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__**Week Two -**__

A topic that has caught my attention in the past two lectures has been 'is it nature or nuture that determines our gender?'. On reflection of my own experiences and knowledge, I believe that nuture is solely responsible for gender, the people learn gender from their environment. Growing up I was the son my father never had. It's not that I didn't play or like 'girly' things such as barbies but I would also go catch tadpoles, play with cars and hated going shopping and brushing my hair. My parents never pushed 'girly' toys or colours upon me and I think this had a significant influence on my childhood and the freedom it allowed me to be a 'tom boy'.Things changed dramatically when I started high school. The pressures from society on the activities and characteristics a young girl should have were more evident in a high school setting. I stopped playing sports because touch football is not deemed an appropriate sport to play for my gender. I feel like this is changing slowly now and that it is becoming more acceptable for females to play football and cricket. But it raises the question as to why it was ever unacceptable in the first place. It seems to me that gender is a contruct created by society in an attempt to create a sense of order or what is 'normal' or acceptable for females and males.

For example, during the 1950's males and females had very specific gender roles. Men were the breadwinners and a women's job was to look after the children and house. A really good example of this is in an article in a women's magazine from the 1950's -

The 50's were a time when sexism was tolerated and expected. Now, thanks to hindsight, it is easy to see funny side of the overt sexism and how very dated this article is. But this was the gender role women were expected to play during this time. Now, gender roles are not as specific and there is more freedom in what is deemed acceptable by society in expression of one's gender. For example, female tradies and homosexuality. I believe this freedom is a good thing but that it has also created a lot of confusion as to what is expected of males and females in comparison to the 50's when gender roles were very black and white.

If you can't view the image clearly - google 'the good wife's guide housekeeping monthly 1955'

__**Week Three -**__

There have been a lot of topics come up this week that I had never thought about before, such as how women influence the economy and how the Bible presented Eve and in turn has affected the representation of all females. But the topic which struck me was women in high profile, highly visible jobs and how they are represented.

In the lecture slides, there is a slide about female and male news readers and how females in this industry are underpresented and are all predominantly white. There was some discussion in class about how it is ok for male news readers to be old and not necessarily good looking, but the females had to be young and attractive. This relates to the concept that women have a 'used by date' in certain industries. When I watch the news I do not necessarily see this. Yes both male and female news presenters are all mainly white, reasonably attractive and a healthy weight but they are not necessarily young. Kay McGrath, Rod Young and Georgina Lewis would be aged in their 40's, 50's and 60's. I think they are chosen to represent the target audience and as for the fact that they are all reasonable thin and attractive- no-one wants to sit and watch a sloppy, morbidly obese person for 30 minutes. I do not think we should criticize news readers for taking care of their health and taking pride in their appearance.

The debate between Peter Sissons and Natasha Kapinsky - that she got a job over him because due ot her looks - was also mentioned. This may be the case in this specific circumstance, however studies have found that being an attractive woman does not necessarily help you get a job. A study sent fictional applications to over 2,500 real-life vacancies. For each job, they sent two very similar résumés, one with a photo, one without. Subjects had previously been graded for their attractiveness. The results uncovered that attractive males were more likely to be called for an interview than their counterparts. However, for women this was reversed. The researchers thought it may be due to the perceived concept that beautiful women are dumb but it came down to the fact that women dominate human resource departments and when screening for potential candidates, it was jealousy that led women to discriminate against attractive female candidates. However, an attractive woman is more likely to be promoted compared to a plain colleague. This is thought to be due to people projecting positive traits onto attractive people. This all leads back to the notion that woman constantly compete against each other, whether it be overt or covert, subconciously or not. This is very damaging to all women but I think it stems from the gender inequalities that have been present throughout history and for a woman to achieve any sort of success or recognition in the work force, they feel the need to do this.

__**Week Four -**__

In the past century the Western world has witnessed transformative social change in women’s rights, equal opportunity and reproductive choice. Therefore it could be argued that in 2013, choosing not to have children should be accepted, understood and that the pressure to procreate is out of step with today’s realities. We live on a warming, over populated planet with diminishing natural resources. We live in a democracy and increasingly non religious affiliated society that is built on the notion of freedom of choice and tolerance of others beliefs and practices... apparently. So why is it that women who choose not to have children are stigmatized and seen as career obsessed selfish people whose husband will undoubtedly leave them for another women who does want to have kids? The issue has even infiltrated popular culture as in the movie ‘Sex and The City 2’; a pregnant woman asks Carrie and Big when they are going to have children. Carrie replies that they both love kids but it’s just not for us. The look on the woman’s face was of shock and disbelief – ‘that’s just unnatural, you’ll regret it and why??’ There is just so much pressure from society on women to have children. This expectation needs to change and that just because women can produce babies, does not necessarily mean that she has to.



__**Week Five -**__

After this weeks lecture, it enabled me to look at this image more critically. Both images were taken by large international companies. Dove and Victoria Secret who, I now realize, are just continuing to profit off people's insecurities through the sale of false body positivity.



I used to think the Dove real beauty campaign was a really good thing. It represented real women's bodies. But now when I look more carefully, the women's bodies shown would fall on the socially acceptable side of 'normal'. They would all be a size 12 to 14. The average size of an Australian woman. It fails to show a size 18/20 obese woman as part of their 'real beauty'. The campaign is just a front for selling products to women who are worried about ageing and cellulite. Which is ironic as it is meant to be celebrating real beauty. Yes it is a more realistic image than VS but it does not mean Dove is fighting for women who's self esteem is continually taking a hit by the fashion industry.

VS epitomizes society's view of sexual perfection. The campaign is selling us bra's which the subconscious message that buying this product will make you look and feel like a supermodel - you will love your body more in this bra! This is a ridiculous notion as self esteem and body confidence cannot be bought. If only it was that easy!

Is there a solution? Will the fashion industry ever be made responsible for the subconscious messages of their advertising? Probably not. The fashion industry and companies like VS and Dove are a business - they are only interested in making money by selling us things. We need to be more critical of advertising and the apparent celebration of body positive ads. As really, it is just another form of manipulative marketing.

__**Week Six -**__

Today's lecture brought up notions about pregnancy and childbirth I hadn't heard of before, such as how pregnancy is now pathologised. As I am only 22 years old, having babies is not even on my radar but it was interesting to learn the lecture content. Doing the little test in class to see where you score on the range of natural to the medical side of childbirth, I actually scored very much on the natural side - which surprised me! However, I do not believe that the increase in medical intervention is such a bad thing. We are fortunate to live in a developed country with access to advanced medical technology. This I believe has contributed to the very low childbirth and infant deaths rates Australia has compared to developing countries. I also disagreed with the idea the pregnancy is now being seen as a medical condition. For me, a medical condition is a disease, something long term/chronic or abnormality in the body. Women have been giving birth for hundreds of thousands of years - it is nothing new. Yes, now we do have more medical intervention during pregnancy/child birth but do not see this as detracting from the naturalness of have a child.

__**Week Seven -**__

__**Week Eight -**__

The Twilight series not only brought us sparkly vampires and sexy werewolves but it also romanticized, what is in reality, an abusive relationship. When listening to the lecture, it hit me that this is exactly what Bella and Edward’s relationship is and just how much glorification of unhealthy love is in pop culture and young adult novels. I remember reading the books in high school and thinking that Edward is a bit of a stalker but not going into any more depth about it. But now going back through the books being older and thankfully, wiser, it surprises me just how much the books romanticize violence.

There are numerous examples that prove the relationship is abusive: - Edward isolates Bella from her friends and family - He drives recklessly with her in the car - Threatens to commit suicide - Controls where she goes - Threatens to kill her - Has his family babysit her - Blames her actions for him not being able to control himself

There would be plenty more examples but these are all excused as actions of Edward’s intense love and wanting to keep Bella safe. Another example is the 50 Shades of Grey books. The sexual acts characterised in these books are closely related to patterns of abuse but the books have been a phenomena of erotica and sexual release instead. Yes, it can be argued that these books are just representing a lifestyle choice two people agree upon but there are other examples in the book which describe an abusive relationship:

- Christian forces Ana to go on birth control - His controlling personality - She is forbidden to tell people about their relationship - He hires a personal trainer for her

Abusive relationships in novels are not new. Tragedy and romance have always gone hand in hand—Wuthering Heights and Romeo and Juliet are prime examples. Both portray obsession, abuse, and eventually death. Our heroines love our heroes not in spite of their violent, stalker tendencies but because of them. It is a fictional portrayal of romantic fantasy and I don't think the general public see it as domestic violence or abuse because of this.

What I also find interesting is the common denominator for these popular books is that our hero is already considered a “monster” in his own mind and sometimes in the storyline as a supernatural being. Does that make it easier for us to accept their abusive nature because they need saving? Does this essentially give us an excuse to “forgive” the hero, because we are such passive caring females?

A LOT of critical analysis of how these books, young adult novels and pop culture in general glorify unhealthy love and romanticize violence and abuse could go on but we just need to hope that young people, especially teens, reading these books are not so impressionable as to think that this is what love is suppose to be like.

__**Week Nine -**__

It is clear that Aboriginal Australians have suffered both physically and mentally. It has been argued that as a collective the Aboriginal people are experiencing PTSD due to past events. The stolen generation, colonisation, discrimination, victimisation and isolation have all significantly left their mark upon the Aboriginal people, their culture, freedom and rights. And importantly their health. Why do Aboriginal people continually have poorer health outcomes than Caucasian Australians? With colonisation came many ‘white people’ diseases such as diabetes, TB, etc. Aboriginal people were not exposed to this before and therefore their bodies had not developed any type of immunity. 200 years of white colonisation in evolutionary terms is nothing, and their bodies haven’t had time to adapt to these diseases which can be one explanation of their poor health. However, there are so many more factors at play – education, employment, poverty, drugs and alcohol, government policy, cultural identity – that influence their health. I think one of the problems with initiatives focused at improving Indigenous health is that they underestimate the importance of cultural identity to the Aboriginal people. Data from the 2002 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Survey (NATSISS) finds that stronger attachment to traditional culture is associated with better outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians on a range of ‘mainstream’ indicators: self-assessed health, educational attainment, employment status, the probability of having been arrested and alcohol abuse. In a follow-up study based on the 2008 NATSISS, separate factors relating to participation in cultural activities, cultural- identity, language use and engagement in traditional activities were constructed. Cultural participation and identity were again found to have positive associations with mainstream outcomes, while speaking an Indigenous language was associated with inferior outcomes for education and employment. Importantly, with the 2008 NATSISS data, it was possible to broaden the outcome variables to show positive associations between participation, identity and Indigenous language use and subjective well being (happiness and mental health). In contrast, stronger identity was found to be associated with a greater incidence of psychological stress, a result that could be attributed to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians in non-remote areas being more likely to experience feelings of discrimination. This data proves that for Aboriginal people, a strong positive cultural identity affects all aspects of their lives which contributes significantly to health. __**Week Ten -**__ This weeks lecture was very informative, however as it was all factual based it is not easy to critically analyse. As a nutrition student I was very happy to see diet be mentioned in this subject as it is one of the main contributing factor to so many women's health problems. It would be nice to see in the future a lecture dedicated to food and nutrients specifically related to women's health throughout the life-cycle. It was very interesting to see the comparison to other countries in regards to menopausal symptoms. At the moment I am doing my nutrition placement within the elderly community and it has shocked me at how neglected the aging community are in regards to resources and initiatives aimed specifically for this age group. As the lecture topic was about healthy aging, it resonated with me and my work at my placement. ** __Week Eleven -__ ** Something I found a little strange when reading over this weeks lecture notes was on slide 38 when it said 'many studies have found that lesbians have a higher body mass than heterosexual women. Studies suggest that lesbians may store fate more in the abdomen and have greater waist circumferences which places them at a higher risk of heart disease and other obesity related issues such as premature death'. Reading this I found it strange that they have categorised lesbians into having a certain body shape. Or that if you have a body which has a tendency to store fat around the stomach area, you're more likely to be a lesbian? I'm not sure if anyone else read or interpreted it that way but that's what I did.

Another aspect I found interesting was the studies which have proven that children with same sex parents have no more developmental or mental issues than children from opposite sex parents. I was talking to some of my family members who are in their 50's and 60's about this topic. And the majority of them said they were against the idea of same sex parents raising children but a few said they were ok with it but only if it was 2 females raising the child. They had issues with 2 men raising children as they thought that seeing men kissing wasn't good for the child. The older generations in my family being ok with 2 women but not 2 men raising a child I think stems from gender stereotyping women in nurturing roles and that fact that in my view lesbians are a bit more socially accepted the gay men. It was an interesting conversation non the less. __** Week Twelve - **__

I thought for this entry I would attempt to answer some of the critical thinking questions from the lecture. Which came first: mental illness of substance abuse? I think for this the two aren't always exclusive. We can't assume that someone with a mental illness will abuse substances. And on the flip side, not all people who abuse substances will develop a mental illness. It depends on the individual and their circumstances.

Second question: if things are getting better for women, why is our mental health still so poor? I think there is now a greater awareness of mental health than any other time in history and it is becoming more accepted and understood in society. I believe there is still a huge way to go on this but the first steps have been taken with greater awareness and education about mental illnesses happening. However, there is still a large amount of stigma and discrimination placed on those who have a mental illness. Again, I'm not sure if the two are mutually exclusive. But obviously to an extent they are. __**Week Thirteen -**__ Throughout this subject I have realised just how much gender issues affect health. The gender roles and behaviours which are dictated by society's gender norms and values, significantly perpetuate inequalities in health and access to health services. As Australia is a western society, it values the western projection of what is considered masculine and feminine. Masculinity is often associated with action and aggressiveness without displaying any 'feelings'. While femininity is associated with passivity, compliance and expressing sadness without anger. Males and females are taught to cope with life differently through socially accepted behaviours. These attitudes, I believe, have negative effects on one's complete wellbeing when females internalise and males externalise their problems or feelings. And this directly impacts upon their gender specific health problems. For example, females are at a greater risk of chronic non-communiable diseases, depression and anxiety and low self-esteem and eating disorders. Whereas males often suffer from injury, violence, risky behaviours, poor diet, substance abuse and anti-social personality disorders.

The way in which western norms have influenced a populations socialisation and gender ideologies can influence males and females to approach their health differently. Say, females are more likely to access health care services than males (unless they have a nagging wife). In future I think health promotions or interventions need to take into account a gendered perspective more for whichever target audience, to take into account the specific needs of that audience. Once the gender stereotypes/norms are addressed and/or made more aware of, everyone's wellbeing will hopefully be better through the work of social change.