family dynamic……… Yes I think so, aside from the obvious benefit of being able to access things from home and outside business hours, I think it would even be beneficial for women who are not in the workforce because it would mean you could stay up to date and have access to all the current news, research and practices in your area/industry. I’ve heard a couple of my older female cousins saying how they had felt like they’d missed too much and were really behind and outdated in the current practices of their respective industries/areas and that made them feel really nervous about returning to the workforce and so they returned in a mindset where they were kind of doubting their abilities. I think I would find it really reassuring knowing that even if I wasn’t employed I could still stay interested and keep up with what’s going on in the public health world, so that I didn’t fall behind or so my knowledge didn’t become outdated.

=Week 5 - The Fashion Industry and Body Image= <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">It came as no surprise to me that there would be a lecture on body image in this unit, as I think that when people think of “women’s health” what often comes to their minds is 1) health to do with pregnancy and birth and motherhood and 2) body image and body image disorders. Most of the things in things talked about in this lecture I was aware of, at least in a broad sense, but it got me thinking about how it’s really hard to escape these ideals (which happen to be completely unrealistic and unfair) of what women’s bodies should look like and how important this is to their life and to their success. The problem I think is when the attitudes, values and beliefs of what you see in the media and in the fashion industry are reinforced by the people around you – your friends, family, teachers etc. It becomes really dangerous when you get the same message consistently, from every direction. I think if you only ever got these messages/images from the media, then you’d be able to ignore them, or at least put them into context, but when you get those messages/images reinforced by your peers and family and society as a whole then it becomes really hard to sort out what is true and what isn’t, and what’s important and what’s not. So I think friends and family can be really good in reminding what’s relevant and important and what isn’t. I also think that young adults need to be taught and shown ways of resisting these messages and thinking about them critically.

Body image is defined as //“how you perceive, think and feel about your body but this may have no bearing at all on your actual appearance”.// I found the article //‘But l Like My Body’: Positive body image characteristics and a holistic model for young-adult women// that was on BB this week quite interesting. It talked about how body image is made up of both positive and negative features and that positive body image doesn’t just mean the absence of negative features, nor does negative body image just mean the absence of positive features. I’ve never really thought about this concept, but it makes sense to me. It also said that often people believe that interventions that try to reduce negative body image will automatically result in increases in positive body image, however because they are two separate things this is not necessarily the case. Once I thought about this I could see how that’s true – in high school I remember being taught about negative body image and what is means, why it’s bad, how to recognise it, what to do about it etc., however I don’t recall at all being taught about positive body image and what that means or why it’s good and how to get it. I don’t think one is necessarily more important than the other; I think they complement each other and need to be addressed together. I would have found it way more useful and meaningful if I had also been taught about positive body image, as well as negative body image.

Positive body image - emphasising functionality It's hard to read but the bottom sqaure says:

How about the books I read? The poetry I made? The high grades in my gym class? The violin I play? The sweater I made for my grandma? My opinion about politics? Are they not matters to you?

Anyway, in the current western society that I live in I often feel that it is very much up to us individually to create a positive image of ourselves and that you can’t really rely on society or the media or even on other people to create it for you – which is quite a big ask and can be quite a long and challenging journey, but it obviously really worthwhile.

Personally I think there are 3 main things that have helped me create a positive image of my body – sport, education and age.
 * **Sport** emphasised what I could do with my body, rather than what my body looks like. For example I used to really dislike the size of my calves until I got into cross country running and realised that I wouldn’t be nearly as good as I was, if I didn’t have these great calves that made me strong and fast and helped me enjoy a really great sport. I believe this is called focusing on “functionality”. I'm really grateful that my parents encouraged and supported me to play sport all thoughout primary school, high school and they still do.
 * **Education**, particular a tertiary education has taught me to critically analyse everything I see and hear, a public health degree has also taught me that there are more important things going on in the world and that the size of my waist or thighs is pretty irrelevant and insignificant in the scheme of things and finally an education has meant that I recognise that what my brain has to offer to the world (intelligence, creativity, innovation etc.) is worth more than what my physical appearance can offer (once again, an emphasis on ‘functionality’).
 * **Age**, growing up and developing more maturity has meant I have a better, more realistic perspective on the world and on life and what is important and what I value.

= Week 6 - Having a baby =

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This week really challenged my thinking about the safety of pregnancy and birth. I’d never really thought about the differences between birth locations, health professionals present, levels of intervention etc. I knew that caesarean section rates were increasing, but I never stopped to consider why and I guess I just assumed that there was a perfectly legitimate, reasonable and necessary reasons for the increase in caesarean sections. Saying this, I've always viewed birth as a fairly natural and normal process, because women have been having birth for ….well….forever! But I just assumed that it was of course much safer if there was equipment and medical professionals immediately available. This assumption was probably contributed to all the things you hear in the media and from aid organisations about the lack of access to appropriate equipment, drugs and health professionals for pregnant women and women giving birth in developing countries, and even remote areas of Australia. The statistics that accompany this information report that in these countries where there is inadequate maternal health facilities/provisions/professsionals, the maternal and infant mortality and morbidity are the greatest. Especially after reading "Half the Sky" I became even more aware of the outrageously high rates of maternal mortality and morbidity. So I guess from all this I assumed that the more “medicalised” the pregnancy and birth, the less likely the mother or baby would be harmed. =====

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 1.033em; line-height: 1.5;">However, this lecture seemed to say that there are some really negative outcomes resulting from a over-medicalisation of pregnancy and birth. I guess there are 2 extremes, having too much ‘intervention’ can be unsafe or unhelpful, but so can having too little. We probably need to find a balance/compromise between the necessary interventions and necessary health professionals present. This balance should try to keep maternal and infant mortality/morbidity down as low as possible without introducing unnecessary, potentially harmful & unhelpful procedures that can have significant costs financially (for healthy systems) and personally (in terms of individual’s health and wellbeing). =====

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There currently seems to be quite a movement around the developed world to return to less medicalised/pathologised methods of birth, which emphasise the autonomy and rights of women. =====

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Here is an article about a group of Brazilian men and women protesting against the medicalisation of births ([]). This protest was in July 2012 and was prompted by two resolutions released by the Medical Council of Rio de Janeiro. The first “prohibits midwives or doulas (trained, lay support during and after childbirth) from attending women in hospitals and maternity wards” and the second “prohibits any doctor from supporting birth outside a hospital setting or attending women transferred from birth centres or home births”. =====

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Another situation I came across was the case of a woman called Agnes Gereb who is a gynaecologist/midwife from Hungary. She has been a huge activist of women’s right to choose how to give birth. She has attended thousands of home births and started her own birthing centre. She was arrested in October 2010 for “reckless endangerment of life committed in the line of duty” because Hungarian law prevents midwives from attending births outside hospitals and Agnes has been charged with. Currently she is in prison awaiting trial but could end up facing up to 5 years of imprisonment. =====

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Of course if she was supporting unsafe practices in an unsafe environment, there would be some issues. But she’s fully qualified and the practice she happens to be supporting is birth – a practice that I learnt in the lecture, is quite safe for the majority of women. =====

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And here’s a trailer for a documentary that her story features in and is a documentary called “One World Birth: Freedom of Birth”, about exactly that – the freedom that should exist in pregnancy and birth choices. =====

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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Agnes Gereb seems to me to kind of like a modern version of Vera Drake. It’s not exactly the same circumstances, but it’s the same principle. They were both risking their own freedom and security to provide women with the right to choose what happens to their bodies, where, when and how. They were both making their own contributions to the health and wellbeing of individual women. It seems incredible that women are still fighting for right to make their own decisions regarding their pregnancies and births. I cannot comprehend why on earth people are still making decisions on the behalf of women and mothers =====

= Week 7 - Gender and Work = = = = Week 8 - Domestic violence =

Even though I had already heard/seen this lecture last semester in PUB105 Sociological Perspectives on Family Health and Wellbeing, I still found it very interesting and useful hearing it all over again. What I found really thought-provoking the first time I heard this lecture was all the different types of domestic violence. I’d only ever really thought of domestic violence as physical, verbal and sexual. I’d never really thought about economic abuse or using isolation. I think it’s really useful to know what constitutes as domestic violence, because if you didn’t know you wouldn’t be able to recognise it and avoid it.

This lecture also challenged my perceptions of the women who experience domestic violence - admittedly I had always thought of them as coming from a low SES background. Also, while I recognised domestic violence as being a complex, multi-dimensional situation and sympathised with women experiencing domestic violence I think I unconsciously judged them for being a bit weak and stupid for not leaving and for getting themselves into those positions in the first place. Now I am so appalled at my ignorance, but am really grateful I understand it now, as I realise that anyone could get into the situation, even me. I think that is what the TED talk by Leslie Morgan Steiner really reinforced for me – especially since she was educated and had a good job, she seemed completely normal and yet she still fell into the trap. As I listened to her TED talk I could see how that could have easily been me.

It also highlighted how she didn’t know any of the clues or indicators that someone might be violent and neither did she know the pattern of domestic abusers. All I could think throughout the whole clip was “why has no one told me this before? Why haven’t I known any of this information until now, when I’m 19 years old?”

I believe educating men and changing society’s perceptions of women is important and that is course the ideal situation in the long term, but in the meantime I think there is a real danger in not educating girls and women about the signs and patterns of domestic violence. I would have much preferred and would have found it very useful to be aware of this information 5 years ago, in early high school, rather than a semester ago. Education should be provided in an age appropriate way but seeing as many, if not most, of my friends had their first relationships in early-mid high school I don’t see why education about domestic violence and healthy relationships isn’t happening at the same time.

=Week 9 - Indigenous Australian women=

Indigenous health is something I feel really passionate about and am really interested in, so I was quite disappointed that the guest lecturer wasn’t able to come. I find that its really easy to feel despaired when looking at the current situation of Indigenous Australians health status – they seem to be doing worse in every area of health that you can possibly look at. Sometimes I think, surely there has to be some area that Indigenous Australians are doing better in, surely it is not the case, that in Australia there is a group of people that are more disadvantaged in every area of health and therefore I am always on the lookout for any information that may indicate they are doing better than non-indigenous people but I am yet to come across anything that may indicate this. I find this just appalling and in some ways incomprehensible that this is still the case. I realise that it is a very complex issue – but doing worse in every single area of health is just terrible.

During my research for the websites I came across a quote from the World Health Organisation that really stuck out and rang true for me. The quote was //“The question should not be, ‘Why do women not accept the service that we offer?’ but ‘Why do we not offer a service that women will accept?//’”. It came from the World Health Report 2005: Make every mother and child count (http://www.who.int/whr/2005/chapter3/en/index2.html), but originally was written by Fathalla in the journal of Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology in 1988. The quote was made in reference to pregnant women and antenatal services, but I believe it can be applied to all women and all health services, particularly for groups that are known to have poorer health and those who are less likely to access health care for numerous reasons, e.g. Indigenous Australians. For me this quote is really powerful because it changes the situation from being one where it is the individual woman who is at fault for not accessing or accepting the health service, to a situation where it is the fault of social institutions and health systems for not providing an adequate service which women feel comfortable about attending and have the necessary means to do so. Too often these issues/problems are portrayed to be and are dismissed as the fault of the individual, where really it is society – past and current- that has made it this way. I think this is particularly true for women and it is particularly true for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and so Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women often have it even harder. I think this is an area that we really need to improve in, in regards to Indigenous health and women’s health in Australia. Society is very quick to judge both of these groups of people without acknowledging the complex social, historical, political they exist within. And this frustrates me and often disheartens me to no end. This being said, it is all very well to say things like this WHO quote, but whether it is put into practice or not is an entirely different matter.

Finally I’ll just briefly share my opinion on the matter of Aboriginal identity or Aboriginality that was brought up in the lecture in regards to the controversial article by Andrew Bolt about white Aborigines or ‘political’ Aborigines, as he called them. (http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/1109_heraldsun09.pdf) .I think he was seriously out of place to say everything he did. First of all, its really none of his business and I actually don’t understand why he felt the need to pass judgement on the issue and why it concerns anyone at all really. Secondly, since European invasion, Australia has had a terrible track record of dictating and defining the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons and I thought we, as a nation and as a society were supposed to be moving away from this attitude. Sharing your opinion of who should be allowed to call them selves Aboriginal or not is kind of going backwards - to dictation and oppression and removal/destruciton of rights and culture - which we all know has terrible outcomes for health. I think it’s about time we stop doing that and let them do the defining of their lives, which includes being able to define your own identity.

The //Creative Spirits// website has a really great page on Aboriginality which is really interesting and does a good job at dispelling lots of myths about who and who isn’t Aboriginal. ( []). On the page it says that //“Aboriginal people define Aboriginality not by skin colour but by relationships”,// which makes complete sense to me because isn't that what everyone defines themselves by - their relationships, with their family and friends and social groups and religion and culture and country etc.

It also had this quote by an Aboriginal poet called Sharon Livermore which says “//Despite popular opinion over the last several generations, no-one really in their right mind would declare Aboriginality unless it were true. The myth of the extra money and extra benefits is really a piece of crap. And the backlash far outweighs the benefits.// (Koori Mail, April 7, 2010, page 27 - []). I have to admit during the whole discussion in the lecture about Aboriginal identity I was wondering this. I don’t see why anyone would identify as Aboriginal if they weren't - it just doesn’t make sense. What would you gain from identifying yourself as Aboriginal - a sense of connection, a sense of belonging, a sense of culture and heritage? Obviously if weren't actually Aboriginal, you wouldn't get those things from defining yourself as one, so there wouldn't be able gains at all.

=Week 10 - Healthy ageing for women=

=Week 11 - Women who love other women=

=Week 12 - Mental health and substance abuse= = = =Week 13 - International women's health=