N7492839

= **REFLECTION WEEK 1: ****The question of equality? ** =

They say that the French word feminisme originated in the nineteenth century and was used as a medical term 'to describe the feminisation of a male body or to describe women with masculine attributes' (Pilcher & Whelehan, 2004). From here the word and its meanings has morphed over the decades until the most commonly used and accepted use of the word - feminism - has come to denote the political stance of an individual committed to changing the SOCIAL position of women. Subsequently it has also come to be interpreted that feminists also believe that women have been subjugated because of their biological sex and that they deserve a formal recognition of equality before the law. The burning questions in my mind have always included - just when did this subjugation begin? when did we first FEEL it as subjugation?, when did we first start objecting to it? how come it took us so long to question this subjugation? And why didn't we do something about it earlier?.

There have been many periods in history where the subjugation of the human race was not so slanted by sex / gender but by birthright, class or race. Historically the level of subjugation of women has always been different between any given society and it's underlying values. When precisely did WE as a collective group of women across cultural and societal divides decide to rise up against subjugation? I would suggest, that feminism has not enabled us to achieve this even now - but that it has been a brave start to an age old problem. We know what subjugation and inequality looks like but what exactly does equality between the sexes mean / look like / feel like?

During our first lecture I was wrote down this quote by Marilyn Monroe in my notes. Even in jest we hope to be even more than our male counterparts. Some would say that this is feminist quote. Some would say that it is the hidden desire of women to go beyond what men have achieved in order to experience what it is like to be 'superior'. What do we mean when we say 'equal to a man'? What exactly do we mean? Equal voting rights? Equality before the law? Equal pay? Equal opportunities? Does this include we want to be able to mow the lawn, be a truck driver, work down a mine, serve our country - but does wanting the opportunity even if we as women don't actually want to undertake it - count as equality? Or do more of us have to undertake these roles before we can claim equality? We say that men don't understand our oppression - yet how many women choose to want to know what it is like to work down a mine, to work on a building site in the sun all day, to work as mechanics, army tank drivers, naval yard workers, sewage tank cleaners, plumbers or even gas fitters? These days, none of these positions can exclude women from joining the ranks - but - most women still prefer not to choose these occupations as their type of work. Why? Not because men tell us we can't do them perhaps more basically we don't actually WANT those jobs. Perhaps we've never really wanted any of those jobs?

Which leads me to the question: how much of what has happened to us as women has happened because we have let it? Because our path to equality has been deterred by ourselves as we choose the things we don't really want to do - over and above - what we would like to do? To be honest, if I had the choice to work down a mine six days a week or stay home and raise children - I'm one of the women who would choose to work down the mine - but how many of my "Sisters" would make the same choice? The simplest Western example I can use of this involves motor vehicles. How many women drive a car but choose not to learn how to change a tyre? Choose not to learn anything about the motor or the vehicular specs of the car they drive other than the most basic operations such as how the air-con works? Does the opportunity to get a license mean equality? Or is if the action of driving (in Freudian terms) that means equality? Or is it having the psychological confidence and access to education to fix the car that makes us equal to men? Or is it a combination of all of these aspects that make us equal to men? What if both men and women are different across all these conditions? What is it that make us 'equal'? I think equality is quite an elusive term, we think we know what we mean when we say it, when actually, we seem to know more when inequality exists.

For me, just like the quote above, what if the ultimate goal is not just to be 'equal'? Should we be wanting something more than that? What if the goal should be 'justice for men and women' and equality is just the first step of many in the right direction?

References: Pilcher, J., & Whelehan, I. (2004). //50 Key Concepts in Gender Studies.// London: Sage Publications Ltd.

= REFLECTION WEEK 2: Genitalia as Insignia? = = =

[[image:pub336womenshealth2013/vagina-and-penis-mascots.jpg width="256" height="223" align="left"]]
==== The insignia of a car indicates what type of car of it may be – Mazda, Holden, Mercedes but it doesn’t necessarily tell you what model it is, or what kind of engine it has, what style of car it is or what kind of driving performance you can expect? In the same way, I see genitalia more as ‘nature’s branding’ as it gives us a hint as to what of human has been made but that we shouldn’t be so quite so quick to decide how that model should be handled on the road of life. The internal engines and systems do make a difference and just like cars, you can’t just change the exterior branding, give it a paint job, change a few of the physical features and assume that your Mazda 121 will now drive like a Mercedes. Being born without a uterus is certainly going to ensure that there are a different set of biological markers – surely hormonal, but also perhaps different body chemicals and neurotransmitter levels. While these biological differences may not always be evident as a child, they are in our body clock. We currently seem to believe that hormonal differences, aside from testosterone, do not really affect us until adolescence – but what if they do? ====

====What about the young couple from Tulsa in the news recently? He used to be a she and she used to be a he. Arin Andrews used to be a girl named Emerald and Katie used to be a boy named Luke. Both of them have undergone surgeries to change their genitalia to change their gender and are now able to enjoy being in the bodies that they always believed that they should have been born with (see image). ==== ==== ==== ====For me, stories like this, seriously raises the question of whether gender identity is something that we are born with and is it also meant to develop over time? For me it throws into question whether all aspects of gender are SOLELY social constructs? How do little children seem to ‘know’ very early in life that they are in the ‘wrong gendered body’?? If gender is purely a social construct, how then, do these children so intuitively know that they have been born with the incorrect genitalia? ====

====Controversial social scientist Dr Money and his his gendered experiment with the boy with no penis who became to be known and was raised as 'Brenda' didn’t support that we could easily change genders either. ====

====But it most certainly demonstrated that gender is definitely not solely related to our genitalia either. In fact, even with the obvious experimental confounds, Money’s results and Brenda’s subsequent reversal back to life as a male – suggests to me that there is something biological about gender identity – but what exactly? ==== ====The social construct part to gender for me is how any given society tries to determine exactly “what is feminine?” and “what is masculine?” and it is this that seems to be these concepts that are the most contentious and interesting aspects to gender studies and understanding. Being born a female elicits a different conditioned response in most people. Just like driving around in a beat up old Holden isn't going to elicit the same societal response as driving a Mercedes will. And just like cars are somewhat different and yet very much the same as each other, the benefit of gender is that it can be far more flexible - if as a society we allowed it to be. ==== ====If we are to accept that there is a definite understanding in any culture, society, community or an individual’s mind about what being feminine or masculine means – then we really have taken an abstract notion and created definitive rules. We do no less with mathematics, science, physics. We then seem to apply these rules on a regular basis across a combination of complex levels – culturally, socially within any given society / community or group, and most significantly, personally - as an expression of our individuality. As such the expression of our gender seems to me that it can be both reliably and wonderfully static while also simultaneously, gloriously fluid. As a 'tomboy' child - I can honestly say I was allowed the freedom to traverse the gender spectrum and explore gender fluidity from an early age. And I feel very fortunate for such an early exposure to gender fluidity because I think such experiences assist with with defining ourselves by something other than our biological sex or gender. ====

=REFLECTION WEEK 3: Women and the Media =

=
T his is a social media image currently circulating on Facebook among some teenage girls I know. I cannot truly say that this is a healthy comparison or an unhealthy comparison without knowing the person who is in the photo. Whether they have this kind of body naturally or whether they have starved themselves to achieve it.Psychologically though - comparing oneself to a cartoon drawing? What does that say about the mentality of our young women towards their bodies? What I do know is - there is no bloke standing next to her doing the same thing with his stomach. While men are slowing experiencing increasing pressure to have 'six pack abs' or a more metrosexual or SNAG look - what to do they - shrug it off. They don't take the images of hunky men in the media seriously at all (well at least not until Hugh Jackman came along) and as a collective group, usually mock any of those male images in the media - "those stripper guys are fags and all those lads at the gym must be 'roid boys'!! Yet there are women who will aspire to the hourglass, flat tummy, skinny legs kind of physical look while it is completely physically unattainable for them? That this is how they measure desirability. How is it our gendered attitudes to images in the media are so very incredibly different? =====

While the recent Dove advertisement shows the difference between Victoria's secret models and Dove models - what I found more interesting is the advertising agency spin on posing men for an advertisement the same way that they would pose women. Why does it look so strange to see men pose that way? Just because we aren't used to it? Or because it's too feminine? What is it about the top image that sells product in a way that the bottom image just won't ? Do we as women, have the most wonderful aspect that we never truly appreciate - that we are universally appealing? The reason that women are used in advertising is not just that women shop more than men do but that we, as women, are more visually appealing to both sexes than our male counterparts are? Have we really been conditioned that way by the media or is it a very real part of our nature and we are simply letting society exploit it? And if we are letting society exploit it - what exactly do we get in return?

Everywhere you look in the newsagent there are women's and men's magazines with scantily clad or overly 'made up' women. So often we say these images are reflecting grossly exaggerated gender stereotypes, exploitation of women and poor role models for our young girls - and yet - they simultaneously represent some of our greatest freedoms. In countries like Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan women certainly have their freedom of personal expression severely limited. There is no freedom to show off your tresses, your wonderful womanly body or even your face without a very real fear of a being stoned, raped, assaulted, legally detained without breaking the law or killed.



<span style="color: #0e0ec8; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">As a bit of an experiment I decided to search Google images using the terms 'beautiful women' and 'intelligent women' - just to see what our 'modern' world has come up with on the worlds most regularly used search engine. Surprise, surprise - all the beautiful women are scantily clad, there is not one image on the first page without makeup, none wearing glasses and none spruiking any comments that could be confused with 'having a voice'. Whereas for our intelligent counterparts women are depicted with glasses, no-make (or the no make up look), 'plain types', more head shots than full body, fully clothed and who seem to want to 'repel men'. It seems like the media portrays women's liberated freedom as being allowed to choose what kind of woman they would like to be - you can be beautiful OR intelligent? Attractive to men or fearful to them. <span style="color: #0e0ec8; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">

<span style="color: #0e0ec8; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">And if these images represent the over simplified stereotypes - just as too many boobs and exposed flesh does - there are more nuanced representations to reinforce these ideas. Which is the more dangerous? The over the top easily identifiable stereotypes or the ones that we are willing to accept / trade off in order to be allowed access into the top echelons of the patriarchal order?

<span style="color: #0e0ec8; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Just look at the images of Michelle Obama and Hilary Clinton. Both intelligent women, both regularly in the media - yet who is 'allowed to make a fashion statement' and is regularly seen wearing more designer dresses to political events? And who, is in the tailored jacket and pants suit - also designer - but a far different statement. Never mind the scantily clad images on Penthouse - what do these two images reinforce to young girls about intelligence and power within our western first world societies and what you need to do to be taken seriously in business as a woman?

<span style="color: #0e0ec8; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">

=**<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">REFLECTION WEEK 4 **= =**<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">The Right to Choose AND The Right to Life? **=

“Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life… But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?” ― [|Irvine Welsh], //[|Trainspotting]//

But choose to have an abortion and you will surely be damned to the torture of the hellfires of Hades! And just in case there is no God and you're not doomed to eternal damnation - we'll make sure you are physically, emotionally and mentally tortured while you are still alive for making a choice that as a woman, is ultimately yours to make. While men can be pro-feminist at this point, they simply cannot understand the oppression generated by denying any woman the right to choose. And other women should not judge any woman's right to choose either. While I do not advocate for abortion as a form of contraception, and I have never believed that it should be 'free, safe and on demand' as I heard feminists chant in my teenage years - I do believe that abortion should be 'affordable, safe and available when suitable' for women.

=<span style="color: #8d43cb; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">REFLECTION WEEK 5: From the pages of a magazine..... = When Dr Dwyer discussed family and peer influences, it was then I wondered, as with equality, how much of this 'stuff' do we do to ourselves as women? Reflecting upon my own family experiences, my Mother's dieting practices and obsession with how much she weighed that influenced me to becoming anorexic in year 12. It was my sister's comment, when she found out that I had a size 14 dress, 'ohhh don't you know that Maggie Tabberer sizes start at 14' that frightened me (for the rest of my life?) about EVER being bigger than a size 12.

And yet, it was my brothers comments about 'men don't want to take a woman on a date who picks at their salad and who won't enjoy a steak with them' who was responsible for building resilience. How much of what women are doing to themselves is coming from other women in close family or social circles? And why aren't we listening to what men want? Seems that they might like looking at a model but they don't want to go to dinner with one? The quote "pain is an essential part of the grooming process and that is not accidental" by Andrea Dworkin saw me scribble two words down - Scarlett O'Hara! media type="custom" key="24335340" align="left" [|Scarlett & Mammy]

I remember reading in Margaret Mitchell's classic novel how Scarlett just had to have a 17 inch waist. At the beginning of the film, Mammy is cinching her in and trying to get her to eat at home - NOT in front of the men. And yet Scarlett's reply that Ashely Wilkes likes a girl with a healthy appetite - falls on deaf ears with Mammy. But Mammy makes an interesting point - 'what gentlmans says and what a gentlmans thinks are two different things'. Later in the film, after the birth of her first child, when Mammy couldn't get that corset any tighter, and Mammy told her it was because she had 'gone done had a baby' - her very feminist response was that she decided that she just wouldn't have any more children. Yet she would happily endure the pain of a ridiculously cinched in corset. While this is just a character in a book,. she reflected many, many women's Southern Belle women's values. Indeed many women of the late nineteenth century. It doesn't seem strange to me that women have evolved from using fashion like corsets and boning to using cosmetic surgery to change the problems at the root of the issue. Especially to rectify their bodies post childbirth.While I am actually afraid of cosmetic surgery procedures myself, I thoroughly agree with people wanting to change their appearance. I have what I call a 'mature age cosmetic surgery plan' which I review every five years over 30. I loved that Dr Dwyer discussed how long term research supported there is long term satisfaction with cosmetic procedures that all go according to plan. My cosmetic surgery will just be to help me age gracefully. While I am no model stunner - I was fortunate to be born attractive. Some women are not so lucky. Who am I to say that they cannot know what it feels like to feel attractive. I wouldn't swap it for the world. While I know that sounds shallow, in a world where looks 'do count' - especially if you are a woman, why not allow women to improve themselves?

=<span style="color: #f49e39; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">REFLECTION WEEK 6: Babies, Babies, Babies = During this lecture I had to ask - just when did the doctor stop coming to us to help with childbirth? While I understand that safety and childbirth are essential to women's health and that with the modern medicalization of childbirth procedures more women survive childbirth - I don't quite understand why birth centres aren't more available? As a woman who has not had children (and at this stage of my life is not likely to) I can only speculate on where I would have chosen to have my babies. From this lecture I realised that I am the type of woman who would move heaven and hell to have a home-birth. And if I couldn't, I would ensure I was one of the 14.7% of women who could choose a birth centre. Before this lecture I didn't realise that access to birthing centres was so low? The fact that hospital seems to be the main place to have children begs the question - why aren't there more hospitals that specifically just focus on childbirth and children - that feel more like birth centres than hospitals? Is it purely economic factors that keep birthing options so clinical? Or is it patriarchal systems? I'm not sure what I think about that yet?

=**<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">REFLECTION WEEK 7: Working Women **=

=**<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">REFLECTION WEEK 8: Domestic Violence **= "What do you say to a woman with two black eyes? Nothing. She's already been spoken to - twice!"

One of my brothers told me tell this very bad taste joke when I was younger - and I laughed. I shouldn't have. Really, I shouldn't have. Because I've been the woman with the two black eyes. Women ask other women, 'why do women stay in harmful relationships'. And you know, we can listen to each other's stories, we can write papers about it, we can theorize about the factors in a woman's childhood and early life as to why this makes her vulnerable to staying with these men, but really, at the end of the day, it is such an incredibly complex issue, with deep rooted human elements attached to it, that I am unsure we can ever stop women from staying with men who are violent towards them. Or stop men from being violent? A woman in one of these relationship has to 'find herself' to be able to 'get herself out'. And the problem is, it's not just hard, its unbelievably difficult. Especially when you feel that people are judging you for making the wrong decision to stay with your partner, you feel that no one understands and you have the weight of a dysfunctional relationship on your conscience to boot. Why do women feel that it is their fault - and most people will incorrectly judge my answer here - but - usually because it is partly our fault. It takes two people to make a dysfunctional, violent relationship. And if you don't have the courage or strength to leave that relationship, you know it. Boy don't you know it. __**You know it down to your bones.**__ And you will tell people whatever they want to hear as an acceptable reason as to why you stay. And then there are the people giving you 'good, unsolicited advice' that you need to find the courage to leave - but they don't actually want to 'get involved', they are the worst kind of help. They are usually one of the reasons you decide to stay put. Everyone WANTS you to leave but very few people want to be the person or provide the place that you run to. They want you to go to a women's shelter. To a hotel. To your family. What if you don't want to take that kind of trouble home to your aged parents? What if you don't want to take that kind of trouble back to your younger brothers and sisters? It's all well and good asking / telling women why don't they leave - when more people open their doors to them, when more people are less afraid of the consequences than the woman herself is, then and only then, are you showing her the kind of courage she needs to learn. Until then,. it's just a case of 'do as I say, not do as I do'. At least, from a woman whose been there, that's how it felt from the inside to me.

Part of me, truly believes, that it is an unattainable pipedream to think that we will ever actually be able to stop a large number of men from being violent. Everyone talks about communication being the key. What if how you communicate is part of the problem? How women choose to communicate versus how men like to communicate? It is not unusual for two males, who may be best mates, to degenerate into an argument, come to fisticuffs and then a few hours or days later, forget that it ever happened. Then they go back to being best mates, often for months or for years. I see it between the Australian men at the Canungra pub week to week. But then you see some European men, and the idea of coming to blows with another man, is so repugnant, you wonder, is this an Australian cultural thing? Have some cultures evolved out of 'domestic violence' and some just haven't? Is it just a societal communication evolutionary process?

As the data supports, both men and women have the capacity to be violent towards each other. One of my girlfriends got so angry with her partner going out at night while she was pregnant, leaving her at home on her own for hours, that when he came home one night, she shot him, in the leg and said ' there, guess you won't be going out tonight, or any night soon'. I guess we all our own ways to communicate when we feel that someone isn't listening to us. I know that once I had been hit a few times, I started to learn how to 'hit back' and give as got as I got. It's a defense mechanism. I certainly wasn't going to 'lie down and take it'. When I got much smarter about it, I began to find ways to shame the man. Make him feel guilty for his actions. Make him feel worthless. Do other women learn how to do this? When men say, 'she deserved it' - there were times I said things that I am sure shredded that man's self-esteem, self-confidence and self-love. But if I had said them to a woman, a couple of days later, we'd say our apologies and get back to being friends. That our version of their 'fist fight' with our female mates, is to throw out a tongue lashing that we then usually 'work through' at some later stage? While I am not justifying men's violent actions, as no body deserves to be hit for an exchange of words, having been someone, who has been in one of these violent relationships at a very young age, you learn how to hurt human beings any way you can. And words, more than fists, seem to really hurt men - only most men won't admit it. Do we as women also have to learn to 'curb our tongue' with men? Is it more than just love, hope, fear and dependance that keeps us there? Do we fear that we are failing to communicate with these men and that's why we feel it's partly 'our fault'? In that case, its not just about finding the courage to leave, it's coming to know, that you will never be able to truly communicate with that person. And that equals accepting failure. Another one of those easy things for others to ask you to do - but a hard thing to do for yourself.

=<span style="color: #539c53; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">REFLECTION WEEK 10: The Older Woman's Cloak of Invisibility = <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Professor Debra Anderson's presentation on women and healthy aging really resonated with me. For a woman of my age, this lecture was filled with really positive yet challenging messages. Many of the issues that Prof Anderson raised really had me thinking 'was I currently doing all these things?". When I was twenty-nine I made very specific health and wellness choices for my life knowing that they would bring significant positive outcomes to my life in my forties. Listening to Prof Anderson's lecture I suddenly realised that I am fast approaching another decade when I need to adapt my lifestyle choices if I would like to continue enjoying the good health I currently enjoy. Without a history of breast cancer in our family but with female relatives who have suffered from heart attacks and severe arthritis, while my lifestyle choices seem to reflect that I am making good heart choices, it came to my attention I am not making sensible eating choices to ward off arthritis and oesteoporosis. While aging is inevitable, and so many women are concerned with their looks as they age, I have always been more concerned about my health. I figure that if I am healthy, I will look good for my age no matter what.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Wellness is an area that I would like to work in as a psychologist. Prof Anderson's lecture made me realise that there is much work to be done to assist women with aging well. The video presented in our tutorial really took me by surprise. My lovely Mother once said to me that 'since she retired she felt invisible'? I was kinda stunned at her comment. In the video in our tutorial other women were making this same comment. Some women related it to menopause. Some women just related it to getting older. This truly stunned me. That women would feel that they become 'invisible'? In comparison, ever since I was younger, I felt that I would 'become truly visible' once my ability to bear children started to decreased or ended. Such completely different viewpoints? I wonder if that it because I have never seen myself as a wife or Mother? However my Mother's comments about becoming invisible when she retired from work has me wondering if that will also be my defining moment of invisibility? Will it be the same as hers? She obviously didn't feel invisible after menopause or as her children moved out, but her professional life created that defining moment. I would love to explore women's experiences about 'feeling invisible' and what this means for them. Perhaps the reason Viagra made such an impact for men is that it stopped them from 'feeling' invisible too? Perhaps it tapped into what was important for them? And we just happened to stumble upon it. Maybe we just haven't found that solution for women yet and will have to search a little harder? Healthy aging isn't just about the body, it is all about the mind and our sexuality too. When I see images of Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon, I see three very different, mature, sexy women - WITH WRINKLES!! They don't seem invisible to me at all. =<span style="color: #973030; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> = = = =<span style="color: #973030; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;"> REFLECTION WEEK 12: Women & Drugs = <span style="color: #973030; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">Women and drugs is one of my favourite subjects. It was a few years ago when I found a book in the library called "The History of Oblivion" which documents a very interesting historical portrayal of women and drug usage through the years. It was this book that really ignited my passion about women, patriarchy and drug use. It was this book that started my thinking about how women became the 'major consumers' of the pharmaceutical industry. It was this book that first made me think about the societal consequences of giving pregnant upper and middle class women hypodermic medication. How many children were born with an addiction to morphine? Long before we knew that it wasn't safe for the baby to be taking drugs like morphine - male doctors were actually giving women injections of morphine to be able to cope with their pregnancy.What did this mean for the reproduction of the human race? The questions that lead from one to the next - made me wonder about how poor women's children actually stood a better chance than their well-to-do off counterparts at managing life, thanks to their Mothers' not having enough funds to go to a dispensing physician.

<span style="color: #973030; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">While patriarchy is responsible for many drivers of women using, misusing or abusing drugs, I think that when we blame patriarchal systems for our free will choices as women - which is what drug use is - we are extrapolating a problem that is ultimately controllable by an individual and blaming the system. Drugs usage has been around for centuries. Even in matriarchal societies. I agree that there are many conditions caused by patriarchy that exacerbate drug usage. But are we really sure that individuals would just stop experiencing depression, anxiety or just stop wanting to experiment with drugs if we had a matriarchal system? I'm not sure that we can even say that that drug usage would go down or that men's usage would go up? Do we think that men would just stop being violent in a matriarchal society or do we think that this is an inherent human condition? So many women use legal and illegal drugs to cope with domestic violence too. Do we think that this violence and drug use would just stop in a matriarchal society? I think not.

<span style="color: #973030; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif;">The health benefits of using prescription drugs are a bit like the cosmetic surgery arguments for me - if they work for us - why not use them? Why is it that the new judgement about young women taking prescription drugs for 'cognitive performance enhancement' seen as misusing drugs? What are people afraid might happen? That women might learn and realise that they are that smart? That they might outperform men or other women who don't take them? Are we really going to keep threatening women and treating them like little children. Think of an stove. We say to kids when we think they are too young to understand complex constructs like using a hotplate - we warn them - 'don't touch that - that's a hot stove'. But then as kids grow up, they know the stove is hot AND they learn how to use it properly, and in some cases can go on to 'cooking with gas'! Women aren't stupid. We have been being fed prescription drugs by male doctors for centuries now. Why is it that we are so surprised that women have figured out how to use prescription drugs for their advantage? Quite frankly, I would be more surprised if we hadn't?