Recently in Education Category

Just a quick note to any Rutgers students out there who happen to be readers of the blog. I'm teaching a class this fall for the Women's and Gender Studies program: Gender and Popular Culture. I'm really excited to re-connect with my academic roots, and to get to hang with some of the smartest students around (yeah, I'm not exactly objective having gotten my MA at Rutgers, but whatevs). So if you go to Rutgers and want to talk feminism and pop culture, sign up for the class...see you the fall!

A new study, the largest of its kind, shows that girls are equally as skilled in math as boys. (And the anti-feminists cry.)

Sixteen years after Barbie dolls declared, "Math class is tough!" girls are proving that when it comes to math they are just as tough as boys.

In the largest study of its kind, girls measured up to boys in every grade, from second through 11th. The research was released Thursday in the journal Science.

Parents and teachers persist in thinking boys are simply better at math, said Janet Hyde, the University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher who led the study. And girls who grow up believing it wind up avoiding harder math classes.

"It keeps girls and women out of a lot of careers, particularly high-prestige, lucrative careers in science and technology," Hyde said.

Via Alas, a Blog.

Jessica Yee, who has occasionally contributed posts to Feministing, writes on Racialicious (original post at Shameless) about 5 year old Adriel Arocha who is being banned from his Houston-area kindergarten class. Why, you ask?

As an Apache, he has long hair that he has been growing in his Native cultural tradition that "violates" this school's dress code rules.

The kicker though is that the school board is willing to make exceptions on religious or other "proven" moral grounds, but doesn't think that being Native American cuts it.

Yee points out that growing your hair is a tradition in many Indigenous cultures: "Long hair carries our life experiences and reminds us about the teachings we've received along the way."

But apparently that's not good enough for Superintendent Curtis Rhodes, who says, "I was trying to find out what recognized religion they are that discusses they cannot cut their hair and the information I received then was basically it's their choice." Sounds like a real charmer. If you want to give Rhodes a piece of your mind, his contact information is here.

What a dick. A Boston Herald op-ed covers this "Horribles parade" in MA:

At this year’s Horribles parade in Beverly Farms, the biggest laughs - and loudest complaints - were inspired by a float mocking the “Give It Up” girls of Gloucester High. Ladies from “The Fahm” adorned themselves in fake baby bumps and danced to “I Got It From My Momma.” Guys tossed condoms and waved signs rhyming words in a decidedly family-unfriendly manner.

Pretty horrendous, no? Apparently, this guy thinks it's appropriate to shame the pregnant students at Gloucester High:

..Other communities and families send a far clearer message condemning teen sex. There are 15-year-olds who know that if they make the wrong choice, they will be greeted with embarrassment and disappointment, not on-campus day care.

When the same girl shows up at the school clinic for five pregnancy tests in one month, shouldn’t somebody be mocking her for it? In fact, isn’t promoting shame through mockery our civic duty? (Emphasis mine)

He also condemns comprehensive sex ed supporters for rejecting the use of shame as a value and tactic to woo kids away from sex.

I'm actually glad the author published this, because at least he's exposing the truth by standing proud to what the abstinence-only movement feeds on.

Talk about shame.

h/t to Emmeline.

I'm ashamed to admit this is four days overdue. But better late than never. Monday, June 23rd marked the 36th - yes 36th - anniversary of Title IX, the U.S. law stating that "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."

Title IX has been largely associated with the rights of girls and women's to participate in sports in school, but most don't know there's 9 other issue areas that are really important:

• Access to Higher Education
• Career Education
• Education of Pregnant and Parenting Teens
• Employment
• Learning Environment
• Math & Science
• Sexual Harassment
• Standardized Testing
• Technology

In the meantime, check out Courtney's Thank You Thursday to Title IX and all of the wonderful stories in comments of how Title IX affected Feministing readers. Feel free to add more in comments here.

Moon Duchin, a 1993 Westinghouse finalist, is one cool woman. After Duchin's success in high school, she went on to Harvard to study math and kick some patriarchal ass:

[B]ut even as she pursued a fairly traditional track for a promising young mathematician, she was becoming suspicious of the traditional great "Men of Mathematics" (to quote a famous book title) concept. "Does it hinge on specific people or is it inevitable it will come out that way?" she asks. The Great Man model of a genius working alone in his garret "started to seem like it was obscuring some of the important community aspects of mathematics, and like it was controlling who would even think to enter the field," she says. Duchin stuck it out because of her 7-year-old dream and "adolescent stubbornness," but "it wasn't always easy to see my way through. Meanwhile, I'd picked up an enduring interest in cultural practices and philosophical issues in science."

So at Harvard, Duchin wound up double majoring in math and women's studies. She did a mathematics research thesis, and also one for the women's studies department looking at "Why the notion of genius is so attractive with thinking about math and how it functions, and what it does to math as a field," she says. "Lots of people think this is a non-social field—would math come out differently in a society with a different social organization?" While she's not trying to debunk the existence of genius ("there really are people you meet in math and you learn about who just synthesize things in ways that other people don't have access to with any investment of time"), the Great Man theory "definitely stilts the narrative. A real intellectual history is harder to do but it illuminates the math very differently."

Oh, and if that isn't enough to win you over - Rush Limbaugh once called her a feminist ringleader in one of his trademark rants. Hot.

Thanks to David for the story!

Time magazine has a story about a Massachusetts high school that has apparently started a trend among their girls – to be mommies:

As summer vacation begins, 17 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies—more than four times the number of pregnancies the 1,200-student school had last year.

After some digging, school officials found that almost half of the pregnant students had actually made a pact to get pregnant and raise their kids together. But the school still isn’t willing to offer contraception to their students. And Time implies that meeting teen mothers’ needs in the school may be the problem:

The high school has done perhaps too good a job of embracing young mothers. Sex-ed classes end freshman year at Gloucester, where teen parents are encouraged to take their children to a free on-site day-care center. Strollers mingle seamlessly in school hallways among cheerleaders and junior ROTC. "We're proud to help the mothers stay in school," says Sue Todd, CEO of Pathways for Children, which runs the day-care center.(Emphasis mine)

So is that the solution? Stigmatizing teen mothers and denying them an education? Blaming the prevalence of teen pregnancy in a school on sex ed and family-friendly school policies and denying birth control to sexually active students is definitely not going to help this situation.

The school’s nurse practitioner Kim Daly and the school’s clinic medical director Dr. Brian Orr actually attempted to get permission to offer birth control to the students, but were shut down with what seems like a "How dare you??" response. Mayor Carolyn Kirk said, "Dr. Orr and Ms. Daly have no right to decide this for our children." What the mayor doesn’t seem to understand is that it wouldn’t be their decision at all, but the students’. Both Daly and Orr resigned in protest.

There’s obviously a lot to address at this school and in the community, but the focus of blame is in the wrong direction.

Thanks to all the readers who alerted us to this story!

A new study from the CDC shows that teen sex may be creeping up, while condom use is decreasing, The Washington Post reports.

The new report did not examine the reason for the trends, but experts said there could be many causes, including rising complacency about AIDS, changing attitudes about sex and pregnancy, shifts in ethnic diversity and the possibility that there will always be some teens who cannot be convinced to wait.

"The truth is that as a field we really don't know what the answer is," [Sarah S. Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy] said. "There are lots of theories: the economy, classroom education, the messages kids are getting in the digital world where they spend their time. They probably all play a role."

But the new figures renewed the heated debate about sex education classes that focus on abstinence until marriage, which began receiving federal funding during the period covered by the latest survey and have come under increasing criticism that they are ineffective.

In other words, teaching kids that condoms cause cancer and don't work may be mucking things up. (Not to mention raising a generation that thinks bleach and Mountain Dew are acceptable contraceptives.)

"Since we've started pushing abstinence, we have seen no change in the numbers on sexual activity," said John Santelli, chairman of the Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia University. "The other piece of it is abstinence education spends a good amount of time bashing condoms. So it's not surprising, if that's the message young people are getting, that we're seeing condom use start to decrease."

Abstinence proponents' response? It's Carrie's fault!

"It's highly ironic this comes out right after the launch of the biggest movie of the season, which is 'Sex in the City.' The No. 1 movie that all teenage girls want to see right now is 'Sex in the City,' " said Charmaine Yoest of the Family Research Council. "Our culture continues to tell them the way to be cool is to dress provocatively and to consider non-marital sexual activity to be normative."

Never mind that the gals of Sex in the City are middle aged and, you know, fictional. Oh, and non-marital sexual activity is normative. Time for a new sound bite, perhaps?

For more information on comprehensive sex education (you know, the kind that works), check out Advocates for Youth and SIECUS.

Here's some baffling news. The Boston Globe reports in "The freedom to say 'no'," that women "just aren't interested" in science and engineering.

When it comes to certain math- and science-related jobs, substantial numbers of women - highly qualified for the work - stay out of those careers because they would simply rather do something else.

Huh. For folks who "aren't interested" in the sciences, we sure do seem to be winning a lot of awards in the field. In fact, the top three prize winners in this year's prestigious Intel International Science and Engineering Fair were all girls.

Pictured above, Sana Raoof, 17, of Muttontown, N.Y., Yi-Han Su, 17, of Taipei and Natalie Saranga Omattage, 17, of Cleveland, Miss., won for projects on the Computation of the Alexander-Conway Polynomial on the Chord Diagrams of Singular Knots, Efficient Hydrogen Production Using Cu-Zn-Al Catalysts Prepared by Homogeneous Precipitation Method, and Development of Biosensors for Detecting Hazardous Chemicals, respectively. Whew. What was that again about girls not liking science?

Thanks to Cathy for the link!

Parents in Schenectady, NY are up in arms because the sex education in their school district dares to talk about sexuality as if it was a good thing. The nerve!

Several Fonda-Fultonville school district residents on Tuesday criticized the use of a Planned Parenthood educator to conduct sex education classes for seventh- and eighth-graders beginning today.

The parents said they had collected 163 signatures of residents opposing the introduction of Planned Parenthood materials or organization-developed instruction in the school.

...Deborah Young said she started researching Planned Parenthood education guidelines and found passages that suggested masturbation is a source of pleasure.

“I went in, I could not believe what I saw,� Young said. (Emphasis mine)

Seriously, how dare an educator tell the truth about sexuality! Where's the shaming and misinformation about how sex is dirty, wrong and bad?!

Despite the fact that the PP educator has already been instructed not to mention abortion (at all), people are still concerned.

Dr. Michael Rochet, a physician, said the school district should search for alternatives for Planned Parenthood programming because he believes the instruction will facilitate curiosity among students.

“It will lead to more sexual activity,� he said.

Sure it will. Never mind that this particular county has the second-highest teen pregnancy rate in the state, much better that they stick to abstinence only education and pretend they've done their job.

Thanks to Liz for the link.

A new report (pictured at right) from the American Association of University Women says that the idea that there's a "boy crisis" in U.S. education is a myth. (Cough, cough.)

The most important conclusion of "Where the Girls Are: The Facts About Gender Equity in Education" is that academic success is more closely associated with family income than with gender, its authors said.

"A lot of people think it is the boys that need the help," co-author Christianne Corbett said. "The point of the report is to highlight the fact that that is not exclusively true. There is no crisis with boys. If there is a crisis, it is with African American and Hispanic students and low-income students, girls and boys."

Of course, the original media frenzy wasn't exactly focused on kids of color, but instead featured magazine covers with sad looking white boys and complaints about young men having to deal with the horrors of a supposedly feminized education system. Let's hope this report will set some of that straight, and put the educational focus where it really needs to be.

New York currently has no designated funding stream for comprehensive sex education in schools, but the Healthy Teens Act will make information available to fund sex education in the state. This means school districts, BOCES, school-based health centers and community-based organizations would be able to apply for grants to develop and implement programs that will give students real sex ed.

So if you're a New Yorker, let Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno know that New York schools need support for comprehensive sex ed.

Washington University students and faculty turned their backs to Phyllis Schlafly, as a form of silent protest, as she received an honorary degree at the school's commencement.

The crowd was mostly quiet as [Trustee emerita Margaret Bush] Wilson introduced Schlafly to the crowd. Hundreds of graduates and faculty stood and turned their backs during the introduction. A few of the faculty even walked off the stage to turn their backs.

Awesome! If anyone has pictures, please send them in!

The protesters, who Schlafly called "a bunch of losers" and "bitter women," also started a website to tell the Washington University community how they could join in on the action.

Several days ago, Chancellor Mark Wrighton apologized for the "anguish" the decision to give Schlafly a degree caused, and noted that the school is not endorsing her views or opinions. (They're just honoring them, is all.)

UPDATE: I've received an email from Michael Murphy of Washington University's Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program - he tells me the article grossly underestimated the number of people protesting. He estimated that about 75 percent of the 2800 graduates and two-thirds of the other members of the crowd turned their backs in protest.

Here's a partial video, and some pics.

Phyllis Schlafly, who is set to receive an honorary degree from Washington University this week has reiterated her support of marital rape. (Because, sorry, if you think that women who have gotten married have don't have a right to refuse sex - you are supporting rape.)

In an interview with Washington University's student newspaper, Schlafly held her anti-woman ground:

Could you clarify some of the statements that you made in Maine last year about martial rape?

I think that when you get married you have consented to sex. That's what marriage is all about, I don't know if maybe these girls missed sex ed. That doesn't mean the husband can beat you up, we have plenty of laws against assault and battery. If there is any violence or mistreatment that can be dealt with by criminal prosecution, by divorce or in various ways. When it gets down to calling it rape though, it isn't rape, it's a he said-she said where it's just too easy to lie about it.

Was the way in which your statement was portrayed correct?

Yes. Feminists, if they get tired of a husband or if they want to fight over child custody, they can make an accusation of marital rape and they want that to be there, available to them.

So you see this as more of a tool used by people to get out of marriages than as legitimate-

Yes, I certainly do.

Find out how can you can contact Washington University about this honorary degree nonsense here.

Via Right Wing Watch.

Judy Norsigian is co-founder of the Boston Women's Health Book Collective and co-author of the ground breaking Our Bodies, Ourselves published in 1970. Since its publication, women's groups around the world have developed cultural adaptations of, or other publications inspired by, Our Bodies, Ourselves. Most recently, women's groups in Albania, Russia, South Korea, and Tibet have produced new publications in book and other formats. Judy is also the co-author of Our Bodies, Ourselves: Menopause and most recently, Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth. Check out the Our Bodies, Ourselves blog when you can: http://ourbodiesourblog.org/

Judy speaks and writes frequently on a wide range of women's health concerns, including abortion and contraception, sexually transmitted infections, genetics and reproductive technologies, tobacco and women, women and health care reform, and midwifery advocacy.

Here's Judy...

Washington University announced last week that they are giving Phyllis Schlafly, professional anti-feminist, an honorary doctorate degree. The release calls Schlafly "a national leader of the conservative movement." What they fail to mention however, is that she is also an anti-feminist leader who believes married women can't be raped ("By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape."), that there should be bans on women working in nontraditional fields (like construction work or firefighting), and - oh yeah - that the ERA is dangerous.

I guess it should come as no surprise then that professional misogynist Chris Matthews is actually set to give the university's commencement address before Schlafly is honored.

Thankfully, the Washington University community is fighting back.

Students have set up a Facebook group, “No honorary doctorate for anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly,� with over 1100 members at last count.

Several postings suggested that students boycott fund raising drives by the university to protest the honor for Schlafly. The group’s information states: “Do her views fit with the future the men and women of Wash U’s graduating class see for themselves and their peers? Probably not. Then why honor her with them? Wouldn’t having someone like her in the midst of Wash U’s female graduates be incongruous at best, offensive at worst?�

Mary Ann Dzuback, director of women’s and gender studies at Washington University, and an associate professor of education and history, said that professors were stunned and angered to learn of the planned honor last week. “The university has completely disregarded the concerns about anybody who cares about full and equal rights for women, who cares about the intellectual quality of feminist debate, and who cares about women’s desire to enter the work force,� Dzuback said.

Dzuback went onto say that she wouldn't be against Schlafly being invited to lecture at the school, but that honoring her is something quite different: “This tells the world that this administration thinks so highly of the honoree that they give her the highest degrees the university can give, the highest degree of respect. And that is deeply troubling...This is a woman who has spent her whole career arguing against full rights for women." Nice message to send the female student body, right?

Some students who emailed me (thanks all!) about this, are encouraging folks to email Chancellor Wrighton and Jane Stone, coordinator of the Board of Trustees. If any Washington University students out there want to keep us updated, we'd be grateful!

Less than a week after the annual Day of Silence action, a principal in Memphis displayed a list of couples in the high school -- including gay couples, outing some of the students. The ACLU is suing the school on behalf of two of the students.

In September of 2007, the principal at Hollis F. Price Middle College High told teachers she wanted the names of all student couples, "hetero and homo," because she wanted to monitor them personally to prevent students from engaging in public displays of affection. The two students now represented by the ACLU, Andrew and Nicholas (who have asked that their last names not be revealed), were two A students who had been seeing each other for a short time and were attempting to keep their relationship quiet and private. The principal heard about them through another student, then wrote their names on a list she posted next to her desk, in full view of anyone who entered her office.

ABC News reports,

"I really feel that my personal privacy was invaded," Nicholas, one of the young men who claims his sexuality was exposed without his approval by his principal, told ABC News' Memphis affiliate Eyewitness News Everywhere. "I mean, Principal Beasley called my mother and outted me to my mother!"

"It was actually frightening," Nicholas said of the incident, which occurred in Fall 2007, "to see a list with my name on it where not just other teachers could see but students as well."

Of course it was frightening, giving recent events like the murder of 15-year-old Lawrence King, who was killed by a classmate because he was non-gender-conforming. And a recent report shows anti-gay hate crimes remain a big problem in Tennessee.

The principal, Daphne Beasley, says she made the list of couples in an effort to combat public displays of affection. (Related news this week: Some people are so upset by gay couples kissing in public that they think it's necessary to involve the police.) Beasley claims it was a "personal call list" used to notify parents (which, hello!, is problematic in itself), and it was never posted publicly. But the ACLU says the list was highly visible in her office.

[ACLU lawyer Christine] Sun, who told ABCNEWS.com that she believes the Memphis school district to be "homophobic," said that Nicholas' mother — who was "shocked" to hear that her son is gay — reported that Beasley said she "had a problem with homosexuality" and that "homosexuality will not be tolerated."

Advocates for Youth has issued an action alert, and is encouraging people to write to the Memphis City school board to demand that policies be implemented to protect students from future harassment by school staff.

For more on making schools a safe space for students of all sexualities and gender presentations, check out GLSEN. GenderYOUTH also does great work, and right now they're conducting a survey of how schools and campuses are doing in terms of prohibiting discrimination and promoting awareness of gender identity and expression. Click here to tell them what's going on at your school.

Some bad news via Female Impersonator:

At the beginning of the semester, there was an incident here at Yale involving a "fraternity prank" and the Women's Center where 12 members of the Zeta Psi frat stood in front of the Women's Center chanting "dick dick dick dick" while holding a sign saying "We Love Yale Sluts." Quite the incident.

On Monday, the Executive Committee of Yale College found the members of this group not guilty of intimdiation [sic] and harassment charges. No charges of sexual harassment were ever filed, even though complaints were issued with the Sexual Harassment Grievance Board.

The men also intimidated women trying to enter the center. But I guess that's not harassment, huh? One of the harassed women penned an article for the college paper, noting that she has no recourse to appeal the decision and that "all 12 brothers of Zeta Psi were allowed to read my written affidavit before they wrote their own — 12 iterations of the same collective story." Charming.

Thanks to Kari for the link.

Latoya at Racialicious has a roundup of recent incidents of blatant racism on college campuses -- particularly op-eds written in college newspapers. And here at Feministing, we've written about some pretty appallingly sexist commentary in the campus press. (People send us links to craptacular college op-eds all the time.)

One thing these articles and incidents have in common is that they often purport to be satire -- as in, "who would believe that I really want to declare war on all Asian Americans?" To be sure, there's a fine line between satirizing racism/sexism and perpetuating it. But these columns weren't printed in a known satirical publication (like the Onion). They were printed alongside straightforward opinions and reported news. And majority of these writers don't even walk that thin line between satire and hate. It's so far over the line as to make the "it was satire!" excuse completely ridiculous. The language is often incredibly violent. And it is invariably directed at poor people, people of color, women, disabled people, etc. (Huh. Wonder why that is??)

I think there are a number of reasons why college campus media provide such awful examples of straight-up racism/sexism thinly cloaked in "humor." The writers and editors are (relatively speaking) inexperienced. The audience is (perceived to be) rather small. And, chiefly, there is this idea of the Op-Ed section of the paper as a free-for-all zone. I know it was when I worked at the campus paper, and chatting with some college newspaper editors at a journalism school recently, I don't think much has changed. Most newspapers take pains to hire columnists with a "range of views," and those columnists are given free reign to write whatever they want and offend whomever they choose. (Heck, that's practically the point of the op-ed pages, isn't it?! -- kidding, folks.) And some editors seem to believe that opinions can't be held to the same standard of "fact" as news articles are. Just read what the editors of the CU Campus Press, which published a hate-filled screed about Asian people, said about the incident:

Since September, three University of Georgia professors have resigned amid sexual harassment complaints; the administration was faulted for not responding quickly enough. So what better speaker to bring in for UGA's graduation ceremony than U.S Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas?

The university announced Friday that Thomas would be the commencement speaker, setting off rounds of angry and frustrated e-mails between faculty members. Thomas, a Georgia native, faced a bitterly contested confirmation process for his appointment to the Supreme Court in 1991 after his former employee, Anita Hill, accused him of sexual harassment.

Some faculty members said they were outraged that the university would ask Thomas to speak when UGA has been facing criticism that administrators have been slow to address sexual harassment complaints filed against faculty members.

"What a slap in the face this is to everyone who has been working to bring to light the realities of sexual harassment, and to establish appropriate methods and offices for addressing this significant problem on our campus," Chris Cuomo, director of UGA's Institute for Women's Studies, told The Red & Black student newspaper.

Via Think Progress.

Much thanks to Radigals of the Women's and Gender Studies Dept at Rutgers University for inviting me to return to my old stomping grounds (I got my BA there) and speak at their conference this weekend, "Feminism, the Body and Technology."

I had the pleasure not only to speak for the lovely ladies of the official Undergraduate Women's and Gender Studies Association, but to learn more about how the program has been since I left and all the wonderful work these kick-ass women are doing. Check out their MySpace page for more info.

Well, this is depressing.

According the South African Human Rights Commission, sexual assault has become so pervasive in schools that children as young as 7 are playing games such as "rape me rape me" and simulate sexual assault on each other.

Their findings, which took over a year to complete, were made primarily in the Western Cape province. According to the report, fifth of all sexual assaults on young people occur at school. A survey of 1,227 female students who were victims of sexual assault found that nearly 9% of them had been attacked by teachers. The commission also found a growing trend called "corrective rape," where boys justify sexual assault on lesbian girls by claiming that it would "make them" straight. Unreal.

Check out the commission's findings here.

Bad first: A Florida House committee passed an Unborn Victims of Violence Act that defines an "unborn child" as "a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb" and removes all language around viability.

The good news: The Oklahoma House voted by a tiny margin to reject a bill that would require parental consent before students receive sex education. They currently already send "opt out" forms to parents of children enrolled in classes that provide sex ed.

In response to the New York Times piece about gender-segregated public education, I encourage you to read this smart explanation of exactly why Leonard Sax is full of it, brought to you by education expert (and feminist!) Sara Mead. She also explains the important difference between single-sex and gender-based education.

My colleague Dana Goldstein also had some smart things to say about that distinction. She also connects the issue to the recent spate of hate crimes against gender-nonconforming teens and pre-teens:

The stereotyping, heteronomativity, and misogyny of such an education (Girls! Someday you can wash dishes too, just like mom!) would be laughable, if it weren't the backbone of actual lessons being taught to actual American children. But there's also a more positive form of single-sex education, a trend represented by schools like Harlem's Young Women's Leadership School, which is based on building the self-esteem of girls of color in a culture that doesn't present them with very many models for success. Indeed, it would be naive to deny that girls and boys face different kinds of challenges. In our December print issue, I profiled a program in suburban New York that provides after-school sociocultural extras to African American boys, including a high school support group to talk about masculinity issues, including the lack of present fathers. And girls face a whole host of gendered challenges, from pregnancy, to eating disorders, to self-cutting.

Of course, there are ways to combine co-ed schooling with extra counseling that gives kids safe spaces to talk about more gender-specific problems. But any school district that defines children first and foremost in terms of their gender is playing with fire. Let's say it together: Gender is a spectrum. And defining masculinity and femininity rigidly for children risks leaving many of them feeling left out and unsure of themselves -- or even deviant. Remember the 15-year old California boy who was murdered by a classmate this month after he came out of the closet as gay and began to wear make-up and women's shoes?

School should not be about promoting traditional gender identities -- it should be about helping every child learn in the way that suits them best.

And check out what we had to say back when Bush was promoting public sex-segregated schools.

Miki Fujiwara, aka Urban Envy, is a self-employed visual artist/community activist based in New York City.

Born in Hiroshima, Japan, Miki is known to be one of the original members of the New York Tributary Art Movement. The majority of her work, mostly paintings, has been categorized as "Cultural Surrealism," often said to be in the "tradition of Cynthia Tom and Frida Kahlo."

Urban Envy's works can be seen in local galleries of New York City.

Here's Miki...

So this is our new weekly vlog series, Friday Feminist Fuck You. (Gawd I love alliteration.) Every Friday, we'll take a look back on a story we've linked to or commented on that week and expand on why they, well...suck. Hope you enjoy it!

PS. Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel!

via Cara comes some disturbing news that a Maryland school district has instituted a parental notification policy for pregnant students. Way to protect young women's health, Howard County! Yech.

“There’s no question this will have a chilling effect on kids coming forward,� said County Health Officer Peter Beilenson. “It’s going to slow down health care.�

And, uh, the policy is also against the law.

Maryland’s minor consent law, which applies to those younger than 18, says teenagers do not have to inform parents to receive health services, including pregnancy testing, contraceptives and treatment for sexually transmitted infections.

[. . .]

“We wanted to make it clear: If the student does not tell the parents, the school system will advise the parents,� Aquino said. “Parents have a right to that information.�

Mark Blom, the system’s general counsel, said school health offices should not be regarded as clinical settings, where the state’s minor consent law would apply.

As Cara points out, this basically means the district is operating under the classic framework that young people's rights disappear the minute they walk into a school.

She also has some really thoughtful things to say about how many parents see their teenage daughters' bodies as their own property. Go read her whole post.

Here's something you may not know (I certainly didn't): A new civil rights bill introduced in Congress last week makes it easier for students to sue schools where they were sexually harassed or abused, if the school didn't respond reasonably.

From Students Active for Ending Rape (SAFER):

As the law currently stands, students have fewer protections than employees and so schools have less incentive than workplaces to curb their employees and educate against hostile environments. This excellent position paper explains why the changes are absolutely crucial. (Found via a Feminist Law Professors link.)

SAFER, an organization which aims to improve schools' sexual assault prevention and response activities, is encouraging people to call their representatives about the bill and specifically mention the student sexual harassment provisions: "Our elected officials need to know that we care and that we’re paying attention. If this bill were to pass, it could be a powerful tool for fighting administrations that turn a blind eye to sexual assaults and rape culture on their campuses." Indeed.

Here's an interesting story. The Women's Center at Yale University, which provides sexual assault counseling to students, has said it will sue the fraternity that posed in front of their building with a sign reading: "We love Yale sluts." And I say good on them.

It seems that Zeta Psi pledges not only posed in front of the center with the sign, but also intimidated women who tried to get into the building.

Former Women’s Center Public Relations Coordinator Jessica Svendsen ’09 said she found a group of men chanting “Dick! Dick! Dick!� in front of the Elm Street entrance to the Center, which is located in Durfee Hall, shortly before midnight last Tuesday. Frightened, she decided to take a detour through the Center’s Old Campus entrance, she said.

“I stopped even before I got to Durfee, because I recognized that as a single woman facing 20 to 25 frat boys, I wasn’t going to be able to enter the Women’s Center,� Svendsen said. “This was my first experience knowing that misogyny does happen at Yale — and right in front of the Women’s Center door.�

The picture, which you can see here, was featured on Facebook the next day. Naturally, once the frat found out that they were potentially in hot water, they removed the picture from Facebook and issued an apology.

All of the individuals involved wish to issue a formal apology to the female community, those directly or indirectly affected, as well as the Yale University community at large. We realize that the photographed actions were inappropriate, and we send our regards to any and all offended parties. The intentions of everyone involved were not to harm anyone socially or psychologically; rather, it was a lapse in the judgement [sic] of the group as a public organization.

A lapse in judgment? Really? Posing for that picture in their own frat house could maybe be a lapse in judgment. Going to a center that provides services to rape victims with a sign that calls women sluts is deliberate, it's fucking transparent, and it's harassment. I hope they shut them down.

Thanks to everyone who sent us links.

I'm not one of those feminists who was galvanized by women's studies courses (my feminism was born from less academic conditions), but I've taught Intro to Gender Studies at Hunter College off and on for the last few years, and I love seeing the light come on. Clearly what starts out as a drag--a general education requirement or whatever--often turns into a life-changing experience for young women and men across the nation who stumble into their feminism via a women's studies course.

What role has women's or gender studies played in your feminism? What have your favorite classes been?

The National Women's Studies Association has partnered with the National Opinion Research Center (with funding from the Ford Foundation) to conduct a national survey on women's studies programs. They found:

There are 652 women's and gender studies programs at community colleges, colleges, and universities in the U.S.

Undergraduate women's studies courses enrolled nearly 89,000 students in 2005-06, and 85% of women's and gender studies courses fulfilled general education requirements.

Undergraduate majors enrolled nearly 4,300 students, while undergraduate minors enrolled nearly 10,500 students in 2005-06.

30.4% of women’s studies faculty are faculty of color, compared with 19% of faculty nationally based upon a National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) 2003 report on post-secondary faculty at degree-granting institutions.

You can check out the full report for yourself. And thank you, seriously thank you, to the foremothers of women's and gender studies programs out there! You have changed so many lives.

Who said teens need role models when they can be their own? This week, high school students are our hero.

Pregnant teens at East High School in Denver are requesting maternity leave due to the school giving unexcused absences if school days are missed immediately after giving birth. Unfortunately, it's not atypical for a high school to make being pregnant or teen mother difficult to stay in high school; aside from the general struggles of being a teen parent, another Colorado school rejected the suggestion from one student that a day care center be created within the school because the principal felt it would encourage teen pregnancy.

Let's hope East High won't have a similar sentiment. (You know, because a month off and some day care makes having a kid at 16 SO appealing.) Only a third of teen moms receive their high-school diplomas and 1.5 percent get college degrees before they turn 30, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

Back east in New York City, high school students have testified before the City Council to make sex education in Bronx high schools mandatory. While the NYC Department of Ed approved sex ed curricula to be disseminated to all high schools, it's at the principal's discretion as to whether the curriculum is used or not.

But that wasn't enough for concerned teenagers from P.S. 218 in the South Bronx, who have been advocating for the right to sex education in all Bronx high schools, a borough where the rate of teen pregnancies is nearly 14% as opposed to 10% throughout all of New York City.

If that's not some serious inspiration, I don't know what is. Here's to the teen activists of Denver, New York, and beyond.

Sandy Shin is program coordinator at Breakthrough USA. Breakthrough is an international human rights organization that uses media, education and pop culture to promote values of dignity, equality and justice. It has two offices, one in NYC and one in New Delhi, India.

Sandy Shin has a Masters in Human Rights from Columbia University and an undergraduate degree in Women’s Studies and Sociology from the University of Albany. She was the Legal Advocate Project Director at the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault where she coordinated statewide trainings and provided constituents and the general public with services. Sandy has also been involved with community-driven social movements led by local activists employing anti-racism, anti-war ideologies.

Here's Sandy...

While federal funding for abstinence-only education is being extended for another 6 months despite extensive reports showing its ineffectiveness, a new report shows that comprehensive sex education is doing its job.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released a report, which was also published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, revealing that teenagers who have received sex education in school are far more likely to put off sex than those who haven't. Who would have thought.

They found teenage boys who had sex education in school were 71 percent less likely to have intercourse before age 15, and teen girls who had sex education were 59 percent less likely to have sex before age 15.

Sex education also increased the likelihood that teen boys would use contraceptives the first time they had sex. . . But sex education appeared to have no effect on whether teen girls used birth control, the researchers found.

Additionally, black teenage girls who received sex ed in school were 91 percent less likely to have sex before age 15. Trisha Mueller, an epidemiologist with the CDC who led the study, said it plain and simple which actually made me laugh out loud: "Sex education seems to be working."

Indeed, Trisha. Indeed.

At the prestigious Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology, girls took home wins in both the individual and team categories for the first time ever. Individual winner Isha Himani Jain (pictured at right with her study of bone growth in zebra fish) will get a 100k scholarship as did the winners in the team category, Janelle Schlossberger and Amanda Marinoff, who created a molecule that helps block the reproduction of drug-resistant tuberculosis bacteria. (!)

As someone who went to a math and science high school (yes, I'm a bit dorky) this just makes my day. I remember so distinctly how--even at a school that was all about this shit--girls were just treated differently. I often wish I could go back and not let myself be pushed away from my weird obsession with organic chemistry and geology. So congrats, gals. You do us proud.

Thanks to Erin for the link.