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=Week 2 Women's Amazing Bodies=

I found this week's lecture is quiet interesting. It brought me thinking that how can we actually define a person to be a male or female. Should we defined a person's gender by their sex at birth, or should we defined the person's gender by the gender that the person perceived themselves to be. I n nowadays society, vast majority of people still define a person's gender by their sex at birth, it is a normal thing to do, but it's not always appropriate. What about transgender person, like people who were born to be a female or male, but perceived themselves as opposite sex? What about transsexual person, a person who is strongly identifies with the opposite gender and choose to live as a member of the opposite gender or to become one by surgery? What about intersex person, a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn't seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male? Maybe we should be more careful and considerable when dealing with people who's gender is different to their sex at birth. Some people who choose to live with the opposite gender are totally depend on their will and freedom, whereas for intersex person, it's more like a inborn condition, and not merely their personal choices to decide which gender they choose to be.

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This is a controversial and interesting video about a transgender child, who thought he is born with a wrong gender and wants to turn into a girl at the age of 3. He started to dress like a girl and act like a girl, and start to worry about puberty will going to make him look like a men at the age of 9. He was quiet depressed, and even considered surgery to become a 'real' girl. His family went through a hard time, but luckily his decision was supported by his family, as his mother said "I rather to have a living transgender daughter, than a dead son." It is such a strong statement, that having a happy, living child is more than anything else. No matter what gender people choose to be, their decision should be valued and respected.

Week 3 Women in Popular Cultural, Advertising, and the Media- implications for Social Inequalities and Women's Health
It is interesting to know how women had been treated in the past decades to be able to explain the gender gap between males and females today's society. From a traditional cultural perspective, women were perceived to be a part of men once they are married, therefore women has the responsibilities to look after her husband and his family, and to be dominated by their husband. From a social perspective, women are perceived to be weak, less valued than men, not worth anything, whereas for men are completely opposite. It is quiet clear to see that women had been treated so unfairly in the past, and sadly, this phenomenon had protrude to the modern society. In the modern society, the media influence is quiet strong, as we can see in our everyday life, a lot of advertisements and magazines present women more like an object rather than a human being.

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This video clip gives a clear sense of how the media objectify women. The question is, why it is so common to see these kind of pictures in women but not in men? There are also many other topics surround women focus on the ways and tips to be a 'perfect' wife to please her husband, such as caring the children, husband, and husband's family, etc. In the end, it's all around man, but not women themselves independently. Is a women's role born to be a carer, for her children, husband and family, etc? Why can't be the other way around?

Week 4 The 'Right' Time to Have a Child: Changes in Reproductive Trends and Outcomes for Women
I found this week's topic is very interesting. What is the 'right' time to have a child? Well, I guess there is no right or wrong answer to this question, some people decided to have a child early, and some people prefer to have a child late, different person will come up with a different answer. However, current evidence support that women are consider to have a baby at older age compare to previous generations. In the past, women tends to married early and have child early, from late teenage to early twenties, wheres in nowadays society, more and more more women choose to have child at late twenties to early thirties. Perhaps in the past, women don't work as much as they do now, and raising child is probably the most important thing to do for women at that time. So, can we say that women now think more and consider more about themselves than before? Some women might enjoy working so doesn't want to have a child too early, some women might enjoy traveling, and some women might just don't want to have a child, etc. Current research suggested that women are shown to have increasingly higher disposable income, higher levels of education, more opportunities to travel, etc, compare to the past. Therefore, having babies might not be the first priority for them to consider at this point, as women will face too many losses including freedom, financial, mobility, lifestyle, and are thus hesitant to rush into this decision.

Week 5 The Fashion Industry and Body Image : Impact on Women's Health
Literature suggests social comparison to ideal, typically achievable images leads to disorderly bodies including unrealistic clothing sizing, eating disorders and cosmetic surgery, and distorted identities to body image and self-esteem. Why does the media glamorising disorderly bodies as fashionable? and how does this affect women's perception of beauty in relation to body image? I saw a few video clips that I think is quiet interesting to share, which is about how adolescent girls and women's body image and self esteem are influenced by the media including advertisements and magazines, etc.

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Numerous evidence support that more and more adolescent girl and women have developed eating disorders such as Anorexia Nervosa, in order to achieve the social expectations of the 'ideal body image', and sadly the percentage is increasing each year. The media is definitely responsible for all these negative influence on women. More young women now are on a severe dieting, as they have such a strong fear of gaining weight or becoming 'fat', even though they are incredibly thin, and the worst thing is that a lot of women are actually starve themselves to death.

A lot of women choose to have cosmetic surgery instead of severe dieting, as it's a much quicker way to change their physical features to align with the media present 'ideal' shape of the body. However, cosmetic surgery is not 100% safe, there are potential risks associated with any cosmetic surgery, and once the damage is made, it can't be 'redo'. W omen need to consider the potential risks that involved with the cosmetic surgery, as the results turned out might not always be the results you expected. Make sure the doctor carry out your cosmetic procedures has a proper licence before making the choices. Evidence support that there are many doctors or clinics that perform the cosmetic surgery procedures are actually without adequate specialist training or a proper license.

Women should not be judged by the media, and instead, women should be more proud of who they are and how they look like 'originally', not what the media or society wants them to be.

Week 6 Having a Baby: a Women's Health Perspective
It seems like that women's health perspective towards having a baby are now been medicalised by the society, as women no longer given births at home, and majority of women are given birth in hospitals. The home births rate had been decreased dramatically compared to the previous generation. Government is responsible for this major change, as the government provide fund to encourage women to gave birth in the hospitals or the birth clinics, but does not provide any fund for women who choose to give birth at home. It comes to the point where women no longer able to choose their birthing location, especially for the family lives on a low or middle income, as giving birth at home is an expensive out-pocket expenses. The birthing methods on the other hand have been limited as well, as women's choice of their birthing methods might not be values or supported by their doctors. In some case, the doctors make the decision on how the baby will be delivered without asking for the consent from women, and doctors don't explain the procedures clear enough for women to be able to understand, which make women feel offended. Such poor communication between doctors and women results in increased rate of the litigation in relation to the obstetric care in the recent years.

Week 7 Changing Gender Roles in Families: Paid Work, House Work, and Child-Raising
Gender inequality has always been a major problem in current society. When comparing the social status between men and women, women are less valued than men, and are less likely to be respected than men. When comparing the economic status between men and women, women are usually paid less than men. An typical example to show the inequality between men and women in the workforce is that women with child often get paid less, whereas men with child get paid more. In a traditional family, men is usually defined as a 'breadwinner' for the family, whereas women is responsible for taking care of the child, and look after the whole family. However, there has been a shift in the gender-based roles in families over time, as mothers can choose to go out and work, and father can stay home to look after the child. The gender-based role in families becomes more flexible, as both parents can work and taking care of their child. The balance between work and family should be achieved between men and women. The flexibility in gender-based role has made the life so much easier, as parents can choose to work and taking care of their child in turns, so the pressure can be reduced for both men and women.

Week 8 'Walking into Doors' Families and Domestic Violence
Women should be more well protected. Violence against women still remains a major public health problem all over the world, especially in developing countries. In developed countries such as Australia, the trend in domestic violence (DV) has been stable over the last 10 years, and has fallen slightly in regional areas. I found the DV patterns in Australian is quiet interesting, evidence suggested that the majority of incidents of DV occurred on residential premises between 6 pm and 9 pm, Saturdays and Sundays. Why? Maybe it's because of the couple is working Monday-Friday before 6 pm, and the rest of time they are together? Does that mean that t he less the time the couples spend together, the less the violence occurred? For women who are constantly suffered from DV from their partner and still live together, the questions that those women often faced would be 'Why don't you just run away? Why don't you just leave him?' Many people thought that leaving would be the best way for those women to stop DV against them, however, it's not always the case. T here are a lot of reasons for a woman who are a victim of DV choose to stay with her partner, including love, hope, dependence, fear, and learned helplessness. Surprisingly fear is the most powerful reason out of all those reasons to stop victim from leaving the relationship, as they may put themselves in a dangerous situation. Evidence supported that the most dangerous time for battered women is during attempts to leave the relationships, as batterer often escalate violence when their partner increase help-seeking, measures or attempt separations. Statistics showed that up to 75% of DV reported to law enforcement agencies occur after separation of the couples, with women most likely to be murdered when reporting abuse or attempting to leave an abusive relationship, because the abuser thought that they have nothing to loose, and many many examples are seen in the everyday news include abduct children from mothers, murder, acid attacks, etc. which is quiet scary.

Week 9 Health of Indigenous Women
Due to the rise of multiculturalism, Australia is now slightly obsessed with the notion of identity. Women's indigenous identity should be respected in Australia, and women's indigenous identity should not be discriminate against mixed heritage. Some women may have the aboriginal heritage but looking 'white', and no matter how they look on the outside, their indigenous identity deserve equal respects. What does it mean to be an Aboriginal? For Anita Heiss, the identify is not simply about race, it's about her family history, and history about Aboriginal Australian in general, not purely about the blood of content, or color of skin, or whether or not she's working in the Aboriginal organisations. Anita Heiss is proud of her Aboriginal heritage, and strongly suggested that media should change the way they portrayed Aboriginal people on how they look, how educate they are, and where they live etc. Anita Heiss is the anthor of the book 'Am I black enough for you?', and the short video below described her thoughts of writing the book, and how she think about women's indigenous identity in contemporary Australia.

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Week 10 Healthy Ageing of Women
Ageing is a natural process of human life, however, the risk of developing many chronic diseases increase with age. Ischaemic (coronary) heart disease is considered to be the biggest killer for Australian women aged 65 years and over. Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the leading cause of death of Australian women and kills around 11,000 women a year. However, women are not aware that CHD is the leading cause of death. According to a 2008 Heart Foundation National News poll Survey found that 70% of women did not know that CHD is the leading cause of death of Australian women, but rather, majority of women believed that breast cancer is the leading cause of death even though heart disease is responsible for more than four times the number of Australian women's deaths than breast cancer. Evidence suggested that women are not aware of the key risk factors that contribute to heart disease, most women are aware that smoking, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes are all leading risk factors for heart disease. However, what they may not be aware is that diabetes is a greater risk factor for women than men, and that the risk of heart disease significantly rises after menopause. Postmenopausal issues have shown to be closely associated with heart diseases. Shifts in weight distribution to the abdomen can results in the development of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes, which has a significantly impact on women's lives. Endocrine changes in menopause such as decreased estrogen levels have also shown to be positively linked with cardiovascular diseases. Doctors and health professionals needs to be aware of sex and gender differences in the symptoms of heart disease and heart attack, in order to treat and prevent unnecessary death among women. For example, depressed patients report more episodes of angina and more intense angina pain, and women generally have significantly higher rates of depression than men. Doctors and health practitioners with lack of abilities and skills to distinguish the anatomical d ifferences and psycho-social differences in both genders may lead to inadequate treatment, which may be partly responsible for women being more likely to die after myocardial infarction (heart attack) than men.

Week 11 Women's Health in Same-Sex Relationships
Lesbians have faced legal and social discrimination during the times that they are acknowledged. Upon till now, the marriage of lesbians are still illegal in Australia, and they are not allowed to adopt children. Why can't lesbians adopt children in Australia? Is that because lesbians can't be in a marital status, so they are not considered 'parents' by law? Or is that because people is worried about the homosexual parenting will have a negative impact on children in terms of sexual identity. One thing that really interested me is that whether homosexual parenting is really worse than heterosexual parenting with regards to sexual health and relationships. A study was done to compare children of sperm donors who had either heterosexual or homosexual parents (only the mother is related to the child in each parenting pair). The findings showed that children were developing in healthy ways and that parental sexual orientation did not seem to be affecting development. What mattered more than parental sexual orientation for children's adjustment was the warmth and closeness of relationships with parents. Another study compared divorced mums who went on to have heterosexual and homosexual relationships while raising their child. The findings showed that those child who had grown up with divorced lesbian mothers were no more likely to identify themselves as lesbian or gay than were those who had grown up with divorced heterosexual mothers. One UK study compared adolescents of same-sex versus opposite sex parents found that students raised by female same-sex couples did not differ significantly from those raised by opposite-sex couples in terms of victomisation, psychological functioning, experience of common adolescent concerns, or prospective use of support outlets provided by family and peers. However, children of same-sex couples reported significantly less likelihood of using school-based support than did children of opposite-sex couples. Another study compared the health, well-being and social functioning of adolescent found that there were no significant differences between adolescent living with same-sex couples and those living with opposite-sex couples on self-reported assessments of psychological well-being, such as self-esteem and anxiety, measures of school outcomes, such as grade point averages and trouble in school, or measures of family relationships such as parental warmth and care from adults and peers. All of these research suggested that the children of lesbians are not likely to be worse off on any measures of health and well-being than children of heterosexual couples. Having a happy, healthy, well-adjusted child depends much more on what their parents do than on whether they are heterosexual or homosexual, which means heterosexual parenting has no monopoly on better parenting compared to homosexual parenting.

Week 12 Mental Health and Substance Abuse in Women Across the Ages
Eating disorders are highly complex and serious mental and physical illnesses that occur most frequently in adolescents, although they can occur at any stage in life. Evidence suggested that eating disorders have the highest morbidity and mortality rate of any mental illnesses, which involves intense anxiety, depression and preoccupation with body weight and shape, eating and weight control. The most common type of eating disorders include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorders. Approximately 2% of Australians will experience some type of eating disorder at some stage in their life, and most of those affected (90%) are women. All eating disorders have an elevated mortality risk, and anorexia nervosa is the most striking, which has the highest mortality rate with approximately 15% to 20% dying within 20 years, mostly commonly occur in young women. About one in 100 adolescent girls develops anorexia nervosa, and five in 100 develop bulimia nervosa. Compared with the other eating disorders, binge eating disorder is more common among males and older individuals (Smink, Hoeken & Hoek, 2012).

Eating disorders are usually characterized by unrealistic perception of body shape/weight, disturbance in eating pattern and/or inappropriate compensating behaviors after eating, and exercise addiction. Anorexia nervosa is the most serious and potentially life-threatening eating disorder associated with severe food restriction, over exercise, malnutrition, and distorted thinking about body shape and weight, and the typical age of onset is early adolescence, generally from age 12 to 15 years (Lock, 2009). Current research suggested that there is no single cause for eating disorders, as social, cultural, personal and psychological factors all play a part, in varying degrees, for different people. Social and cultural factors such as the media promoting an ‘ideal’ shape of the ‘perfect’ body, peer pressure, and personal factors such as going through major life changes, including family breakup, relationship breakdowns, death, or the accumulation of many minor stressors are all thought to be positively linked with the development of eating disorders. Psychological factors include being perfectionist, having very high standards, suffering from anxiety and depression, having low self-esteem and body dissatisfaction is also contributors to eating disorder. Eating disorders have a significant impact on individual’s health. The short term consequences of eating disorders include heart problems, cessation of menstruation, kidney stones, kidney failure, dehydration, muscle atrophy, digestive problems and osteoporosis, and long term consequences include severe kidney damage, blindness, severe neuropathy, extreme fatigue, edema, severe weight loss and premature death.

Statistical data suggested that the annual cost of 'burden of disease' from eating disorders is estimated as $52.6 billions, which is calculated by multiplying the years of healthy life lost, and by the value of a statistical life year (VSLF).The total socio-economic cost of eating disorders in Australia in 2012 is $69.7 billions, including health system costs of $100 millions. The productivity costs are $15.1 billions which are similar in impact to anxiety and depression, and with this cost, $2 billions were due to lifetime earnings lost for young people who die from an eating disorder. A person with an eating disorder may experience long term impairment to social and functional roles and the impact may include psychiatric and behavioral effects, medical complications, social isolation, disability and an increased risk of death. Evidence suggested that people who are identified and treated early in the course of an eating disorder have a significantly better chance of recovery when compared with those who have been living with an eating disorder for a longer period of time, and this is particularly relevant for adolescent (National Eating Disorders Collaboration, 2013). Current research supported that the stigma that exists around eating disorders, the cost of the treatment and the fear of change are the major individual based barriers to people seeking treatment for eating disorders (National Eating Disorders Collaboration, 2013; University of Canberra, 2011). Fear of weight gain is another individual based barrier for limited progress as it weakens one’s ability to eat regularly, and subsequently increase the likelihood of dietary restraint. Fear of change can indeed be scary, as many people with disordered eating are ambivalent about change, even when making changes for the better. Extreme self-criticism is another major barrier, as self-critical people often find it hard to acknowledge any success, seeing only what they describe as ‘failure’. Population based barrier for limited progress include the skills and knowledge of health care professionals, as practitioners lack of knowledge or inaccurate beliefs about eating disorders may fail to look beyond the presenting issue and diagnose an eating disorder.