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Week 11
= This week we had neither lecture or tutorial, due to sickness and oral presentations. =

Week 10
= "Growing old" =



Ageing can be defined as the sum of all the irreversible physiological processes affecting all individuals of a species, and that leads to a weakening of the organism as a whole. We are all growing older; day by day, hour by hour and second by second, and are early reminded that life is precious and valuable and that we should do the most out of it and travel, experience, fail and learn in the timeslot we have been given. As children we are brought up to finish our vegetables and drink our milk and as we slowly grow into adulthood physical activity and nutrition often plays larger parts of our everyday life. Many aspect of the society of today teaches us to almost fear and avoid growing older, and even though we might be able to change our exterior with makeup, treatments and plastic surgery, we are not (yet?) able to change the fact that we are all eventually going to die.

Should not growing older be viewed upon like something wonderful rather than to fear it? If you are in good shape, growing older is the time to stop caring what other people think, be creative and use your time for stuff you never had the time to do earlier.. you might even have a grandchild you can spoil rotten. The dark side of the medallion though is if your ageing is filled with disease and hardship. You might have to move from home and into a caring center because of a disability, the feeling of being forgotten might creep up on you and you’ll end your days lying in a bed similar to the ones you find at a hospital. The sad part is actually that we only to some extend are able to affect this development. We can do everything right and still be unlucky and fall sick..

“It's paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone.” ― Andy Rooney

Week 9
= "Samene - The indigenous people of Norway" =

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Being an international student I did not now much of the indigenous women of Australia before todays lecture. So I was thinking about flipping the table and present you to the indigenous people of Norway; “Samene”.

Samene is an indigenous people who have got their traditional settlement areas in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Estimated total population is between 50 000 and 80 000 in total, whereas about 40 000 are living in Norway. The population is to be found both in the bigger cities, and in the northern parts of the country in an area called “Lappland”. They have got their own language (samisk) as well as their own flag (shown over), national day (06.february) and a national anthem (Sámi//soga lávlla//). In addition to this they have political influence through “Sametinget” which is selected every 4th year by samene themselves. There are also quite a few organizations and institutions which contribute to maintaining the traditional trades and traditions, in addition to working to improve the cultural, social and economic conditions of the population. The sami population has also got their own universities, and are given the possibility to learn in their own language, and also about their own heritage and culture. (In addition to regular subjects) In 1988, an organization for the sami women was founded (Sáráhkká). It was also actively involved in the formation of the World Council of Indigenous women in 1989.

There is very little documentation Sami women's health situation as it presents itself today. This is mainly due to that in the health surveys that have been conducted in areas where the Sami people live, not asking questions about ethnicity or used unsatisfactory measure of this. This has made it impossible or difficult to distinguish Sami, and then Sami women as a separate group. Another factor is that Sami women's health situation has not been seen as an interesting topic for researchers so far.

Girls have the strongest association with the Sami culture and the most positive attitudes toward their own group, but also a strong connection to the Norwegian society. On the other side, Sami girls who punch ring of their own culture, experience a greater stress than those who switch their Sami affiliation. The studies also indicate that Sami girls feel the responsibility to lead the Sami culture on, and that this responsibility can be difficult to carry.

Research involving acculturation impact on health, have shown that individuals who have lost their connection to their own group and have not been able to connect to another group, are at greatest risk for health problems. This relationship should be kept in mind in relation to the changes that occur within the reindeer husbandry today, where families "forced" out of a tradition- bearing status and lifestyle, and where this is not necessarily replaced with something else. In this context, the Saami women are important as it is often those who are the link to the rest of society, for example through their work outside the reindeer husbandry. Sami women, in addition to its role as a woman, also face challenges as minority members. These processes will often run parallel, and demand more mastery than for many other women. The extent to which the cultural challenges affecting the Sami women 's overall health condition, we know very little about.

Health and Social Affairs and the Sami Parliament is now working on an action plan for monitoring NOU 1995:6 plan for health and social services for the Sami population in Norway. It is important to point out the large gaps in knowledge regarding systematic knowledge of the same women's health and living conditions, and it is for that reason important to point out that this is a work that is required to do. The process of recalling and prioritize knowledge of the same women's health must be driven forward in close cooperation with the Saami women and their own organizations.

Week 8
= "Domestic violence in books and movies" = = = When talking about domestic violence in today’s lecture I started thinking about a movies and books I have read or seen which portrays these kinds of actions.. My mom recommended a movie to me years back. It is based on a true story about this American woman (Betty Mahmoody) who is married to an Iranian man. They have also got a little girl together. In the beginning we are presented with this idyllic family living in America in 1984. Her husband wants her and their child to travel with him to Iran to meet his family, she is sceptic do to the political tension in Iran and the cultural differences, but he promises her that he will take care of her.. Little did she know that by marrying an Iranian man, she automatically becomes an Iranian citizen, and by traveling to his country and living with his family he suddenly owned her.. With help from his family they monitored her every move, beat her, took away their child for weeks at a time and locked her away as well. She had to live, dress and behave as an Iranian woman: Everything she was, he owned. The film presents her struggle to get out of Iran and back home to America, but not without her daughter.. [|Speach made by Betty Mahmoody] This is a type of book/film that presents domestic violence as something aweful and horrendous, but what about the books/films that glamorizes the signs and warnings, and makes it exiting and compelling? I’m thinking about books like “The twilight saga” or “Fifty shades of grey”. Here both male main characters are dominant; they are wealthy, gorgeous, powerful and in some way troubled in their life. Whether it be from abuse and a difficult childhood, or the fact that they are immortal. Both male characters are also obsessing with knowing what their loved one is doing at all times and with trying to protect her so that nothing bad should ever happen. The scary part is that the books are written in such a way that it has an appealing effect on the reader.. at least it had that on me, and it was not until we addressed it in class that I actually thought about all the scary signs they are addressing in a totally wrong way.. As a girl reading this kind of books I tended to wish for someone who would take care of and protect me in the same way as these male main characters. I’m not saying that they have to be vampires or sex-addicts; I’m saying that the feeling of having someone taking care of me would be nice. I tended to think that his obsession with knowing where she were and wanting to keep her safe was sweet and affectionate, now I see it more like creepy. Also when presented with a grown view on “Beauty and the beast” I was chilled to the bones.. It is kind of scary to know that children is presented with these kinds of stories and subconsciously may think of them like the ultimate thing to strive after.. to fix a man, to make him love you, to save him and to forgive him… If we get this kinds of thoughts fed to us through childhood, is it really that odd that the unfortunate ones of us actually ends up whit these kinds of men in real-life?

Week 7 = "Wonder woman" =

The modern family of todays western societies could actually be expected to show great variety and diversity in ways of living together as a unit. This because we are living in a time where the ability to choose is seen as an ideal. Regardless of this we are still gathering around the idea of the glossy picture family which consists of mom, dad and 1-3 kids. This is the way families often are portrayed in sit-coms and commercials. And the world around us is definitively also constructed to cater for this type of family; the number of seats in a standard car, the number of rooms in a standard apartment, and even when it comes to the standard choices you are being given when you are trying to book a holiday online. The differences from earlier lies in the roles as man and woman. Women of today have demanded their space and participation rights in society, and slips more and more away from the old roles of taking care of kids and tending the home. Understand me correctly, they still do it, they just do everything else in addition to it. We have taken over and shared more and more of the manly dominated areas in addition to our already existing ones. We become wonder women with balls in the air at all times. Never having a break, always on the move, hungry for experience and new challenges! We are talking; home management, business development, real estate and culinary arts. They are decisive, analytical, detailed, rational, kind, caring and socially adept,—as a wife, mother, employer, business owner. ..and they rarely get the credit they deserve..

“The hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world” - Nordic proverb

Week 6
= "Life as a timeline" = I‘ve decided that this week I wanted to write about the tutorial instead of the lecture, because we made a timeline on the blackboard that puzzled me. I was really amazed by how the other girls had a pretty good picture on what they wanted in their lives, wich path to walk by and unwritten "rules" to follow..

Everything has got to be planned.. When to study, when to travel, when to find “prince charming”, when to buy a house, when to marry and the absolute climax: when to have a baby.. you‘re having a baby right?! Our lives as women have become conveyor belts, and during the production line everything is supposed to fall nicely into place and fit the other pieces of the puzzle perfectly. Our fertility starts to drop as early as at 28 years, and by the age of 35 we have got to have at least one baby, because after this point the chance of falling pregnant drops dramatically to 15%, with a 20% chance of miscarriage. It‘s scare-tactics, and we fall for them. I‘m not saying that we are supposed to wait as long as we can before we conceive, but aren’t we supposed to live a little as well? You know, experience the lazy Sunday on the couch after a long night out, take an art class, go on a spontaneous trip to Greece, to a concert with your favorite band, skydive, travel the world, make mistakes (and lots of them), live in an foreign country, start on an education and change and build on it until it is perfect for you.. I think that if we stop planning everything life will happen, and we will learn from it and take with us experiences that will make us better parents eventually.. if we even want to be parents.. It is not possible to plan life, because there is to many unknown factors playing into the big picture..

Life is like an hourglass glued to the table..the time will run out, and when it does I want to have experienced as much as possible!

Week 5 = "While on a ladder, never step back to admire your work.." =

I believe that all women living in and being exposed to the media of today is aware of what is expected of us. We are supposed to be no more than a size 10(preferably an 8), freshly shaved (everywhere), never sweaty, have beautiful smiles, white teeth, bigger boobs, smaller thighs, be tanned/or whiter, have a pretty face +++.. if you do not tick all of these boxes you might as well give up, work your ass off to get there or lie down under the knife. Personally I was not aware that there is now an additional new box to tick: Your height.

Growing up I’ve always been higher and stronger than most boys and I was really embarrassed by it. All I really wanted was to be like all the other pretty girls, the small ones that the boys could take care of and pick up from the ground. So when we grew older and the boys reached puberty I was really relieved.. I became (in my own eyes) more fragile and was actually longing for a guy to take care of me instead of being proud of being able to take care of myself. I still feel a bit of the same today, so when we in the lecture this week was presented with girls who felt like they had to go to the extremes of surgery to enhance their height so that they would be able to be heard at work, I really got a new perspective on things.. Maybe being 178cm isn’t such a bad thing after all..

"No nation can rise to the height of glory unless your women are side by side with you"

Muhammad Ali Jinnah [|http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/height.html#HXzP6vQjlTF7BMZ3.99]

I liked this quote, because even though it is said by a Pakistani politician in context with his beliefs around rights and the value of women compared to men, I really think it is fitting in this context in a twisted way.. Do we as women really have to be side by side(height wise) by men to have a voice and be heard? Isn’t this quite sad? That it many times is expected of us to be fragile and let the men take care of us in relationships, but when it comes to work some women feel the need to go into painful surgery to be taller and be heard?! I think it would be really great if women could be more proud of what and who they really are, and don’t let other women, the media or guys dictate us to believe otherwise. It would be ideal, but it is hard with all these pictures of what we are supposed to be being forced upon us everyday. We should be able to take a step back and admire ourselves and our own work no matter the height of our ladder..

Prepare & prevent instead of repair & repent..

Week 4

="Birth control pills - the easy way out?" =  Before I start writing today I want to point out that the things I will describe under do not at all relate to all women using the pill, I am only trying to shed some light on a couple of negative aspects I thought about if the pill gets used as an “easy way out”.. When it comes to protection from being pregnant I think the pill is a wonderful little device, but is it really that good to be able to have sex with as many and varied people as you like? Scenario: Two people meet a night out and decide to go home together. Neither the boy nor the girl has got condoms, but luckily enough the girl is “on the pill”. Influenced by alcohol they both think the problem is solved and keeps on enjoying their night together.

Problem: ** STD’s!!!!!! **

Keep in mind the pill doesn’t protect against sewually transmitted infections. Use a latex or female condom to reduce the risk of infection. (http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control/birth-control-pill-4228.htm)

The past decade has seen rates of sexually transmissible infections (STIs) increase in. Sexually transmissible infections are predominately contracted through unsafe sexual practices and can show no symptoms. If left untreated, STIs can have serious long-term consequences. While notification rates for several STIs are increasing, the reasons for these increases are not certain. Such increases may be the result of rising infection rates, more people being tested for STIs or a combination of both. (http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Main+Features10Jun+2012)

OK, so they are not positively certain for the reasons for the increase in STD’s.. is it wrong of me to think that the pill and alcohol might also be contributing to those statistics?



In a social aspect the pill gives us the possibility to have random sex. My friend back home (who was not in a steady relationship at that point) actually told me that the reason she was taking the pill was that it gave her the security she needed when she went out drinking. So instead of drinking a little less and be able to make smart decisions she used the pill as an “easy way out” that gave her the opportunity to have random sex without facing the risk of falling pregnant.

If girls do this, will it not be extremely difficult for us to stop the negative trend of guys using words like “slut” and “whore” about us? I really do not see why guys feel like they should be allowed to call us that anyway, and neither why boys having random sex is rewarded with high-fives and credit from other guys. Isn`t it a bit hypocritical, If they are calling us sluts and whores, aren`t they just the same when they are having random sex?

Week 3

= "A girdle to set you free" =

When we in todays lecture was presented with pictures and advertisements from the 1950s my mind wandered back to one of my favorite scenes in the movie “Mona Lisa smile” from 2003, set in 1953.

"Quiet. Today you just listen. What will future scholars see when they study us, a portrait of women today? There you are ladies: the perfect likeness of a Wellesley graduate, Magna Cum Laude, doing exactly what she was trained to do.

Slide  - a Rhodes Scholar, I wonder if she recites Chaucer while she presses her husband's shirts.

Slide  - hehe, now you physics majors can calculate the mass and volume of every meatloaf you make.

Slide  - A girdle to set you free. What does that mean? What does that mean? What does it mean?

I give up, you win. The smartest women in the country, I didn't realize that by demanding excellence I would be challenging... what did it say?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">What did it say? Um... <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">the roles you were born to fill.. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"> Is that right?" []

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;">

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Seeing this movie made me think and react with disgust to the way women was supposed to cushion and live for marriage and their men. And even though we as women have come a long way when looking at rights compared to men, I am seriously worried when it comes to our self-image and goals. The girdle is still something we can get our hands on, and most times it is actually expected of us. The gigantic focus in todays society on womens bodies, and the perfection we should strive for is destroying us. Eating disorders, plastic surgery, crazy diets and exercising is taking over and controlling our everyday life. Billboards and television commercials makes us feel shitty each time we see them because we can`t reach the perfection they presents. This because it is not human, it is Photoshop.. I`ve actually thought about this pressure from time to time, and also asked a couple of my guy-friends about it, and the answers I`ve gotten is quite surprising, but also kind of nice to get;

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;"> - I really don`t know why you bother, it is ok to strive for a healthy body, but you really do not have to look like a movie star or “billboard-babe”.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> - It is the inside that counts. I will not have anything against you looking fit and healthy, but if that is the only thing you are I`m afraid you are going to become quite boring quite fast..

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We tend to call the last answer a cliché and laugh about it, but I really believe that a lot of guys is thinking this way.. and if they are not, are they really something to hold on to or strive after?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Maybe a lot of the pressure actually is “self-harm”..We as women have to take a look at our-selves and be content with living a healthy lifestyle instead of striving after what we think everyone else is expecting of us! There is a lot of pigs(shitty guys) out there, but there is allso a lot of criticizing women.. Why can`t we just be happy and proud about who we are, and not trying to become a 25 year old anorexic? Just think, what will women in the future see when they look back to the early 2000? Maybe “conveyor ladies” trying to achieve the impossible images the media is pushing down on them, or life-size Barbie dolls.. I personally would hate to be regarded that way..

Week 2
= “Taboo or not taboo” =



“How to look good naked”, “Trinny and Susannah undress the nation”, “Embarrassing illnesses”, “Cherry Healey investigating”

During the lesson last Tuesday I started thinking about all the different television programs that are made which focuses on bringing the true story about our amazing bodies out in broad daylight. Down here in Australia I actually don’t have access to television, but back in Norway I really loved all the shows that made me more confident with my body. Even though this might be terrible of me to say, it is so liberating and kind of relaxing to sit and watch other people whit the same issues and self-conscious thoughts as myself.. and maybe even discover that it actually is normal /nothing to be ashamed of, or something to be really proud of! Even if the subject might not be relevant to me, I’m still curious and amazed by what other people might regard as a problem. With these types of programs I personally think media is giving us a great tool to build confidence and change the ugly taboo views I (and I believe many others) have about their own bodies. What I love the most about the shows I named above is that they are not promoting surgery or nip-tuck culture as we have become so familiar with the last decades. In “How to look good naked” and “Trinny and Susannah undress the nation” we learn to embrace our bodies and get tips and advice on how we can dress in the best way according to our figures. People might say that this is just another way to underline and promote pressure about how to dress to fit in, and people might say that they do not care what other people think of them, but I believe (and feel it myself) that most people actually DO care. As humans we need acceptance, and notion of belonging somewhere, with someone..

“Embarrassing illnesses” is another kind of program, and the reason I love this is that the program is actually that, EMBARRASSING! And the opportunity the program gives us to sit comfortably and watch this courageous people display and address their problems might give us that extra little push we need to go and seek out a doctor and take care of our own health.



But most of all I LOVE “Cherry Healey investigating”. This lady is totally amazing in ALL aspects. She uses herself as a “crash-test-dummy” and goes out to explore all kinds of weird addictions and diets, drinking cultures, marriage, dating, parenting, breastfeeding and money. (to mention some) "With a Degree in Drama Education/ Drama for Social Change from Central School of Speech and Drama, Cherry has a particular interest in women's ever-changing roles in society - giving light to new cultural trends in a (sometimes painfully!) honest and entertaining way".([])

I think this kind of programs are a really educational and fun way to address and help people find solutions to everyday problems and challenges. And I think it is really important that we can use them to take a step in the right direction when it comes to what is looked at as taboo or not in society today.