What We Missed
A program in North Carolina is paying girls not to get pregnant. Yeah.
A must-read from Lynn Harris at Broadsheet.
"Feminists remain the enemy in the United States." Don't let the headline fool you...
A trend is growing in Dallas where police officers are giving drivers $200 tickets for not speaking English - all but one of them thus far have been Latino.
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Much cheaper than paying for them to be pregnant and what comes after.
I'm not sure rebranding would be anything more than a temporary fix before a negative connotation became assigned to whatever we changed it to. Breaking a hold on Patriarchy is going to take a long time and it requires a degree of self-reflection and honesty on everyone's part that many are unwilling to brave.
It's too easy to be cowardly.
I'm a college student in NC. I'm not pregnant. $$$$ pleeze.
Damn the failure of the ERA!
Latino implies the "law breakers" in the last story were all male. I believe you would want to use Hispanic.
I worked for a human rights organization in Ecuador that used "latin@" to get around the woman-negation of Spanish.
Nice! Confusing, but effective.
"Hispanic" has it's own issues. http://soaw.org/article.php?id=830
The "proper" way to have written the above would have been "Latinos drivers," since the adjective takes on the plurality of the noun it describes (and the "os" is used for grouping both men and women).
But, yeah, I really hate that women are often erased in languages.
Eh, I didn't encounter the 'word' Latin@(s) until recently. The group I was involved in found it overtly annoying. It is TOO PC.
The correct term for an unknown or plural is Latino and Latinos. It isn't the language's fault so there is not "proper" (there can beno debate about its use) it's just proper and correct.
I find Latin@ as annoying as Womyn and the insertion of "her" where "his" goes such as in history.
I personally use the word Hispanic but that's because I find the word Latina/o ugly phonetically. I just cringe when I hear it. Oddly enough I don't when I hear the word "latin" in Spanish. The a and o just add something that causes a dissonance with my pauvre ears!
I agree about the word "history"
I used "herstory" in an avant gard theatrical piece for creative purposes,
however
I know that His is not referring to male(s) in Greek.
The word, history, being
from Gk. historia "a learning or knowing by inquiry, history, record, narrative," from historein "inquire,"
doesn't need to be fiddled with to be PC . When it is (herstory) unless it's for creative purposes,
it implies a lack of understanding and respect for the origin of the word.
Maybe this comes from my being a guy, or being out of high school for 8 years now...but I see that program as easy money.
Of course, I never got laid even once during high school and absolutely no one was pressuring me, so yeah, I think I'm coming at it from the wrong angle. :-p
If verification were as easy with males, paying teenage boys not to impregnate girls would be a brilliant investment.
Yes, HIGH ROI!!!
I don't see the flaw in that scholarship.
They are not forcing the girls into celibacy, they aren't forcing them into anything. If you want to be a part of the program you agree not to get pregnant upon pain of being kickedout.
They promote sexual health and birth control as well as helping the girls make and meet goals.
Again I'm not seeing a problem with this other than it's tax-payer funded. But if its effective and serves such a dual purpose they should use it in my area too.
I actually have to agree. While there seems to be something unsettling about it to me, I think that overall it sounds like a great program. It provides young women with education on how to finance themselves through college and doesn't promote abstinence only education but instead seems to give comprehensive reproductive education. I think the thing that may be unnerving me is whether they did an actual study to determine if sisters of young teen mothers were more likely to be teen mothers or if that was just an assumption. I think it is a great program and would love to see it available to all but realize that is not fiscally likely and limiting it to those perceived to be in the highest at risk group was an economic necessity. Either way, it's hard to look down on a program that provides comprehensive sex education and information of different avenues of financing a college education as well as a scholarship.
Though the creepiness of paying them not to get pregnant is disturbing. It reminds me of the College Bound program (for low income students who would be first generation college students/graduates), and I think I would be more enthusiastic about it if it operated more like that where they were just given the info and access to BC and a set scholarship for participation over a number of years (2 or 3) as oppose to the "paid not to get pregnant" thing.
And perhaps the article or my reading of it plays up the degree to which non-pregnancy is emphasized. Maybe the program does focus more on positive aspects (safe informed sex, planning for the future, goal setting, education,etc.) than "don't get pregnant." I also think the program can serve as an example of how informing people about all their options and promoting self-esteem and self-knowledge can reduce risky behavior and shed even more light on how counter-productive abstinence-only/shame based education and programs that don't focus on developing the self are.
"I think the thing that may be unnerving me is whether they did an actual study to determine if sisters of young teen mothers were more likely to be teen mothers or if that was just an assumption."
This isn't a new area of research, which is why the program was able to get government funding. The idea from the program came from what the doctor quoted in the article saw it in her own practice but it's also backed up by studies.
The Wise Guys program, which is focused on pregnancy prevention for young men, was also created in Greensboro and is now replicated in communities across the country--mainly through schools. (http://www.wiseguysnc.org/)
We're a little teen pregnancy-focused around here. ;)
Thanks for the info.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the program. But it implies that getting pregnant is this really uncontrollable urge. It would be like giving all Latinos a tax break for not dealing cocaine for a year. What is that saying to Latinos? That they can't go a year without dealing drugs unless they get paid? So this program reinforces a stereotype that young women are irresponsible with their sex lives. It also assumes that all young women are straight. Lesbian and asexual women would be getting paid for basically doing nothing.
It would be just like that! This program is a slap in the face at heterosexuals, and the relationship between girls and pregnancy is in some way analogous to the relationship between latinos and drug dealing. Shut it down!
HOW?! WHy is it wrong to give an incentive for NOT getitng pregnant when there are schoalrships EXCLUSIVELY for girls who DID get pregnant and are raising their babies?
Come on people, no one is saing they can't have sex!!!! They teach them comprehensive sex ed for crying out loud.
What would you have them do, give money to EVERYBODY (and in a recession the common sense answer is that's impossible) or contnue what they are doing and giving scholarships t these young girls for something that is easy to attain? Merit based scholarships are hard to come by, povertybased scholarships can be even harder now in a recession because so many people qualify but there isn't enough money for everyone. THIS scholarship helps prevent unwanted pregnancies and I ust dont see the logic in disliking somethign that accomplishes that without forcing clibacy on others.
Were you responding to Backofbuseleven or to me? Because I can't speak for him or her, but I was being sarcastic.
I was responding to you thinking you were serious. I'm glad you weren't. Please accept my "oops" and apology.
Sure.
Don't be cute. Women get pregnant, but they don't do that all by their little selves. Where's the money for the boys who don't impregnate girls? Nowhere, because society absolves the teenage boys of any responsibility for their sex lives. "Boys will boys," and boys are supposed to like sex. Girls are held responsible for "getting themselves pregnant." This program wouldn't exist if we held everyone responsible for their own sex lives. This program reinforces sexist stereotypes against young women, plain and simple.
If you seriously can't understand that pregnant girls show and then give birth to babies while boys who get girls pregnant don't, you need a lot more help than I'm able to give you.
North Carolina engages in reverse prostitution, completely missing the point and still focusing on what is between a woman's legs instead of if she is academically deserving of a scholarship.
There are scholarships for things other than academic achievement these days. Lots of them.
It's not "reverse prostitution" because the requirement is not to get pregnant, not to remain celibate:
"There's a controversial program in North Carolina that gives money to girls upon their enrollment in college, with the only stipulation that they not get pregnant while in the program."
Which is precisely why some are critical:
"Abstinence is not required of participants -- the program offers information on both birth control and safe sex, which doesn't sit well with those who support abstinence-only education. Others believe the government should not pay teens to do what's in their own self-interest."
It sounds like comprehensive sex ed, encouraging ambition and opportunity for young women, PLUS money for not getting pregnant.
It sounds great. My only objection is that it is only available to girls. It encourages girls not to get pregnant, but does not reach out to boys at all. The only reason I can think of that they would make the program exclusively for girls is because if a girl gets pregnant and decides to go through with the pregnancy, it'd be obvious and, thus, easier to kick her out of the program. Whereas if a boy knocks someone up, the organizers would never know about it unless someone told them.
"My only objection is that it is only available to girls."
This particular program is only for girls, and one reason is probably for what you mention. How is a boy supposed to prove he is not getting any girls pregnant, anytime, anywhere, in order to prove eligibility for funding for education?
There are other programs and scholarships for boys, and only boys, even "at risk" boys. The only problem with this program would be if it were seen as only considering girls the problem for being pregnant.
I'm a feminist and a foster parent and I would gladly fund a program like the one above. There are so many barriers to birth control for young women in extreme poverty. If I ran the world, there would be free access to birth control and financial incentives to use it.
We adopted our daughter out of foster care when she was two (she came to us when she was three months old). She is eligible for Medicaid until she is 21! Man, that would buy a lot of Nuva-Rings. And that's just a small part of the cost of one child coming into foster care.
More importantly, incentivized access to birth control would have spared her mother the trauma of losing her daughter and spared my daughter the trauma of losing her mother.
What?! Law enforcement officers are now enforcing a law that doesn't exist. Great, so they're both trustworthy *and* well educated within their field. This kind of blatant and hyper-illegal discrimination makes me ashamed to be from Texas.
Police offers aren't lawyers. It is painfully easy to become a cop, and astoundingly, one can do so with limited knowledge of the law. More than likely, this was happening because the cops were bigoted assholes, but the reason it was even able to happen is because they probably, honestly did not know that it is not illegal to drive while not speaking English.
Like in Austin, it is perfectly legal for women to go topless in public. But they are still arrested for it. Why? Because cops don't know that it isn't illegal. It's a sad state of affairs, and something needs to be done to make sure that cops know the law before trying to enforce it.
So, you can be topless in Texas but you cant have more than six dildos?
So, you can be topless in Texas but you cant have more than six dildos?
Actually, they finally did away with the law concerning dildos a couple years ago and the top-free thing only applies to Austin.
I've worked with College Bound Sisters and--as with the most effective pregnancy prevention programs--the primary focus is not on sex. It's about making sure these younger sisters of teen moms know that they have many options in life. They go to educational programs, have speakers on a variety of topics, and go on field trips and college tours. At its core, it's a women's empowerment program.
And yes, the money is an incentive to come to the program initially. But there are plenty of easier ways to make cash if that was the only goal. (The teen in the article is getting $2000 for being in the program for six years.)
Is that "Yeah" supposed to be sarcastic?
First of all how is the program supposed to know if any of the women get pregnant but then get an abortion.
Is this program going to be doing monthly check ups on the girls to make sure they are not pregnant?
Why are they not incentivizing the boys who get the girls pregnant? Oh wait I forgot, children are the concern of women not men.
It's obvious why the program's aimed at girls. Females are the ones who carry the child and are the ones primarily responsible for childcare. No one is saying, "You boy-child, go ahead and procreate, it's not your responsibility." or anything of that caliber. The girls would not only have the burden of pregnancy but a child/childcare which impedes education.
I'm not saying there aren't boys nor men who do not take care of their children when the mothers scaddle, don't take care of the child but it's self-evident to me.
"Why are they not incentivizing the boys who get the girls pregnant? Oh wait I forgot, children are the concern of women not men."
Because the program is exclusively for women...As Aleks writes above, while it would be a very good idea to incent boys not to impregnate girls, it would be virtually impossible to enforce...why so reflexively ideological???
You must be some sort of MRA.
Ask your doctor to explain the difference between a pregnant girl with a baby growing inside her and a boy who's impregnated a girl but is not himself pregnant, and has no fetus inside him. Expect to hear he words "showing," "glowing," "morning sickness" and "childbirth".
Just like to point out that, on the Dallas story, the Dallas PD is refunding everyone who got slapped with that fee (something I know from following the story locally). So "growing trend" is misleading.
That doesn't make the cops who gave the fine any smarter, or the traffic courts that collected the fees any less complicit in discrimination. But it's not a growing threat; it's an embarrassment.
This is the gov't, since when do bureaucrats take time to care???...though in this case I doubt that they were even aware. The vast majority of traffic tickets are handled without the direct intervention of the courts...and certainly the cops' supervisers aren't going to review tickets all day.
I don't see anything wrong with giving girls money for not getting pregnant. Especially when it is coupled with information of how not to get pregnant outside of abstinence education. Even more importantly when they would not be getting that information anywhere else
I don't see anything wrong with giving girls money for not getting pregnant. Especially when it is coupled with information of how not to get pregnant outside of abstinence education. Even more importantly when they would not be getting that information anywhere else
I'm not really sure how I feel on the College Bound Sisters, on one hand I like nearly everything that they do - birth control information, opening up options for women to consider college, supporting them, etc. etc. but somehow the idea strikes me as possibly being punishing to the girls and young women that still become pregnant by taking away another opportunity for them to get an education, a financial avenue, and a support network. That isn't something I can find myself getting 100% behind. Then again, I think that if a young woman was ambivalent about birth control, feeling pregnancy as a teenager was inevitable, then an incentive sounds pretty good to me. I agree with the one girl, saying "just don't get pregnant" might not be enough.
Well unwed mothers do get more money from the government to go to college, so I guess it's fair to pay women for NOT getting pregnant. Like, my sister was technically an unwed mother, though she lived with the father, and she got a ton of money for college for being an "unwed mother" but I didn't get jack shit because I knew how to not get pregnant. Don't get me wrong, I DO think single mothers should get some financial help with college, but I like this program too. It encourages women to be smart about sex.
I'm getting a lot of anger from your response about your sister getting money for college, implying that she was stupid to get pregnant, that you were somehow not given your fair share despite being "smart." Maybe that wasn't your intent, but that reaction is exactly why I feel uncomfortable with this program, because it puts up a "smart girls don't get pregnant and go to college!" vs. "stupid girls get pregnant and lose everything." It isn't 'only fair' considering how much more time, money and energy go into raising children and how much that can directly impact their ability to complete high school or go to college. Complaining about others who do have more needs getting more financial aid is not a way to win me over to this program.
Even though it may not be "correct"...I too feel similar when it comes to my sister. I'm careful about birth control, and if it failed I have already decided I'll have an abortion. Having kids isn't right for me right now as I'm trying to get myself through school. My sister got pregnant right out of high school. The guy was really young and not ready and suggested an abortion. She now likes to tell people how the father wanted to "kill" the baby but she did the right thing--I guess she wants sympathy? I don't know. She lives with my parents who support her, babysit, etc. and she's taking classes partly because she knows if she didn't she'd have to get a job. She gets a ton of financial aid because she's a single mom! So simply because she didn't take birth control/use condoms (and my parents offered to put her on birth control when they suspected she was sexually active...she refused because she said she "wasn't having sex")..she gets extra scholarships, financial aid, freebies--but me, who knows that having a baby isn't right for me and is doing what I need to do not to have one--I don't get anything?
And nothing against my sister really...I try to respect all choices...but she regularly forgets to buy baby formula, pushes the care on my parents, and often complains about how now she can't see her friends. When I (being the pain in the ass sister that I am) respond that she made the decision to have the baby and she knew it would be a big responsibility she just says well at least I didn't kill it like you wanted me to. (My family is very anti-choice...not sure what happened because I am very pro-choice now)...
So yeah...I do think that for those who don't have babies should also get some sort of scholarship! As long as it is also helping to provide info on birth control/condoms and abortion I think this could be a good thing.
Don't mock. According to local news reports on College Bound Sisters, almost 20,000 teens got pregnant in N.C. last year. This program doesn't just badger girls to not have sex like abstinence-only programs do - they offer a great deal of support. Most importantly, College Bouond Sisters communicates to young women that they have a great deal of potential beyond getting pregnant at age 15.
Yes, I know a teenaged pregnancy isn't automatically a lifetime poverty sentence for every single girl. But you have to consider this in context. Our state's high school dropout rate is shameful, and poverty (particularly in Guilford County, where CBS is based) is crippling. For *these* girls, the program is about breaking a cycle, not shaming teen sex or pregnancy.
I have a serious problem with this.
First off, it's not really about the intent of the program or whatnot ... to be frank I haven't made up my mind if the program itself is a good thing or bad thing.
But there's something else that struck me about it right away, before I really had a chance to.
It's not a national program, it's just some program somewhere in a state.
If it's not a national program, it could be used to target certain demographics by applying it only in certain areas. Ethnic, class, etc. Paying some groups not to have kids isn't something I would support, so I'd seriously oppose anything like this that wasn't a national plan.
It's true, any community that is dependent on their teenagers getting pregnant could suffer severely.
What is with you aleks? You've been responding so sarcastically and aggressively to everyone who comments on this scholarship thing. Devon is talking about the possibility of people targeting certain groups to not have children based on whatever prejudice might exist. Example: Black teens are having babies, let's pay them to stop! White kids having babies, keep on truckin'!
This is a real concern that you have dismissed with your sarcasm and exaggeration (communities that depend on teens getting pregnant, really?). You are not contributing to a dialogue between opposing viewpoints, but are trying to silence people.
I fail to see how the government is going to advantage whites and hold back blacks by encouraging blacks to achieve adulthood and get educated before having babies. Do you think African Americans (to use the example you threw out) would really be disadvantaged by a lower teen pregnancy rate, so that this would make sense as a racist plot?
I wonder how many of the girls are saving that money in a "just in case I need to pay for an abortion" fund?
Then North Carolina still won't have to pay for their children. The house always wins.
I can't decide if the nauseous feeling that hit my stomach when I read the first article was from the content or just my lunch having a negative after effect.
I don't particularly disagree with the idea. But, the fact that there's money involved does seem a little...flawed. The sarcastic part of me wants to say "well shit, I didn't get pregnant while in college, where's my money?". Then the more reasonable part of me says "remember that time in 9th grade bio lab when you watched the miracle of life video? and you had to leave during the birth because it made you vomit? I'd say that solidified you're stance on pregnancy and avoiding it."
I digress a little.
Regardless, I think that the program could've been done differently. Maybe try giving these girls a chance at finding a hobby or two...or three? But again, money for college doesn't hurt either. Especially since college is so damn expensive these days.
I'm really undecided on my stance I guess.
This.
What about the boys and men who are reproducing with teen girls? Once again, the onus is placed on girls to be the gatekeepers, and it's girls who'll miss out and be judged if there's a contraceptive failure or a rape.
Yeah, the boys are getting off easy here, if they father children they won't lose out on any of the money they're automatically ineligible for because the program is for girls..
Since guys don't get any of the money that single moms do, I don't think it makes much of a difference. Not that I don't agree that there should be some sort of program also aimed at boys and safe sex, but I think this is at least a start. And the girls who do get pregnant and choose to keep the baby get the money that is out there for single moms...so really this program would just do something as well for girls who don't have babies...
There is nothing wrong with this program in and of itself. But I'm still not sure I can get behind it just like I can't get behind programs that give inner city kids money for getting a library card. Sure both programs aim to help cut down on a societal problem, but it seems like this program is mocking young women at the same time in a "they don't know any better, so let's give them some money because that's the only way they'll put their education first."
Not to mention the implication that your (education) future will be ruined if you have a baby before 25.
And if you going to be rude aleks don't bother responding.
Some of those programs were really all tehy needed.
I mean seriously, if you can look at abstinence only as a waste because "TEH TEENZ WILL HAVE TEH SEXZ!!!!" then surely it makes sense to give them an incentive for joining a program that not only teaches comprehensive sex ed but gives them something to look forward to for adhering to the knowledge they have learned.
Well I think abstinence eduction is a waste not because "TEH TEEZ WILL HAVE TEH SEXZ!!!!" but because the program is all about keeping information and knowledge from children.
And as some one asked before: what happens if the woman has a contraception failure, or is raped? Well then I guess she's just out of luck, too bad so sad. No more scholarship money for you, then again McDonald's is always hiring.