About Gender

All right, so in presentations class today, we gave group presentations regarding some aspect of the fundraising we, as a group worked on, nearly a month ago.

One particular presentation caught me off guard and I must add, here, I was quite insulted. I have since cooled off, but will post my initial feelings regarding it.

A group in the class presented their views and opinions regarding the group dynamic in running a fundraising event.

Then came the gender component that somehow worked its way into the presentation. I wrote down a few point form notes which highlight my initial feelings. At a later time I will post my follow up thoughts. I thought I would be in a position now to post my reflections, but I will have to do that in a couple of days or so.

The presenters in this group made a list of how women communicate and another list how men communicate. I failed to see how either one of those lists relate to our fundraising campaign.
These are my notes on how these lists made me feel:
- stereotypical gender profile
- drawing boundaries in a class where gender has never been an issue
- sometimes stereotypes/generalizations can help to diagnose and recognize larger social issues, but these lists made me wonder how this would apply to a class of about 20 people where sexism has never been a problem
- as a woman, I don't appreciate being placed in that category
- I don't think either list was an accurate portrayal of anyone in the class
- I am not a feminist, but the list on how women or men communicate was absolutely ridiculous and insulting, perhaps that was not the intended message/result of the presentation, but clearly there wasn't much thought about how an audience many react, even though the presenters did ask how people in the class felt about the list, I felt that I actually had to think about it, in order to avoid being angry before giving my opinion

Like I wrote earlier in this post. I will post more of my opinion once I've had more time to reflect.

Lockdown Drill at Loyalist

One day last week I was riding the bus home when I overheard two young guys talking about the upcoming lockdown drill. I was quite surprised at what they were saying.

The first guy was just stating that one of his teacher's had explained to the class what was to take place and how they should prepare. He appeared to see the value in such a practise, but his friend did not.

The other guy thought it was funny that we would have to prepare for such an emergency. He was laughing that students might have to hide under the desks if there was threat.

I then wondered if the second guy was laughing out of discomfort rather than ignorance. It is scary that we are in a time where we would have to prepare to dive under a desk in order to dodge a bullet.

Even though I support a lockdown drill I wonder when will metal detectors be a next step.

Ban on tenant smoking a hazy issue

The Belleville Intelligencer published an article relating to the local health unit strongly encouraging landlords to stop current tenants from smoking in their units as well as keeping new tenants who smoke from moving in.

The Smoke Free Ontario Act provides information regarding the legislation that became active in May 2006. There are provisions for tenants and landlords.

An interesting part of the article is: It prohibits smoking in the common areas of condominiums, apartment buildings, and colleges and universities residences, she said. It prohibits smoking in the common areas of condominiums, apartment buildings, and colleges and universities residences. As a tenant and a non-smoker, I firmly support no smoking in common and confined areas, especially in a building elevator, not only is that a health issue, but it becomes a fire hazard, too.

Public Health Agency, Salmonella Awareness

I read an article online at www.cbc.ca titled, Public health agency investigating possible salmonella outbreak which was posted today. In the wake of recent listeria and melamine scares attention has turned to salmonella. This article is aimed to inform and educate the public on how to avoid contamination and sickness related to salmonella poisoning. A specific source of contamination was not named in the article, but the Public Health Agency is advising the public before something big happens, such as higher than normal outbreaks and even death occurs. The tips included in the article to reduce incidents are frequent hand washing, cleaning food during preparation and washing hands after handling animals.

I think at this point in time the Public Health Agency has done the right thing by providing Canadians with information regarding the prevention of spreading and protecting themselves when it comes to salmonella. Not only can these tips be applied to salmonella but can be useful when trying to prevent and control other bacterial infections, especially with flu season coming in the next few months.