Reflective Journal 2

In the last few weeks of tutorials there has been a lot of talk about gender and
its impact on health. This is a topic I love exploring because the gender
inequality in our society, while not as stark as some cultures, is rampant and
something I feel very passionate about exposing. The week six 1 the topic was
about gender and health. I finally felt like I was in my element with this
discussion. But as the lesson progressed I realised how much I was yet to learn.
When the discussion turned to reproductive health and the unfairness between
the sexes that represented, I knew that I could get involved because this is
where my passion lies. One of my main goals going into this course was to
become a sexual health educator. Being in this course, not just within the
tutorials but the readings too, is teaching me that being a sexual health
educator is more than just knowing the anatomy. It is about the experiences of
the individual and the challenges and advantages they may face. Im beginning
to realise that there is so much more depth to gendered and sexual health than
how it appears on the surface. While there may be differences in the diseases
that affect men and women it is mostly the physical health that affects
different genders, females can get ovarian and cervical cancer; males can get
testicular and prostate cancer. According to this view, the rest of health is just
human, not gendered.2 Seeing how disadvantaged I am just because I was
born a woman makes me frustrated and even more passionate about the push
for equal rights. Not just between men and women, but for LGBT youth. I truly
look forward to everything this course has to offer so that I can become the
best educator I can, even if that means unlearning and disregarding facts and
opinions I had held before hand. I believe that all educators should be open to
the possibility that, even in their field of expertise, they are still able to learn
new facts and create new opinions.

Another highlight of the last few weeks was the tutorial on food, health and
social wellbeing3. In the tutorial we discussed the differences within countries
and what they buy weekly when it comes to groceries. The differences were
quite shocking. My group and I were assigned to look at Kuwait and I realised
that though a lot of their food was packaged not a lot of it was overly
processed. This is something that I had never noticed before. I knew that you
could get canned fruit and veg but when I thought of packaged food, I never
considered it to be healthy. To me healthy food was always supposed to be
fresh, washed and never packaged; even the pre-chopped vegetables at the
supermarket didnt seem to be as fresh in my mind. But Jennifer explained how
1 Week 6 tutorial taken by Jennifer: Gender and Health
2 Page 124, Chapter 7 in J. Germov (ed.) Second Opinion 5th edition South Melbourne:
Oxford University Press.)
3 Week 7 tutorial taken by Jennifer: Food, Health and Social Wellbeing

there was a spectrum with food. That it can be anywhere from fresh straight
out of the ground to so processed that there is no resemblance to the original
product. This is a brand new concept to me and something that, while it makes
sense, it was a struggle to wrap my head around. My past experience with food
has not always been the best or the healthiest but I always thought I knew
what was healthy and not. It was always black and white. Now that I can see
the varying shades of grey it is something I have learned that I can take into
my personal life and change my perception on food. By changing my
perception on food I believe that this could also help my health improve.

So far in this topic I am intrigued and learning more about the world around
me. As I start questioning everything I have learned I find myself wanting to
find out more and more to form opinions based on fact rather than just
something said by one person. Fact checking is becoming almost second nature
to me in my pursuit of knowledge. I want to be critical and understand
everything Im learning in as much depth as I am able. This is not just to
understand the world and its health and social issues but to understand my
own health and social needs. As someone who has suffered from mental health
issues Im beginning to understand how the social environment affects my
health in more ways than I could have ever imagined.