Tuesday, March 27, 2007
#10: Academia's responsibility?
I think that academic institutions, though not required, can play a large role in promoting disease prevention for women in at least 2 ways. For one, the instructors can incorporate disease prevention education into their syllabi's and tailor it according to the subject. Also, they can hold presentations regarding the the diseases and how to prevent them. Other than presenting the information to the women in that community, academic institutions can help to discover more ways of disease prevention by participating in research and then disseminating the information in an easy to understand format. The student body can become active in providing information to the surrounding community by promoting or providing health fairs.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
#8: Forever Young
Why do we try to stay "looking young" for as long as possible? Why are we so concerned with the signs of aging: getting grey hair, wrinkles, loose skin, etc?
Our society has equated youthfulness with beauty and sexiness. As women (and even men), we try to uphold that image of youthfulness and sexiness. For some reason, we have decided that soft, sagging breasts are imperfect distorting our image. Gray hair and wrinkles are reminders that we are aging... that the inevitable is coming. We think firm curvy bodies are the ideal which we must all strive for. If only we were cookie cutter people. (Though I think that the ideal image is broadening to incorporate some imperfections.)
Maybe we do not respect the elderly in our society... Maybe we have gone as far to say that the elderly are useless to the rest of society, that they are a burden. With a negative outlook such as this, it would make it an easy jump that aging is something we do not want to happen to us. So, any sign of aging would be undesirable. Something that is undesirable is imperfect, so we must try to hinder it...
I am not sure if it just a plain desire to be sexually attractive, or if the desire to look young goes much deeper into how we think about the entire aging process and its implications. But, the shunning of aging is doing a disservice to us as a society. Elderly people have led productive lives, have seen many things, gained wisdom that can be passed on to younger generations; they can be mentors. Sadly, elderly people are all too often stripped of their dignity and labeled a burden.
Our society has equated youthfulness with beauty and sexiness. As women (and even men), we try to uphold that image of youthfulness and sexiness. For some reason, we have decided that soft, sagging breasts are imperfect distorting our image. Gray hair and wrinkles are reminders that we are aging... that the inevitable is coming. We think firm curvy bodies are the ideal which we must all strive for. If only we were cookie cutter people. (Though I think that the ideal image is broadening to incorporate some imperfections.)
Maybe we do not respect the elderly in our society... Maybe we have gone as far to say that the elderly are useless to the rest of society, that they are a burden. With a negative outlook such as this, it would make it an easy jump that aging is something we do not want to happen to us. So, any sign of aging would be undesirable. Something that is undesirable is imperfect, so we must try to hinder it...
I am not sure if it just a plain desire to be sexually attractive, or if the desire to look young goes much deeper into how we think about the entire aging process and its implications. But, the shunning of aging is doing a disservice to us as a society. Elderly people have led productive lives, have seen many things, gained wisdom that can be passed on to younger generations; they can be mentors. Sadly, elderly people are all too often stripped of their dignity and labeled a burden.
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