여성건강과 성

Women's Health and Sexuality

The purpose of this study is to describe how what influence sexuality has on women's health. Sex is determined by the sex chromosome: but sociocultural norms have much influence on the sex role of a woman or man. Women's sexuality has had a negative impact on them in a male-dominated society, which destroyed women's health, put women in a powerless position and forced them to live as dependent persons. Sociocultural perception of the sex role has not been very open, and very strict rules have controlled those perceptions; but currently these perceptions have been changing dramatically. Especially, women's sex role has changed, bringing about many problems: the number of women engaging in premarital sex, the number of unwed mothers, the number of pregnancies without marriage, the divorce rate, and the number of dysfunctional families have all increased. Those kinds of problems have negative effects on women, children and members of the whole family. Sexually transmitted disease because of free sex is a serious health issue for women: the number of women with AIDS has increased rapidly. Another big issue is sexual abuse, which is insulting to women, decreases women's self-esteem, increases depression, puts women in a powerless position and eventually causes women to get sick. Male-preference (among newborns) ideology raises health issues for women, such as artificial abortion. In the area of sex differentiation, therefore, we have to change people's thinking from male-preference ideology to equal sex preference. Finally, we have to use a holistic approach for women's health and increase awareness of the fact that the sex role and women's health are very important for the family, society and nation. Women's health is the nation's power.