Semester Reflections

Throughout the semester, this course has covered many topics and issues concerning women’s health. Many of the things that we learned influenced me in several ways whether it was concerning my health or the health of my friends and family. There were two particular issues that were significant to me, which was the issue of genital mutilation and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Genital mutilation was something that I knew about but I never realized the severity of this practice, especially how common it was in several countries. HIV/AIDS is an epidemic that plagues many countries of the world, especially Africa. I knew someone who died from AIDS that was real close to our family and that disease will tear your body to shreds before it kills. We watched this man live in pain for a long time before he died. I wish this disease had a cure so that it will stop killing people. It is unfortunate to see that many women die from this disease but the truth is…women are the more vulnerable gender and tend to be more affected by everything as compared to men. I just hope that people will learn to protect themselves so that this issue can start getting better and not continue to get worse. The domestic abuse/violence issue was also something that interested me because of the fact that it is actually very common. That is something that came as a shock to me and it was also really scary to think that many women undergo domestic abuse at some point in their life. I tied this issue to personal experiences as well as things I have seen my friends go through with boyfriends who would hit them when they got into arguments. It seems like men have always felt like they have the upper-hand in everything because society allowed that to happen. I feel that when you are in relationship, the last thing you should even do is to hit your partner. It is really sad that this has arisen as a women’s health issue. I hope that women learn to realize that they do not have to take abuse from any type of person and that there is always someone out there to help them.

This class was an enjoyable learning experience. I took a women’s studies class last year and I feel like I got a WHOLE lot more learning out of this course than I did in my women’s studies class. This covered a lot of interesting topics and health issues. It has also inspired me to concentrate on my health now that I am young so that I can have a healthy adulthood. I liked the assignments that the professor provided because it seems like they were well thought out and it helped provide a background for the subjects we were covering. I hope that everyone got something out of this course, cause I sure did!!