I can't believe

...the blog titles that are still available! This is such an obvious one, for us women who have been round the block a bit...

In the 80s there was a feminist woman's health book called 'Our Bodies, Ourselves'. It had the aim of making women thoroughly familiar with their bodies, bits of which were often only touched by doctors or lovers. It empowered women to take care of their own bodies, informed them of signs and symptoms and their bodies' needs and capacities, relationship aspects and it was a wonderful, uplifting read. I see the book is still around, with a separate edition for the menopause (hmmm, yes, well....), and of course there is a website. Well done, ladies!

The body thing is interesting. Sociologists, of which I am one, I think, take a great interest in the human body and how it links with the mind and social conditions (much as David Levitin, in his book 'This is your brain on music' tries to link the physical aspects of music listening to the generally pleasurable experience of music listening). Sociologically the mind (as opposed to the brain) has an impact on the body - just think of 'I should go for a run' and what happens what you do or don't do. Representations of the body are interesting, too and how they affect people's lives - if you think of people of different appearances, whether they are young, old, black, white, tall, small - these are the first impressions you have of people, and that's how they are generally treated. It would be interesting to know, for example, whether the body of a poor heroin-user clad in rags, and that of a wealthy investment banker cocain user would be treated the same on arriving in A&E. People who undergo medical treatment are often referred to by the carers as 'that appendix over there' or 'that lung cancer' rather than as a person who has these conditions. Much like persons with disabilities are still referred to in some countries out East as 'the disabled', as if the disability defines their whole meaning. (I could go on and on; it's a fascinating subject....)

If this title had not been around, the blog might have been called something like 'Personal Stuff' because that's what it is. It's a split off from Viola in Vilnius on arts and music, and from Good Buy Lenin on general life in Eastern Europe. to cover purely personal stuff, like running, health and all those things that I do not consider typical for Eastern Europe. I'm not planning to go on whinging about health all the time, though.....