Recently in Education Category

Last week in my hometown of Sydney, Australia, news broke that members of an all-male residential college at the University of Sydney had created a "pro-rape" group on Facebook. Creators of the group, which was called "Define Statutory," described it as "anti-consent," and "pro-rape." In addition to members displaying their group membership on their personal profiles, the group and its membership list was publicly available to anyone with access to Facebook, suggesting that the men in question were perfectly comfortable being identified as being in favour of sexual violence.

I wish I could say that the news from Sydney surprised me, but it didn't. When I graduated from high school in Sydney five years ago, many of my fellow graduates matriculated at the University of Sydney and some of them joined women's or co-educational residential colleges. Many of our male friends, including those from our brother schools, joined St. Paul's, the college in question in the Facebook scandal, or all-male colleges like it. The residential colleges are a small and tight-knit subculture on a campus where most students commute; with the exception of students from the country, Australians rarely move away from home to go to university. While some who live in the residential colleges are from out of town, there a good number of students who live within a commutable distance from campus, but choose to join exclusive colleges like St. Paul's, an old and stately cluster of buildings separated from the rest of campus by high walls and green lawns.

The young men I knew who ended up at St. Paul's and at colleges like it had graduated from Sydney's best and most expensive private boys' high schools. In my interactions with them - I confess I dated one or two - I was quite appalled by what I saw: a culture in which sexism, racism and homophobia were rampant, and where class privilege and an almost laughable sense of male superiority combined to make women like me feel deeply uncomfortable. On their own, most of these young men were lovely. When they got together, something truly awful was created.

Seeing women's and feminist issues relegated to the "Styles" section of The New York Times is nothing new. And while I was glad to see students' rights and gender taken up in the NYT, presenting the continued harassment of trans students (by peers and educators) as a mere dress code problem is incredibly problematic.

Last week, a cross-dressing Houston senior was sent home because his wig violated the school's dress code rule that a boy's hair may not be "longer than the bottom of a regular shirt collar." In October, officials at a high school in Cobb County, Ga., sent home a boy who favored wigs, makeup and skinny jeans. In August, a Mississippi student's senior portrait was barred from her yearbook because she had posed in a tuxedo.

Other schools are more accepting of unconventional gender expression. In September, a freshman girl at Rincon High School in Tucson who identifies as male was nominated for homecoming prince. Last May, a gay male student at a Los Angeles high school was crowned prom queen.

Dress code conflicts often reflect a generational divide, with students coming of age in a culture that is more accepting of ambiguity and difference than that of the adults who make the rules.

Last night at our panel, Roxie bravely talked about a moment when she got into a big argument with her uncle about whether a woman had the capacity to be president. He was arguing that women were too emotional. She was arguing, of course, that emotion could be a fundamental tool in leadership positions. In the midst of this whole thing, of course, Roxie felt like she was going to burst into tears (she held it in until later).

Her brave admission reminded me of my own struggle within intellectual arguments, especially in my early 20s at Barnard and Columbia Colleges, to manage my own emotions. I remember one class, in particular, in which a classmate and I got into a fiery argument about the politics of language, ebonics, poverty, and education. I teared up in spite of myself and felt frustrated for the rest of the day that I'd let my emotions show.

Today I have more empathy for that 19-year-old version of me. I think that emotions, as Roxie argued, are a critical part of how I process the world, understand ideas and issues, and formulate my own arguments. In this still male-dominated realm of intellectual debate (just look at the op-ed pages of any major newspaper), the standard is still clear: emotions, and most certainly crying, don't have a place.

But the older I get, the more comfortable I am in my own skin and with my own ideas, the more I think that's a bullshit sexist paradigm. Of course it's important to be self-aware and manage one's emotions during an argument, but I think pretending as if the issue you're arguing about has no personal significance or emotional resonance is actually a disempowering and, of course, inauthentic place to come from. My power these days comes from combining both intellectual rigor with emotional authenticity.

Champions of Sexual Literacy Honorees: Richard Garcia, Cecile Richards and Rose Afriyie

Last week, I got the chance to be honored at the National Sexuality Resource Center's (NSRC) Champions of Sexual Literacy Dinner following in the footsteps of my amazing mentor Samhita. This year, the main honoree was powerhouse sexuality-rights advocate Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PP). From afar, she had this elegance to her that was really alluring. When I first arrived, she was knee deep in a conversation with an ambassador. It seemed that the entire room occasionally glanced at her, the woman at the helm of perhaps the only woman's rights organization left that is a household name no matter one's race, class, or gender.

In her acceptance speech, she recognized the efforts of young women and young educators. She described the award as "a reflection of the thousands of teen sex educators across the country." She identified them as crucial to political gains and referenced the 3,000 young people that advocated through PP in their community for sex education this September. Her closing was the most interesting to me. She spoke about an African American male who was a prominent sexual health educator in Anacostia in Washington, DC. She recognized his courage as he educated in a community with high incidence rates of HIV and chlamydia amidst financial hardships during the Bush years. She ended by mourning the possibility of what this man could have done with just a drop of abstinence-only money. While drawing attention to young people's political action is something that I am gladly starting to see more of in woman's rights circles, it is all too rare. Somehow, this woman's rights organization that centers it's mission on delivering medical services, administering education, and advocating for public policy still finds a way to prioritize women while highlighting the efforts of men of color in reproductive equality.This is progress in a world where many feminist organizations struggle to include young people, men, and people of color in a way that is meaningful.

Later, I had the chance to sit down with Cecile to talk about the health care debate and women's reproductive health care generally. For ten minutes we gabbed about the role of Planned Parenthood in the health care debate, the current status of abortion in negotiations, staying encouraged despite gender discrimination and what's next on the agenda after health care reform. It was as revealing as it was encouraging. So here's the recap:

Via FAIL Blog:

Wow, seriously? Spot the disabled kids on campus and win free shit! This is right up there with Shoot the Freak in terms of sophistication and ethics. It's not only wildly misguided, but dehumanizing.

I don't what university it originates from, but someone needs to check their Disability Resource Office. Maybe they could run a contest called "Spot the Assholes" where students take pictures of the administrators and win tuition waivers.

Steven Wayne Turner, a (now former) college police officer at Carver Bible College in Atlanta, was arrested for exposing himself to three women that he pulled over. The kicker? This is not the first time Turner has been caught.

In September 2008, Turner resigned from the Lithonia Police Department after an internal affairs investigation found he exposed himself during a traffic stop and then lied about it, Lithonia Police Chief Willie Rosser said Monday.

"He was given the option of resigning or be terminated," Rosser said.

Investigators opted to allow Turner resign instead of filing criminal charges against him, Rosser said.

The lack of criminal charges made it possible for Turner to get a job on a college campus - unbelievable.

It's been a spell since I last posted, y'all!

I caught one of those wicked flu bugs and this illishness has lingered for weeks.

Ugh.

Anyhoo, I'm finally feeling like myself again and glad to be back on the internets.

Shall we?

Cool!

September was National Literacy Month. I had planned to post about literacy, but caught the flu-plague and...well, yeah. This message isn't month specific, so...

I couldn't read until I was in the second grade. I'm not dyslexic. Rather, I was one of many people who don't respond to the traditional methods of teaching folks how to read.

My inability to read wasn't discovered until midway through second grade and, in keeping with the tone of things throughout my grade school career, the discovery was theatrically humiliating and took place in front of the entire class.

My second grade teacher, who I remember as an absolute horror who only spoke to me twice and smelled sharply of bleach (don't ask, 'cause I sure as shit don't know why she smelled that way), hauled me in front of the class to read something or other. Trapped, I confessed that I couldn't read the material. After some grilling in front of my peers, she then half dragged half hauled me out the door and yelled at me for lying to her for most of the year. She sent me to the principal's office and my mother was called up to the school and then all hell broke out as my mother went off on every adult present for failing to teach her child to read.

She pulled me out of that school and then spent two weeks teaching me how to read...the hard way.

Pause...wince at the memory...continue.

Basically, my mother taught me to read through threats, yelling and humiliation.

She checked Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak out of the library and told me that if 3 year old chil'ren could read it so could I. Since she used the term "dumb ass" liberally throughout her speech, it wasn't exactly inspirational. I sat there, mortified and nauseous, staring at those damn wild things and the strange groupings of letters on the page and was convinced I'd never understand how they all fit together.

I spent an hour and a half of my midterm-studying time on Wednesday engaging in a debate on the new dress code at the historically black male college, Morehouse. Read what's included in the "11 expectations" of students and weep:

No caps, do-rags and/or hoods in classrooms, the cafeteria, or other indoor venues

No sun glasses worn in class or at formal programs

No jeans at major programs, as well as no sagging pants on campus

No clothing with derogatory or lewd messages either in words or pictures

No wearing of clothing usually worn by women (dresses, tops, tunics, purses, pumps, etc.) on the Morehouse campus or at college-sponsored events.

While I have never been an attendee, I have spent some time at black colleges and universities as an organizer. And the class stratification that goes on is intense. With respect to the dress code, it's not my wish to get a view of anyone's coin slot on my way to Public Management (re: sagging pants). And there is no doubt that my quality of life goes down when I see men advertising sexist pictures of women that display their sexuality and nothing else (re: derogatory or lewd...).

Michael Kimmel is an author, teacher and activist, and is widely acknowledged as America's most prominent and prolific scholar on masculinity. Kimmel is the author of a staggering number of books, including Men Confront Pornography, The History of Men, The Gendered Society and Manhood in America (noticing a theme?). Most recently, Kimmel's book Guyland examined the lives of young American men. To write it, Kimmel interviewed hundreds of men between the ages of 15 and 25, using their words and his expertise to draw a frightening picture of young American manhood today. Luckily, Kimmel has a one-word solution to the problem: feminism.

Kimmel lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Amy Aronson, with whom he frequently co-writes, and their 10-year-old son Zachary, a budding male feminist. He is a Professor of Sociology at SUNY Stonybrook, where he teaches on gender and masculinity, and has taught and lectured all over the world. He is also a frequent contributor at The Huffington Post. And as if all this wasn't impressive enough, last year he was brought in as a consultant on gender politics during the production of Feministing's favorite TV show, Mad Men.

And now, without further ado, the Feministing Five, with Michael Kimmel.

I spoke at Arizona State University on Tuesday and had the pleasure of being introduced to a new academic model that they are pioneering to not only institutionalize the importance of intersectional analysis, but also insert activism in an undeniable way. It's call the School of Social Transformation. From their new website:

Four units comprise the new School of Social Transformation. Our school brings together four distinct interdisciplinary fields of inquiry with unique identities, histories, constituencies, affiliations, intellectual frameworks and topics of inquiry.

Rachel Simmons is a writer and a teacher who has penned two New York Times bestsellers. Not too shabby.

In 2002, Simmons' wrote Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, which shed light on the "mean girls" phenomenon and examined for the first time the cliques and codes of teen girl culture in an academic but accessible way. Like Odd Girl Out, Simmons' second book The Curse of the Good Girl, is based on hundreds of hours spent interviewing and teaching young girls, which Simmons does all over the world. At her summer camp the Girls Leadership Institute, during the months she spends every year teaching at a girls school in South Africa, Simmons gets a rare, honest look inside the torturously complex inner workings of Girl World. The Curse of the Good Girl was written for the parents of young girls, so that their daughters can not only survive Girl World, but emerge as authentic and self-aware young women.

Simmons lives in Brooklyn and, during the course of our phone interview, managed to parallel-park her car according to that borough's complex alternate-side parking rules, while also answering questions about the many challenges facing the modern feminist movement. Again, not too shabby. As you'll see from her interview, Simmons is a very impressive lady.

And now, without further ado, the Feministing Five, with Rachel Simmons.

Jonathan Escobar, a former student at North Cobb High School, was told by the assistant principal to dress more "manly," or consider being home schooled. This was on Jonathan's third day of school.

Escobar said the assistant principal told him his style of dress had caused a fight...

"You can't wear clothing that causes a disruption," said Jay Dillon, spokesman for Cobb County schools.

...Jonathan Escobar says he wasn't a disruption in the classroom, but he attracted attention in the lunchroom. "Everybody was surrounding me," he said.

On his second day of school, Escobar says he was pulled out of class to speak with a police officer who told him he was concerned about the student's safety.

"They should've told the students to back off," Escobar said. "They should have never given me the option of homeschooling or changing who I am."

Sounds like actual disruption were, you know, the students who were harassing Jonathan.

Escobar says, "If I can't express myself, I won't go to school...I want to get the message out there that because this is who I am, I can't get an education."

Also frustrating: Escobar says explicitly, "I don't consider myself a cross-dresser...this is just who I am," yet most news videos and articles covering this story refer to Jonathan as a cross-dresser.

To join the Facebook group supporting Jonathan, please click here.

I wrote on this last Friday, but now the Yes on Question 1 campaign, primarily funded by anti-gay group Stand For Marriage Maine, has used the exact footage from California's bigoted Yes on 8 commercials in their newest commercial.

The only significant difference is the casting of Charla Bansley, a Maine anti-gay activist and teabagger, and Maine's head of Concerned Women for America, in the role of the teacher. Bansley is a teacher at a private Christian school, and wrote an op-ed in the Bangor Daily News in 2000 calling for the abolishment of the Department of Education:

The best thing the Department of Education could do to improve the quality of education is to close its doors and send back our money.

A private school teacher who wishes to abolish public education wields little credibility in deciding its content. Bansley has been quoted describing same-sex relationships as a "Public display of psychosis." Moya Watson has a good perspective on what impact Bansley's hateful words have on families, and Julia Rosen of the Courage Campaign breaks down the egregious lies about Maine's public curriculum that Bansley perpetuates.

And still, I wish that when opponents of equal rights say, "My child will be taught about same-sex marriage in public schools," activists won't answer, "That won't happen." but rather, "Yes. So what?"

Over the past few weeks, I have been working with coalitions and groups of student activists, student government leaders, statewide student organizers, University faculty, graduate students, and union workers around a Day of Action today, September 24, against the severe budget cuts and student fee hikes.

In the 1970s, student fees were less than $100. The University of California extols the virtue of a free public education, and thus charges "fees" instead of "tuition." On July 17, 2009, the UC Regents, a board of decision-makers appointed by the Governor of California and including only one student, declared a state of fiscal emergency and granted UC President Mark Yudof emergency powers to make financial decisions. The Regents are now recommending a 32% fee hike, which would push UC student fees over $10,000 for the first time in history.

The CA state legislature cut the University of California system by $813 million. Some of the fault for crumbling access to higher education lies with California's Republican choke hold on state revenue, which has de-prioritized public education through de-funding and program cuts. And some blame should be attributed to the UC Regents, who have continued to make ill spending choices and granted themselves raises while academic services have been cut ("Execs still get raises as UC cuts staffing, pay"). Instead of disclosing their highly-guarded budget or devoting resources towards serious reform of the California policy on tax revenues, the UC has sought to fund the cuts on the backs of students, workers, and faculty.

Today, we stage a walkout, to show voters that public education is worth funding, to show the UC Regents that the fee hikes and denial of access to higher education are not inevitable, and to allow students to stand in solidarity with faculty, workers, and each other in this battle. At Berkeley, the day's activities will include picket lines, a rally led by students and faculty alike, and a march around campus, but each UC campus has many different actions planned.

A new study shows that states that skew towards more conservative religious beliefs tend to have higher rates of teenage girls giving birth. (Shocking, I know.)

Researcher Joseph Strayhorn of Drexel University College of Medicine and University of Pittsburgh says,"We conjecture that religious communities in the U.S. are more successful in discouraging the use of contraception among their teenagers than they are in discouraging sexual intercourse itself."

Now, obviously studies like these have the whole correlation/causation issue going on - but from the work I did write The Purity Myth, this study makes sense to me.

If you grow up in an area where you're taught that sex is bad and contraception is evil (and that it can kill you), when you do have pre-marital sex - as 95% of Americans will - you're much less likely to protect yourself. Not only because you've been taught that condoms cause cancer and other such ridiculousness, but also because you may think that if sex happens in the heat of the moment - and you didn't plan for it like a bad, slutty girl - you're not as tainted.

Oh dear. Miriam Grossman - of Unprotected fame (the book that tells young women having sex will make them diseased drop outs) - has a yet another book out: You're Teaching My Child What?: A Physician Exposes the Lies of Sex Ed and How They Harm Your Child

I found out about Grossman's latest through this column at Townhall that - in the great tradition of unhinged moral panic - suggests that comprehensive sex education wants "to strip our little girls of their natural inclination toward modesty and replace it with an attitude of sexual dominance." Who, me? *bats eyelashes*

Columnist Rebecca Hagelin says that our daughters are "under siege" by those who would teach them about sex and suggest that there is more to life than marriage and babies. You know - feminists.

Make no mistake: this attack on our daughters is also an attack on the nuclear family unit itself. It is an insidiously evil brand of radical feminism that now pervades education and entertainment. If you can warp an entire generation of women into believing that sex is merely a tool to be used for advancement, then you destroy all notions of fidelity, and commitment for both genders. By default, our sons adopt the view that they do not need to be loyal or true in marriage either.

...We are at a crossroads in our nation and the pawn being used by those who seek to check-mate the family - the sacred and basic building block of all civil societies - is a little girl. She will be used and abused and then cast aside as the next little girls are born and brainwashed with ever increasing dangerous messages.

There are steps you must take now to protect and equip your daughter with her own moral authority over those who would abuse her femininity.

What crazy ass sex ed classes has Hagelin been sitting in on?! It's amazing to me how these folks take something as simple as telling the truth about sex and contraception and turn it into a femininity-abusing (what that means) evil indoctrination hell bent on destroying families.

But that's exactly what folks like Grossman would like American parents to think. Let's take a look at what Grossman's past work has asserted so that we can all freak about about....

What Miriam Grossman wants to teach your child!!!:

When girls have sex, it is often at bars or because they're drunk. Also, they're depressed.

The more you have sex, the sadder you become: "As the number of casual sex partners in the past year increased, so did signs of depression in college women." (Cough, bullshit, cough)

Even fictional characters can get herpes: "It's easy to forget, but the characters on Grey's Anatomy and Sex in the City are not real. In real life, Meredith and Carrie would have warts or herpes. They'd likely be on Prozac or Zoloft."

After a one-night-stand, girls are swooning, and guys don't give a shit: "You might think of him all day, but he can't remember your name."

You can say really creepy things about sex, so long as its written in cursive.

Stay tuned for Part 2 when I take you inside Grossman's new anti-sex screed. (But through the front, cause the back is just an exit.)

Possibly triggering

Has anyone seen this movie? A friend of mine passed it on as something to maybe show in the Gender & Pop Culture class I'm teaching at Rutgers this semester, but I thought I'd see if any lovely Feministing readers could tell me more about it first. It seems like a combination of Killing Us Softly and Tough Guise - and those two filmmakers are featured in this clip. The short bit on hip hop gave me pause - I think Byron Hurt's Beyond Beats and Rhymes is probably better for that subject. Any thoughts?

Roxanne Shante gets her Ph.D. on Warner Music's dime because of a clause in her contract that said they would pay for her education for the rest of her life. Frickin' love that. Shante said: "This is a story that needs to be told. I'm an example that you can be a teenage mom, come from the projects, and be raised by a single parent, and you can still come out of it a doctor."

Carleton University is being sued by an assault victim who says the school failed to have adequate security measures in the building where she was attacked. In response, Carleton has said that the student didn't keep a "proper lookout" for her own safety and should have locked the door to the lab where she was working.

Erik Halliwell, president of the Carleton University Students' Association, says, "We're quite saddened that it seems the university has viewed this sexual assault in a pretty dismissive manner."

This is sort of insane. As Texas develops new curriculum standards for social studies textbooks, a couple of specially picked "experts" to advise them during the process are trying to omit civil rights leaders who they believe are "given too much attention":

"To have César Chávez listed next to Ben Franklin" - as in the current standards - "is ludicrous," wrote evangelical minister Peter Marshall, one of six experts advising the state as it develops new curriculum standards for social studies classes and textbooks. David Barton, president of Aledo-based WallBuilders, said in his review that Chávez, a Hispanic labor leader, "lacks the stature, impact and overall contributions of so many others."

Marshall also questioned whether Thurgood Marshall, who argued the landmark case that resulted in school desegregation and was the first black U.S. Supreme Court justice, should be presented to Texas students as an important historical figure. He wrote that the late justice is "not a strong enough example" of such a figure. (Emphasis mine)

And of course they couldn't leave out feminist figure Anne Hutchinson. Marshall contended in his report, "She was certainly not a significant colonial leader, and didn't accomplish anything except getting herself exiled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for making trouble." When he says "making trouble," he means, you know, advocating for equality, religious freedom and other kinds of meddling those broads tend to do.

How does one become qualified to be an "expert" in making decisions about Texas education curricula anyway? Be a Christian minister or the former chairman of the Texas Republican party. Those are some expert historians you've got there!

Check out Jessica's new piece in The Nation on the rebranding efforts that the virginity movement has been making; it's a must-read!

a) knowledge of sexual health and anatomy are very low among adolescents from Burma's conflict zones;

b) cursory knowledge of condoms and birth control pills is widespread (more than half of teens know of them) but use of family planning and safer sex techniques is incredibly low;

c) the estimated rate of STI's in this population is 7%;

d) both young men and women report high levels of acceptance of gender based violence and male authority over women's reproductive choices: more than half of young men and a third of young surveyed believe that women sometimes deserve to be beaten; more than half of young men think that husbands shoud determine whether or not wives use birth control.

I remember this guy at Columbia College (I went to Barnard) who was sort of known as "too smart for school." He walked around with his floppy hair and his bemused scowl and started up what began as innocent little conversations about this or that, but quickly turned into all out assaults on the feeble minded person (usually a woman) that he had set his sights on. For a time, I was deeply intimidated by him. Once, I almost cried when we got into a conversation about ethics of one kind or another. Now, when I look back, I realize that he was Bill O'Reilly in a skinny hipster body with post-modern aesthetics. He was a blowhard who got off on making other people feel not as smart, especially if those other people were women.

I thought about him today when I read this Chicago Tribune article about a new group on the University of Chicago campus called Men in Power. Apparently the group evolved when Steve Saltarelli, a third-year in the College majoring in Law, Letters, and Society, wrote a satirical article about starting such a group in the campus newspaper. An excerpt:

next quarter will feature a number of events aimed to raise the profile of Men in Power on campus. Firstly, we will be hosting weekly study breaks/screenings of movement-oriented films, including: A Few Good Men, 12 Angry Men, Men of Honor (and many other Cuba Gooding Jr. masterpieces), All the President's Men, and--of course--X-Men.

Additional upcoming events will include an open-mic night on issues concerning body image, a tutorial on barbecuing, and our much-anticipated workshop "Protecting What's Yours: Drafting a Prenuptial Agreement." Given the lack of similar groups on campus, MiP will have to establish a broad base, merging social issues and activities with a pre-professional slant. Through our fishing, hunting, and flag-football retreats, we hope to cultivate close relationships with many individuals and organizations in different sectors of power--including business, politics, and academia.

But then ol' Steve started to get emails from people actually interested in joining and he decided--gosh darn it--there was a need for such a group on his campus. Many of our readers have sent us the article, wondering what we think here at feministing. I can't speak for my co-editors, but I can tell you what I think.

I think Steve would be totally radical if he would spend less time providing networking opportunities for men on his campus (one of the goals of Men in Power) and more time deconstructing what "power" actually means. You see, that was the analysis always missing from that old Columbia blowhard bully's repertoire.

The reality is that a certain kind of power still rests squarely in the hands of a very small number of white people, usually white men, usually Western white men. I'm talking about power that comes in the form of college degrees from fancy schools, inherited wealth, access to other wealthy people who can fund/employ/encourage you, the capacity to walk into a job interview and not have any of the following questions going through a potential employer's mind (Will she have babies and leave the company? Will her looks be distracting? Will s/he fit into this environment given that we don't have many people "like" him/her?), a childhood home far from toxic chemical plants and/or gang violence etc. etc. etc.

Chances are that Steve has a lot of the kind of power I just described. Maybe not, but I'd put money on it. My guess is that Steve doesn't have a whole lot of another kind of power: one born of authenticity, wisdom, humility, empathy.

This whole group seems like a pretty hair-brained scheme to get himself some attention and test out how the world will react to a reactive group. And he's getting attention, indeed. But he's not gaining wisdom if he thinks that putting his energy into organizing networking opportunities for already privileged dudes is where his happiness is going to take root. As those of us who have been around the block a few times, met our share of blowhard Ivy Leaguers, faced them down with tears in our eyes, know: happiness comes from getting to be who you truly are while owning the privilege you come from, and working to dismantle it because you want to be part of a more just world, not a cog in the wheel of the current broken system.

Steve didn't ask for my advice, but if he did, I would tell him to take a step back and use some of that energy, humor, conviction, and creativity to start an organization that gets men and women to think together about ways to make the world more equal, more just, and a more hospitable place for all of us. I'll give my guru Audre Lorde the last word on this one:

The true focus of revolutionary change is never the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within us.

Thanks to all the readers who wrote in asking for our take on this issue.

Love this.

Twenty songs that refer to women as "hos" and other derogatory names won't be played at the Arcadia High prom Saturday night.

That's because senior Madeline Conrique and fellow members of the Women's Health and Issues Club brokered a deal with school administrators limiting songs with misogynistic themes and lyrics.

The group wasn't making a push for squeaky clean Disney pop groups. Club member Lani Luo says, "We are not trying to push for abstinence...We are just trying to advocate for respect."

Awesome.

Check out this great new resource for gender studies professors and feminist facilitators, an online journal called Films for the Feminist Classroom. It's being edited and produced by the Rutgers-based editorial offices of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society--a long standing resource for folks interested in intersectional feminism and gender analysis. About Films for the Feminist Classroom:

FFC publishes film reviews that provide a critical assessment of the value of films as pedagogical tools in the feminist classroom. Interviews with directors and producers of feminist film are also included in FFC issues. FFC endeavors to become a dynamic resource for feminist teachers.

From the Associated Press:

It is the question on everyone's lips in philanthropy: Who is the mysterious donor giving away millions of dollars to at least a dozen universities nationwide?

A circle of successful businesswomen? A publicity-shy billionaire? Oprah?

What is so unusual is that not even the universities know the answer. But the parlor game is afoot, with only one real clue: So far, all the universities are led by women.

Coincidence? Unlikely. Women lead about 23 percent of U.S. colleges. The odds of a dozen randomly selected institutions all having female leaders are 1 in 50 million.

The article goes on to postulate about the motivation of this woman or group of women donors. Essentially, it seems, someone wants to support female leaders in the academy. After years of a leadership imbalance, women college presidents are slowly moving toward parity and it looks like someone wants to continue to see that happen (college presidents, in part, are judged based on their capacity to bring in money to the school and innovate and develop new programs, all of which requires the benjamins.)

But everyone seems flummoxed about why this donor or group of donors wants to stay cloaked in mystery. Why make us connect the dots with regard to motivation? If this donor or donors really want female college presidents to thrive, why not be out and proud about that desire so other women could contribute resources in that direction? It seems to me that we need more visible female philanthropists, not less.

Thanks to Molly May for the heads up.

Check out community blogger juliap for another perspective.

RH Reality Check has a video about the teacher in Oklahoma who was forced to resign for teaching her students about the Laramie Project.

h/t to Max!

Transcript after the jump (extra h/t to asthenia!)

One of the upsides of reading IWF's blog (the downside being the constant retching) is that it points you in the direction of gems like this one. Robert P. George and John B. Londregan, professors in Princeton's Department of Politics, say that sex on college campuses is a "tragedy." They also really, really like scare quotes.

...Princeton, where we teach, is a wonderful university; but like other colleges and universities there is a dark side to its social life. Our students are bright, enthusiastic, and eager to learn. Most did not come to college bent on boozing and hooking up. Many feel deeply ambivalent about these aspects of campus life. Yet, they find little support on campus for the "alternative lifestyle" of living by traditional moral virtues.

...Whether it is a private institution such as Yale or a public one such as the University of Delaware, the truth is that things begin going badly for them right off the bat. Princeton is all-too-typical. As part of the freshman orientation program, students are required to attend an event entitled "Sex on a Saturday Night." It consists of a series of skits ostensibly designed to discourage "date rape." For years, critics have contended that the play, which features vulgarity and suggestive conduct, does nothing to serve this laudable goal; rather, it reinforces the campus culture of sexual permissiveness, primarily by shaping students' expectations to include sexual license as normal.

Let's not even get into the fact that date rape is in scare quotes - though I think that reveals volumes about where these two are coming from. What's interesting is that right off the bat, George and Londregan assume that young people don't like hooking up and sex - it's the dark side after all - and that all that's stopping them from living a life of morality is the lack of a college-funded chastity center. (They recommend calling them "Love and Fidelity Centers.")

Most universities have established non-academic centers of various kinds that provide educational, social, and counseling support. Princeton is again typical. We have the Women's Center, the International Center, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) Center, and the Center for Equality and Cultural Understanding. Whether or not one agrees with the ideological bent of some of these centers, at least they represent the University's effort to meet what are perceived as the needs of certain segments of our student body.

Hmm, the last time I checked being a woman or being gay isn't ideological - it's who you are.

Conspicuously absent, however, are centers or programs offering meaningful support for students who desire to live chastely. "Sexual health" offices do not supply the need because staff members see their roles, not as promoting self-discipline and high moral standards, but as providing "non-judgmental" advice about how to have sex while avoiding pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and infections.

Perhaps - and this is just a guess - these folks providing scary non-judgmental advice simply don't think it's their place to preach "morals" (I think they're rubbing off on me with the scare quotes!) to adults capable of making their own sexual decisions. But George and Londregan are having none of it. They not only think that there needs to be virginity centers on campus - they believe they need to be led by university officials, not students who presumably can't be trusted not to fuck their way through school.

Students are strapped for time and don't have the experience or professional skills to provide the level of guidance and support that their peers need when it comes to important questions of sexuality and morality. Universities know this--that's why at Princeton, for example, in addition to the student gay Pride Alliance, the Queer Graduate Caucus, LGBT Task Force, and the LGBT Staff and Faculty Group, there is the University's LGBT Center, with a full-time paid University staff member committed to LGBT support and activities. For the same reasons, there needs to be university support for students who want to live and conduct their relationships honorably in the face of the hook-up culture.

What really gets me - outside of the frightening idea of dudes like George and Londregan heading up a center telling young women anything about sex - is that these professors that claim to have students' best interest at heart use incredibly shaming language throughout this article. After all, if students who don't have sex are acting "honorably," what does that make those who do have sex?

So just a quick message to George, Londregan and all the virginity movement shamers out there: There's nothing wrong with having sex. There's nothing immoral, abnormal, or dishonorable about it. (Also, mind your own business and stop thinking about your students' sex lives. It's creepy.)

SIECUS and other organizations are calling for action against the suspension and following resignation of a high school teacher in Grandfield, OK who taught her students about the Laramie Project. Via USA Today:

The episode began in January, when Debra Taylor showed students at Grandfield High School The Laramie Project, a 2002 film based on the play of the same name, about the murder of Matthew Shepard. The students soon decided to film selected scenes themselves for an in-class project.

Taylor, 50, knew the project was controversial with strong language, but got her principal's permission. A few weeks into it, the principal told her to stop production. After students protested, she held a 20-minute ceremony in a nearby park in which students wrote their thoughts and rolled them into helium balloons, then released them.

The next day, Taylor says, Superintendent Ed Turlington canceled the class. After she complained to a school board member, Turlington put her on paid leave and recommended that she be fired. The school board approved her resignation Friday.

This is outrageous. What's funny is that the district is saying that Taylor wasn't forced to resign because of the play. Attorney John Moyer (representing the district) says, "If someone is saying that adverse employment action is being taken against Ms. Taylor because of homosexuality, they're wrong." So why don't you shed light on exactly why Taylor was suspended the day after she held the mock funeral based on the play?

William Smith, SIECUS Vice President says: "What happens when the next teacher tries to talk about intolerance and hatred and murdering people for that, and they get harassed and forced to resign? This is bigger than just what's happening to Debra Taylor. It's about the perpetuation of hatred and injustice in our society. The same sort of hatred and discrimination that led to Shepard's death leads to this teacher's firing. We can't allow that to stand." (Emphasis mine)

SIECUS is asking folks to take action and call Superintendent Turlington at 580-479-5237 or send an email and tell him:

"Debra Taylor did not deserve this kind of treatment. Young people need dedicated teachers willing to confront issues of respect and acceptance for people of all sexual orientations. She should be commended for creating a safe space for all her students and should be reinstated immediately."

h/t to Max!

I used to teach at Hunter, so I feel moved to let everyone know about this awesome and important action they are taking this afternoon to protest the tuition hike.

Students at Hunter College, led by the Hunter Student Union, will walk out of classes on Thursday, March 5th at 2:00 pm to protest a proposed tuition hike, budget cuts, and faculty and staff layoffs at CUNY. The event is being staged in advance of a 3:00 pm rally at Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) and the demonstration at 4:00 pm at City Hall organized by the One New York coalition, which includes the United Federation of Teachers and 75 other unions.

'This proposed tuition hike will make the financial situation of many students substantially worse, if not preventing many students from going to school next semester altogether,' says Hunter College sophomore and Hunter Student Union organizer Leanne Sajor. 'Conditions at this institution are getting worse, resources for students are a joke, and are adjunct professors are hired and fired at will. This walkout not only raises consciousness, but also unites students to work against something that directly affects us. We need to keep Hunter accessible!'

As the economy continues to falter and federal and state funding for higher ed is threatened, it's critical that students organize--alongside staff and teachers--to make sure that folks can actually afford college. Community colleges are especially under threat, and especially important to Americans without a lot of money lying around for tuition. Good luck Hunter community!

Last year we reported how a University of Portland student, after reporting being raped, was threatened by the school with charges of underage drinking.

In making the university's decision, UP judicial coordinator Natalie Shank suggested to Kerns that she could have been charged with violating university policies herself.

"Based upon my findings in my investigation, I am unable to determine if a sexual assault occurred," Shank wrote May 3, 2007. "I have reason to believe that intercourse occurred, but both parties admit to drinking and therefore, consent--or lack of consent--is difficult to determine. Given these facts, there are possible violations for which you could be charged."

Well, we have some good news. According to StudentActivism.net, the school's sexual assault reporting policies have been revised.

The school handbook now reads:

"To foster the safety and security of the entire community, the University of Portland encourages reporting of all instances of sexual assault. However, no disciplinary action will be taken without the consent of the survivor. To remove barriers to reporting, the University will not pursue potential policy violations of the survivor which occurred in the context of the sexual assault. Likewise, the University will not pursue potential policy violations of a person who comes forward to report sexual assault."

I love good news.

I neglected to mention in my Georgia queer theory post that the House Republicans spearheading the campaign to fire professors and ban certain classes are using the economy as one reason behind their efforts.

Upset House Republicans are mounting a campaign to purge Georgia's higher education system of professors with an expertise in racy sexuality topics as the state grapples with a $2.2 billion shortfall.

Something similar, but arguably more dire, is happening at Florida Atlantic University where the school is may be using the recession as an excuse to dissolve the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department and its MA program.

An email from the department reads:

We question the validity of the FAU administration's rational for proposing this unjust suspension. When the total money allocated to "Education" in FAU's last published budget (2006-2007) is $239, 949, 841.00 and the Women's Studies Center and M.A. program (at an operating cost of $60,000) only account for a total .00025% of that budget, we must question whether or not "budget cuts" are an adequate explanation of the administrations decision. Both the President's salary and Athletics departments' budget have increased over the past year. From our perspective, the university has chosen its priorities; These priorities represent an inexcusable attack on all women in and out of the academy. At a university where the average salary of a male professor is $16,000.00 higher than the average salary of a female professor, how else are we to interpret the proposed suspension of the Women's Studies Center and M.A. program than as an attack on women?

It doesn't surprise me one bit that women's and queer studies would be the first to be targeted in university cutbacks - after all, they're disciplines that have long been marginalized in academia.

So I'm wondering if folks are seeing this at their schools - anyone out there in Women's Studies (or other areas of study) want to weigh in?

Critical thinking is scawy!

Republicans in Georgia have announced a campaign to try and ban "racy" college courses like queer theory, and oust the professors that teach them.

"This is not considered higher education," [State Rep. Charlice] Byrd said. "If legislators are going to dole out the dollars, we should have a say-so in where they go."

Byrd and her supporters, including state Rep. Calvin Hill, R-Canton, said they will team with the Christian Coalition and other religious groups to pressure fellow lawmakers and the University System Board of Regents to eliminate the jobs.

"Our job is to educate our people in sciences, business, math," said Hill, a vice chairman of the budget-writing House Appropriations Committee. He said professors aren't going to meet those needs "by teaching a class in queer theory."

Intellectualism is inappropriate, gosh darn it! Bryd and Hill are not just twisting themselves into a moral tizzy because state schools are teaching queer theory, but also because a couple of professors at Georgia State University are listed as experts in oral sex and male prostitution. Apparently they don't quite get the notion that one can be experts in a field - you know, like study it - without participating in said area of study.

As Georgia State spokeswoman Andrea Jones said, "Teaching courses in criminal justice, for example, does not mean that our students are being prepared to become criminals. Quite the opposite."

Arizona State University has settled with a rape survivor for $850,000.

The young woman was raped in her dorm room by a student who had been previously kicked out of school after accusations of rape, inappropriate sexual comments and touching, and exposing himself to female students and staff. The Arizona Republic reports that he "was allowed to return to campus in August 2003 and to rejoin the football team, but he received no counseling."

"Historically, universities have downplayed rapes," said Joanne Belknap, a sociology professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder and researcher in violence against women. "In general, they don't want people to know about it because people won't want to send their daughters there and women won't want to come."

This is the first settlement to require a statewide system of universities to change the way it responds to complaints of sexual harassment and violence, and it sends a warning to all universities and colleges, Belknap said.

For more information on sexual assault on college campuses and ways to get involved, check out SAFER.

Unless you're a homo.

This is just unbelievable.

A private religious high school can expel students it believes are lesbians because the school isn't covered by California civil rights laws, a state appeals court has ruled.

Relying on a 1998 state Supreme Court ruling that allowed the Boy Scouts to exclude gays and atheists, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Bernardino said California Lutheran High School is a social organization entitled to follow its own principles, not a business subject to state anti-discrimination laws.

"The whole purpose of sending one's child to a religious school is to ensure that he or she learns even secular subjects within a religious framework," Justice Betty Richli said in the 3-0 ruling, issued Monday.

If that wasn't horrible enough, this case is based on two girls who were harassed by their principal, and expelled simply for being perceived as lesbians.

Via Seal Press.

Colorado State University Police Chief Dexter Yarbrough was suspended on a litany of charges, like falsifying police documents - but it was this quote that stuck with me:

Yarbrough told students in a class lecture that "women want the dick, even when they say 'no.' They want the dick."

Ah rape culture, enforced by media, education and police alike!

Thanks to Brad for the link.

Yet another study shows that teenagers who take virginity pledges are just as likely to have pre-marital sex than non-pledgers. And, naturally, after years of being taught that birth control pills are evil and condoms cause cancer - teens who take virginity pledges are less likely to use contraception when they do have sex.

Pic from Grant Neufeld.

There's a great article in Minnesota's Star Tribune about college activists' attempts to focus sexual assault training and education on men.

Instead of teaching women not to walk alone at night or to carry Mace, some colleges are trying something much harder -- changing college men.

..."The fact of the matter is that prevention comes down to, largely, males. Because males are primarily the ones perpetrating these crimes," said Lauren Pilnick, sexual violence education coordinator at Minnesota State University, Mankato.

The piece also tells the story of Tyler Jones, a senior at the University of Minnesota who went through sexual assault prevention training and found himself using that education in a barroom exchange:

"Hey, see that girl over there?" Jones recalled an acquaintance asking, nodding toward a woman he wanted to take home. "She's almost drunk. Not quite drunk enough. ... What shot should I buy her?"

There was a time, Jones says, when he might have laughed off the remark. Not anymore.

"You want to buy her something really strong to like, basically knock her out?" Jones, a University of Minnesota senior, recalled saying. "Man, that's not right. That's rape. That's sexual assault."

The acquaintance looked stunned. "Whatever," he mumbled, and walked away.

I think moments like these are incredibly important: Having men name assault, and calling it what it is to their peers - especially in a culture that so often puts the focus of sexual assault prevention on women.

Gloucester High School, site of the 17 High School girls who got pregnant this past summer, voted to make contraceptives available (with parental consent) at the high school health center last night.

Good move, Gloucester. Now while it's unclear that these young women would have been impacted by this change in policy (remember, it's alleged that at least half of them wanted to get pregnant) this will be a great service to the rest of the teens at this high school.

Want more about this story? Read Courtney's op-ed about the missing pieces in the original Gloucester coverage, Vanessa's take down of girl shaming and Jessica talking about giving credit to Crisis Pregnancy Centers.

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.

It's no big surprise that David Horowitz of the Weekly Standard doesn't know a thing about Women's Studies and still feels free to pontificate about why it is akin to indoctrination, but I do find it peculiar that he is such a simple thinker as to totally neglect that every academic discipline is shaped by subjective and, very often, political forces. Does he think that economics, taught from a perspective that usually privileges capitalism and free market ideology, isn't a touch political? Has he ever been in a psychology class to witness how certain behaviors are deemed pathological and others are categorized as sane? A totally political process, I would argue.

I do have to say that dumbos like him reinforce my desire to have "Women's Studies" departments adopt "Gender Studies" as a moniker instead. (I know there is much debate about this.) I don't want to bow to dudes like David, but I do think it would give him less ignorance to work with if we sent a clear message to the public--as an academic community--that we are interested in looking at gender issues, not just feminism as a political movement (which is what he tries to claim when he sees that some departments adopt the title "Feminist Studies").

For another awesome angle on this whole thing, check out Elizabeth Curtis' blog. Thanks for the heads up.

Oh, and for my take on what feminism, not Women's Studies, is, check out today's New Statesman column: Is Feminism Dead?

Former Congressman Bob Barr (R-Ga.) has an editorial in an Atlanta publication yesterday saying that focusing on sex education is making kids illiterate.

He's specifically referring to the decision made last week to allow a Maine middle school's health center to dispense birth control, and continues on a diatribe claiming that "Portland's middle school students may not be able to read or do math real well, but they'll be able to tell you all about condoms and birth control pills."

He even titled the op-ed, "SAT doesn't stand for Sex Aptitude Test." Awww, Barr tried to make a play on words!

A quick update on King Middle School: A committee member of the school board has proposed a revised plan to give parents the option of blocking access to prescription contraceptives if they enroll their children in the clinic, as well as limit contraceptives to students who are at least 14. (Which probably covers a very small portion of the students as well.)

Being a SUNY Albany alumni and all, I had to give the Women's Studies department a shout-out since they're seeking submissions for their 2007 Women's Studies Conference to be held November 29-30th. Not to mention the theme for this year is "Media Justice and Feminist Futures." Hot.

I actually helped organize the conference a few years back (and made kick-ass white chocolate chip and coconut cookies); it was an awesome experience with some great feminist discussion. Check out the site for more information and how to submit your proposals.

Okay, this video totally makes me want to go to this school. It also makes me want to be seven.

You know how pageants like Miss America are always touting the fact that they're scholarship competitions? Well apparently they're not so keen on actually giving those scholarships out, instead giving women the run-around on why they can't collect their winnings.

Via Feministe.

Due to the public's protest, a district in Indonesia has decided not to force female high school students to take virginity tests.

The proposal was made by Indramayu district head Irianto Syafiuddin, who recently announced, "Because many people oppose it, we cancelled (the plan)." Not to mention it's, you know, heinous and invasive.

He thought of the lovely idea after a video of two high school students having sex was being circulated via cell phones. Syafiuddin is now seeking other "ways" to prevent students from having premarital sex.

Can't wait to see what he whips up next.

"Because of my degree in homemaking, I can read this recipe book!"

The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is offering a new and exciting academic program: homemaking!

Southwestern Baptist, one of the nation's largest Southern Baptist seminaries, is introducing a new academic program in homemaking as part of an effort to establish what its president calls biblical family and gender roles.

It will offer a bachelor of arts in humanities degree with a 23-hour concentration in homemaking. The program is only open to women.

Of course it is. Coursework for the program includes nutrition and meal preparation, textile design and classes on "the value of a child" and the "biblical model for the home and family."

Seminary President Paige Patterson says "We are moving against the tide in order to establish family and gender roles as described in God's word for the home and the family...If we do not do something to salvage the future of the home, both our denomination and our nation will be destroyed."

I always thought nations were destroyed by war, famine or disease. Little did I know it was actually women taking classes in anything other than ironing that determines the demise of a country.

By the way, Patterson is known in Southern Baptist circles for issuing a statement saying that women shouldn't be pastors and that they should "graciously submit" to their husbands. (How one "graciously submits" is another question. Would I smile and thank him for the great honor of doing his laundry?)

Earlier this year, a former professor filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against the school and Patterson--she says she was fired from her tenure-track position because she was a woman. Perhaps she didn't graciously submit. Silly girl. In fact, Patterson's wife is the only woman faculty member in Southwestern's theology school. Shocking.

Though, of course, this isn't just about Patterson. Plenty of folks at the school are behind the move to instill traditional gender roles in their students. Terri Stovall, dean of women's programs at Southwestern, said "Whether a woman works outside or strictly in the home, her first priority is her family and home...We just really want to step up and provide some of these skills." Yeah, way to step up. I'm sure women graduates will look back on their years at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and be ever-so-grateful that they spent half of their college education learning how to knit booties.

Thanks to Marquel for the link!

Mattilda, a.k.a. Matt Bernstein Sycamore, is the author of a novel, Pulling Taffy, and the editor of three nonfiction anthologies: That's Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation; Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving; and Tricks and Treats: Sex Workers Write About Their Clients. She is at it again with her latest anthology, Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity.

I caught up with Mattilda over email. Here's Mattilda...

Despite our government's incompetency regarding sex education, it's nice to see that the rest of us are doing something right; a couple of great updates on the birth control front:

This weekend marked the 35th anniversary of Title IX being passed. Check out this HuffPo ode to the law.

Let's also not forget the other areas surrounding Title IX that are generally overlooked by the media (because sports is, ya know, more gripping?): sex discrimination within higher and career education, employment, math and science, technology, learning environment, standardized testing, education for pregnant and parenting students, and sexual harassment.

Happy Anniversary, Title IX!

I find it interesting that they never choose to do these studies across race and class, but either way this study by the American Association of University Women found that as soon as one year after college, women earn less then men.

"By looking at earnings just one year out of college, you have as level a playing field as possible," said Catherine Hill, the director of research at AAUW. "These employees don't have a lot of experience and, for the most part, don't have care-giving obligations, so you'd expect there to be very little difference in the wages of men and women. But we find that women already earn less – even when they have the same major and occupation as their male counterparts."

And interestingly (but not shockingly) the wage gap widens as women get older.

Ten years after graduation, women fall further behind, earning 69 per cent of what men earn. By that point, college-educated men have more authority in the workplace than do their female counterparts. For instance, men are more likely to be involved in hiring and firing, supervising others and setting pay.

They also looked at how majors in college are then reflected in the real world (i.e. 79 per cent of education majors are women and men make up 82 per cent of engineering majors and then in the workplace, women make up 74 percent of education workers and men make up 84 per cent of the engineering and architecture fields). But this got me to thinking, what about those of us that have other majors?

via MSNBC.

This is a wee late, but I thought it was necessary to cover.

Much hoopla has been brought about at the University of Western Ontario since the student newspaper released a spoof April Fools’ Day issue that included a female student being raped by the chief of police. You know, because rape is so funny and all.

“The article spoofed Take Back the Night, a campaign to raise awareness of violence against women. It described a fake event called ‘Take Back the Nighties,’ during which feminists march through the streets of London, Ont. wearing their nighties while on-looking men masturbate.�

Later, a character with a similar name of a member of the Women’s Issues Network (WIN) and the Miss G Project, a women’s group on campus, is not only raped by the London Chief of Police, but whose vagina ends up taking on a life of its own and says “I love it when a man in uniform takes control.�

Not surprisingly, WIN has called for the resignation of editor-in-chief Ian Van Den Hurk, who says that the newspaper’s goal was to create satire:

“We crammed in every possible feminist stereotype and we thought that it was so ridiculous that no one could think we were being serious.�

Ha! And what kind of satire is this? Doesn't sound like satire to me. And what stereotypes are you talking about? That all feminists wear nighties? It seems obvious to me that Van Den Hurk and whomever wrote the article used the excuse of the spoof issue to publicize their own heinous misogyny. Yes, there can sometimes be a thin line between what’s funny and what’s offensive to people, but it sounds like this article was a very obvious and serious offense to WIN and to all women, particularly women who have been raped.

Apparently the university has allowed Van Den Hurk to keep his position as editor-in-chief, but is working with him to “implement several changes for the next publishing year,� including a new study group that will take students’ concerns and suggestions when publishing each issue.

Spoof issue or no, to allow a story to be published that makes humor out of the portrayal of women not only as merely bodies in lingerie to jerk off to but, more importantly, dehumanized as body parts to be raped (and enjoy it in the process) is horrific and merits an immediate sacking. I’m pretty appalled this guy was let off with what only seems as a slight misdemeanor.

Check out Zuzu's coverage of the story from a wee back.

Dozens of female students from a Lousiana high school were turned away from their prom this weekend because a teacher believed their dresses were too revealing. The claim was that the "offensive garb" displayed too much cleavage.

What's even more infuriating is that school district officials are backing the teacher, since all she was doing was enforcing a dress code that's apparently been in effect for years. (Since the Victorian era perhaps?)

While I think they should have been allowed to wear whatever they damn well please, the kicker is that the dresses were barely anything to make a fuss about (the article has a slideshow). Just plain ole prom dresses. Sigh.

After years of research, Mathmatica Research, Inc. just released their 164-page report not only proving that abstinence-only education is totally ineffective, but that it has been totally carried by the Bush administration.

This is big, people. Read the report. Spread the word. Seriously.

Via RH Reality Check.

We’ve been getting some comments and emails from you guys saying that you’d like to see us do more video blogs, so here we are. In fact, Jen is hard at work right now taping her first Weekly Feminist Hangover Report. Seriously.

So please be patient with us as we figure out the snazzy world of video blogging--and if anyone knows how to get my iMovie to stop zooming in on the Feministing logo, help a sister out. That shit is making me dizzy. And to Andrew, who thought I should do another take because I'm reading too much from the screen: Bite me, I'm tired.

By the way, here's the article I mention in the video. And also check out Ann's recent column on the subject.

Our friends over at the Abstinence Clearinghouse are holding their annual Leadership Conference, and this year's theme is amazing...if only because it completely reveals just how backwards they are.

As you can see from the lovely image above, Abstinence is a Black & White Issue: Purity vs. Promiscuity. There's no in-between, ladies. Just incredible.

Though I have to say, nothing beats last year's Wizard of Oz theme.

Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

Here’s some crazy news from Scott Swenson at RHReality Check:

Using membership dues paid in part by federal tax dollars, the National Abstinence Education Association (NAEA) hired the Washington, DC, public relations firm, Creative Response Concepts, best known for the 2004 "Swift Boat Veterans" ads against John Kerry, to launch a public relations effort supporting the failed and unpopular abstinence only education policies.

Whoa! Well, I guess when your programs fail and put teens at risk, you have to do something. As Earl Pike, executive director of the Cleveland-based AIDS Task Force, says in Swenson’s post: "It begs the question: If abstinence-only programs are actually effective in reducing long-term rates of sexually transmitted disease and unplanned pregnancy, why hire a PR firm to spin the message?"

Swenson thinks—and I agree—that the spin won’t be about promoting abstinence as much as it will be about attacking supporters of comprehensive sex education.

Specifically, the membership recruiting letter from NAEA outlines "unlimited legislative lobbying" and mobilization in "key Congressional Districts" as well as a "Rapid Response" initiative that is intended to "counter attack negative attacks on abstinence education". That last part makes one wonder if at one time a memo circulated outlining the Swift Boat ads as "rapid response to negative attacks on George Bush's military record", broadly interpreting "negative" as John Kerry simply discussing his exemplary service in Vietnam.

Never mind that advocating for silly things like the truth isn’t attacking abstinence-only education. It’s fighting for a sex education that’s honest and that works.

The front page (and most emailed) article of the Times yesterday was titled, “For Girls, It’s be Yourselves, and Be Perfect Too.� I was really looking forward to reading the piece but will admit I ended up a bit disappointed.

The article began a discussion of what female teens endure in terms of the pressure not only to be pretty and popular, but also to get into the best school, have the best resume, be a part of most of the school clubs, etc. But as the piece continued, I found that the article was focused more narrowly on privileged population of girls at one of the best high schools in the country and their pressure to get into an Ivy League college. One small example:

High-priced SAT prep has become almost routine at schools like Newton North. Not to hire the extra help is practically an act of rebellion.

Now that’s tough. I personally felt really fortunate to have the opportunity to take courses at Kaplan when I was in high school. Don’t get me wrong; going to a “specialized� high school in NYC definitely came with a lot of academic pressure, and I don’t doubt that these girls endure this as well as overall pressure from everyone to establish themselves as successful young women in the world. At the same time, I find it interesting that an article that really just boils down to a few rich girls’ experiences of applying to Ivy League colleges would attract so much attention. There also seemed to be a lack of discussion on the difference between male teens’ experiences and these young women, besides their expensive fashion sense, of course.

With television and pop culture becoming so engrossed with America’s rich (ex. Laguna Beach, Paris Hilton, etc.), I’d personally prefer not to see the same obsession with the dramatic and sooo stressful lives of the upper class leaking into mainstream news as well. We have bigger stories to cover.

UPDATE: What's Good for Girls has more.

Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

Christian comedian Keith Deltano has been performing at a number of high schools in Loudon County, Virginia this year with the intent of pushing abstinence-only education through comedy. How does he do this, do you ask? By dangling a cinderblock over a male students' crotch to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of condoms against HIV.

Because what's funnier than a brick possibly dropping on your dick?? Hahaha!! Heh.

Via Nerve.

UPDATE: Check out Deltano in action after the jump.

There’s been quite a bit of controversy being raised over schools who have began reprimanding students who use the phrase, “That’s so gay.�

For example, an elementary school in Fresno, CA sent a letter home to parents suggesting to talk to their children about inappropriate language, specifically referring to the phrase. The letter came about due to a student being suspended for saying it during a soccer game. While the student’s mother didn’t object to the suspension, another student was later only given detention when they said the same statement. In response, the school, as well as the ACLU, says that the context of the statement has to be handled on a case-by-case basis, but must be addressed:

Whether the phrase is meant hatefully or not, it can upset students, said Robin McGehee, Central Valley program coordinator for the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, a youth-led organization that connects school-based Gay-Straight Alliances to each other and community resources.

‘It's an insulting and demeaning comment, and it's become a catchphrase that everyone uses,’ she said. But ‘it's still something that we socially accept.’

However, after the student of a school in Santa Rosa was reprimanded for saying the phrase, her parents sued on the grounds that her right to free speech was violated.

It seems that school-age kids use homophobic language more so than any other age group (does anyone know stats on that?), and I think it’s necessary to identify these phrases and terms as offensive as early as possible. Maybe if we began taking some advice from the UK, it wouldn't have to get to this point.

Some of the women who run Casa Atabex Ache.

Daynara Marte has been executive director of the “House of Womyn Power� Casa Atabex Ache in the South Bronx of New York for four years. She came to Casa in 1999 as an intern and has stayed and moved up in the organization ever since.

"Casa" in Spanish means house. "Atabex" is one of the many names for the Taino goddess or earth mother of Puerto Rico. Taino are the indigenous people of Puerto Rico, and other islands in the Caribbean. "Ache" means power in Yoruba, the language of a West African ethnic group.

Between 30 to 65 young women learn about self empowerment through cultural and indigenous rituals, spirituality, and social justice at Casa Atabex Ache at any given time. Currently, Dayanara is working on outreaching to the large Mexican immigrant community living in the South Bronx. Many fear entering community establishments and being asked for their immigration papers.

Here’s Dayanara…

In an ridiculously juvenile attempt to call out gay activist students who had written smack about him on facebook.com, Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) went off on a less-then-appropriate tirade during a speech he gave at Philip Regional High School last Thursday.

Apparently some commenters on a facebook page dedicated to a gay rights history teacher made negative remarks about the Senator, who is opposed to same sex marriage. Comments included statements such as “I hate Scott Brown� and “scott brown ascends from the underworld.� Others were a wee more harsh and included insults towards his daughter, a former American Idol finalist.

So because kids will be kids (which is no excuse for inappropriate language about someone on the internet, but whatever, it’s facebook), Brown felt it necessary to “loudly and pretty angrily� read aloud the comments to the school, curses included, as well as call out some of the students’ names who had commented against him.

In his defense, he said, “What I was doing was reading from what they had written about me and my family. I actually called them on it. I said ‘Now there’s hate speech and then there’s respectful proper speech.’�

You are SO tough, Senator Brown. What an ass. He might as well yelled, “Na-na-na-na-boo-boo! I know your naaaames!! Wanna mess with me now?? Huh? Huh?�

And yeah, it’s real appropriate to go off on a narcissistic rant because some kids talked smack about you. And these are our country's leaders.

Drew Gilpin Faust is Harvard's 28th President and first woman. And she sounds cool as hell. She chaired the women's studies department at Penn for 4 years, not to mention being quite the radical as a child.

NYT reports. . .

Catharine Drew Gilpin was born on Sept. 18, 1947, and grew up in Clarke County, Va., in the Shenandoah Valley. She was always known as Drew. Her father, McGhee Tyson Gilpin, bred thoroughbred horses.

Dr. Faust has written frankly of the “community of rigid racial segregation� that she and her three brothers grew up in and how it formed her as “a rebellious daughter� who would go on to march in the civil rights protests in the 1960s and to become a historian of the region. “She was raised to be a rich man’s wife,� said a friend, Elizabeth Warren, a law professor at Harvard. “Instead she becomes the president of the most powerful university in the world.�

The fine folks over at Coat Hangers at Dawn (a pro-choice South Dakota blog) have linked to a response by the author of the Integrity Balls story. He offers a typically gender-role-dictated defense: that telling boys to abstain from sex is so they won't defile someone's "future wife" is the only way to get them to stop humping everything that moves.

I'm just guessing here, but I think the reason why much of the encouragement to the young men was made as it was is because of the psychology of males. (I know the ubersexualists at CHAD probably disagree, but males and females actually do think and relate differently.) Males tend to think of themselves as bulletproof, so an appeal to the male to safeguard the welfare of others is more likely to be effective than to tell him that sex outside of marriage is just as harmful to him--after all, he thinks he's invulnerable.

Maybe because Christian conservatives like Bob are constantly indoctrinating boys with the message that they are invulnerable and just want to fuck like animals, whereas girls are fragile and want to be wooed. He also writes,

How you get that out of an event designed from start to finish to instill respect for women is beyond me.

Sure, respect for women as property. Like a borrowed, shiny convertible that you wouldn't want to scratch. The Integrity Ball is clearly not about respect for women as equal human beings, who also have sexual urges and who belong to themselves, not to their parents or to their current boyfriends or to their future husbands.

Sad that they fear those who respect women the most.

I wouldn't call it fear. I'd call it revulsion. The "hands off because she belongs to some other guy" message is not respect for women. That's respect for other men.

Apparently Bob also failed to grasp the creepiness of the Purity Ball. Around the time we feminist bloggers were writing about it, he responded:

Instead of protesting the Purity Ball, why not have your own event and call it the "Slut Ball" or something? After all, if you hate sexual purity so much, you should be proud of being a promiscuous slut, right?

That's my cue to flip off my daddy, pop a few birth control pills, crank up "Promiscuous Girl," and start gyrating! Seriously, though, good ol' Bob defines a "slut" as someone who desires "complete sexual autonomy." Sounds pretty great to me. So, put on your event planner hats, dear Feministing commenters, and answer this question: What would a Slut Ball -- a glamorous event designed to advocate "complete sexual autonomy" -- look like?

I just thought that sounded catchy. I actually don't think just because someone went to college they "think" more, but according to this study done in Great Britain, they drink more in their 20's. The study asked women to recall their drinking habits from their 20's, 30's and 40's. The study also found that women that were not formally educated were heavy drinkers in their 40's. Hmm.

A spokesman for Alcohol Concern, Frank Soodeen, said that there were a number of reasons why a heavy-drinking culture had emerged in younger, well-educated women - even though the incidence of binge-drinking in women in all parts of society was on the rise.

He said: "They are often working in an environment of which drinking is part of the culture, and of course, they often have more disposable income than women with fewer qualifications.

"However, a lot of is due to marketing - the alcohol industry has specifically targeted younger professional women, and the emergence of smarter bars is particularly aimed at encouraging women to drink more."

He said that the reasons for binge drinking in older, less well educated women, were likely to be linked to anxieties about relationships, and pressures of parenthood, as well as the drinking habits of partners.

Why would these also not be factors for women that are educated to drink in their 40's? I mean can we deny that difference in access to education often results in a class difference and it is pretty safe to say that the party/drinking habits of working class verse upper/middle class people, well it is just different. Privileged folks usually get away with more, yah?

via BBC.

Our gal Courtney has a provocative piece on TAP Online today about how the prevalence of abstinence-only education contributes to the screwed-up attitude many college students have about sex. She argues that the number of drunken acquaintance rapes might be reduced if everyone was more experienced talking about sex, boundaries, and needs.

The abstinence-only sex education that most young men and women receive does not teach them how to articulate their own sexual needs and respect those articulated by their partners. Teens who are merely told "Just don’t do it" are lacking more than an anatomy lesson or information on contraceptive choices. They also missing out on essential communication skills and life-saving knowledge about sex and power. Which is bad news for teenagers in our paradoxically hyper-sexual and hyper-conservative contemporary America who are in desperate need of wise mentorship.

It's an interesting argument. While I think it's at some risk for being interpreted as, "Date rape is women's fault if they can't say no" -- which is definitely NOT what Courtney's saying -- the inability to have a mature dialogue about sex and power is a largely unexplored consequence of abstinence-only education. And an under-explored contributing factor to drunken acquaintance rapes.

I think abstinence-only could also make it more difficult for women to come to terms with the fact that they've been raped. Most curricula drill home the idea that all sex should feel dirty and shameful. So when young people have an experience like (Courtney's friend) Jen's and feel regret afterward, it can be hard to tell whether they feel that way simply because they've had sex -- because they've been taught that all sex should feel bad -- or they feel that way because they were involved in a rape.

But I've gotta say, a standard of healthy, open discussion with teens about sex and power seems like a total pipe dream at a time when we can't even get school districts to discuss more straightforward topics like contraception.

A group of popular cheerleaders at a suburban Dallas high school who are in trouble for drinking, posting scantily clad photos on MySpace, talking back to teachers, and general troublemaking. Could there be anything more exciting to the media than "girls gone wild" meets sexy cheerleaders -- with a school district controversy thrown in for good measure? The Dallas Morning News reports:

Ms. Theret [the school principal and also the mother of one of the girls, fired in the wake of the scandal] said she felt the girls should be kicked off the squad. But she referred the case to other administrators, who put the photos into four categories: alcohol possession, in-the-presence-of alcohol, tobacco and "unladylike" behavior.

The "unladylike" photos they're referring to show the high school seniors posing in a condom store, with some simulating oral sex.

[Administrators] doled out 30 days suspension for the condom photo, 15 days for a drinking photo or 45 days for both. Every parent, except Ms. Theret, appealed the ruling, which ultimately went to [superintendent] Mr. Crowe.

Mr. Crowe said he felt the condom photo shouldn't be more severely punished than drinking. He dropped it to a 30-day maximum for all incidents.

The condom photo (which receives its own section in the independent counsel's report on the cheerleaders) ostensibly merited more punishment because it was the only one in which the girls are wearing their cheerleading uniforms. And overall, they really do sound like they were out of control. But I have to wonder if administrators would punish a group of five boys so harshly for posing with prophylactics. Or if the story would have garnered national media attention.

(Unless you're a homo)

It's already pretty well established that abstinence-only education discriminates against gay and lesbian students, but this takes the cake.

A Florida high school has refused to allow a student to establish a Gay-Straight Alliance as an after-school club. After being called out on their bullshit reason that the school doesn't allow any clubs (it does), Okeechobee High School is now claiming that there can't be a queer club because the school has an abstinence-only policy.

Eh? Apparently only hetero teens can abstain.

The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the school on the student's behalf.

Dirty dancing is a quickly spreading across schools in the nation, which has resulted in banning certain types of dance and and even canceling student dance functions. And shockingly, most of the emphasis is on the girls.

This New York Times piece discloses what has become an apparent problem for many schools, where students (in other words, female students) are “bumping, grinding, shaking, arching, teasing and flaunting� in the middle of school dances:

‘If you watch this stuff, you end up seeing girls playing out, or being forced to play out, sexually submissive roles,’ said the principal of the 1,600-student school, James Chupaila. ‘I don’t think a public school should be allowing that to happen.'

Not surprising, most of the students — who view their moves as nothing worse than what they see on music videos — were outraged. But across the country, more and more principals are taking a similar line.

My initial reaction was that it’s just push of conservative, “moral� values on kids who want to do what many kids naturally want to do at that age: shake their groove thing. (And more specifically, an attempt to control high school girls’ sexuality.)

Additionally, to suggest that girls are being forced to play out “sexually submissive roles� is a bit presumptuous. But in one case mentioned, some female students complained of being dragged into the mosh pit of dancers and groped against their will.

Now, for someone who works in an organization that specifically combats sexual harassment in schools, this is obviously something that needs to be addressed. But does prohibiting students from dancing with each other or canceling dances altogether really going to solve the problem? Lastly, drawing such a thin line between merely dancing and sexual harassment could be extremely problematic.

Thoughts?

The abstinence mafia are worried that their funding will be cut off when Democrats assume control of congress.

A Republican source told CBN News that the staff of liberal Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman is in the process of rewriting the set of definitions of what is considered an abstinence program.

Sweet! Could this mean they'll start funding comprehensive sex education, which discusses abstinence but also teaches students about contraception? At the very least, they could impose greater restrictions on programs that receive abstinence-only money, ensuring that all federally-funded curricula are medically accurate and free of gender stereotypes. I, for one, am excited about the possibilities.

The fabulous Elizabeth Gettelman alerted me to a new study that debunks the conservative theory that we can credit abstinence-only education for the decline in teen pregnancy.

The study, led by Columbia University's John Santelli (who has done a lot of the research on federally funded abstinence-only programs under Bush), says 86% of the recent decline is the result of improved contraceptive use, and only 14% of the decline is due to teens waiting longer to start having sex. Shocking! Contraceptive use is more effective than abstinence? Somebody send a copy of this study to HHS, pronto.

Finally.

The New York Times Magazine had an article yesterday, “The Real Marriage Penalty� on how straight married couples are increasingly on the same level, educationally and economically.

The author basically refutes the “marriage penalty� idea which implies that highly educated straight women can’t find a partner because, you know, men want someone to take care of, not talk to. But according to the study cited in the article, that’s just not the case. For example, among women born after 1960, a college graduate is more likely to get married than less-educated women.

According to the author, this is partly due to "assortive mating" (mating with a partner similar to you), and "modern society," which makes assortive mating more possible for both women and men. But despite this, the fact that people are now selecting mates with the same educational and economic background may also contribute to the growing gap between the rich and the poor.

It's an article definitely worth reading. The last section is my favorite:

Of course, men and women don’t choose each other on the basis of education and income alone. Putting love aside, as men’s and women’s roles continue to shift, other standards for selecting a partner may come to the fore. Indeed, the sociologist Julie Press recently offered what she called ‘a gynocentric theory of assortative mating,’ moving the focus from what men now desire in a marriage partner to the evolving preferences of women. What would-be wives may be seeking now, she proposed in The Journal of Marriage and Family, is ‘cute butts and housework’ — that is, a man with an appealing physique and a willingness to wash dishes. Could this be a feminist slogan for our time?

It has a nice ring to it.

Well, your last chance is actually on Sunday, which officially marks the last day of Girls for Gender Equity's Online Auction for Gender Equality.

So get to it and bid your little heart away!

The Center for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) is suing the Dept. of Health and Human Services for failing to respond to a request for information on federal abstinence-only and crisis-pregnancy center funding. (The complaint and exhibits are available online.)

So why is CREW trying to get info on both the Waxman Report and crisis pregnancy centers? Because these fake abortion clinics are getting federal dollars that are earmarked for abstinence-only education.

Currently, there are an estimated 2,300 to 3,500 CPCs currently operating in the US, while there are only 1,800 abortion clinics. ... Millions of dollars of federal and state-level abstinence-only funding is granted to CPCs each year. CPCs are also being granted government funding to purchase ultrasound machines and even to provide pregnancy support and reproductive health services, despite the fact they do not offer contraceptive services and the vast majority of CPCs are not medical clinics at all.

(Sidenote: Check out Legal Momentum's detailed report (PDF). on national crisis-pregnancy center chains.)

Enter Rep. Mark Souder, who is on a mission to discredit the Waxman Report -- which, you'll recall, drew widespread attention the misinformation and gender stereotyping rampant in abstinence-only programs. Souder released a report this week called "Abstinence and Its Critics."

In it, he makes the same old unsupported arguments that abstinence-only works, trots out the same old bunk statistics, and makes the same old distortions of polling data about what sort of sex-ed most parents would like to see. What he doesn't address are the Waxman Report's charges of gender stereotyping in abstinence-only curricula, which leads me to assume that he's probably all for messaging like "wear longer skirts, you sluts" and "boys can't control their urges."

Souder first surfaced on this issue back in May, when he managed to place abstinence-only advocates on a CDC conference panel about STDs. He's now running for re-election and the Cook Report recently downgraded his race from a "solid" to "likely" chance he'll be reelected. The Republicans had to start giving him some money to buy ads. Clearly he expects to gain some political ground with the timely release of his anti-Waxman Report.

Focus on the Family is already fellating Souder for his report, calling him a "defender of life and purity." I think "defender of gender stereotyping and teen pregnancy" is probably more accurate.

Thanks to 24-hour feminists Madeline and Ashley for your research.

The fine state of New Jersey is really on a roll. First the courts back same-sex marriage, and then comes the news that the state has refused federal funding for abstinence-only education. Why? Because the state believes in teaching teens about contraception.

"Some of the elements required are inconsistent and violate our own educational standards," state Health Commissioner Fred M. Jacobs told The Star-Ledger... "Monogamy is not a bad idea, but having the government of New Jersey dictate these things for families is not something we wish to do," Jacobs said.

Awesome.

A New York high school principal forced three female students to leave school last week because they were wearing beige leotards. I kid you not.

On Long Beach High School’s Superhero Day, the students came to school dressed up as Captain Underpants, an extremely popular children’s book character. Because his garb is just underpants and a red cape, the girls wore beige leotards and nude stocking under white briefs and red capes.

'Yes, I know they weren't naked,'' said Principal Nicholas Restivo, "But the appearance was that they were naked.''

Um, but they weren't. Would male students would have been kicked out for wearing the same thing? Regardless of that answer, Captain Underpants is a humorous character and, if anything, the costume sounded funny, not revealing or inappropriate.

Is it just me, or is this principal unecessarily sexualizing these girls for wearing a comical costume?

Katherine Arnoldi wrote her first article about equal rights for teen moms in a magazine called Hard Labor in 1976. She has won numerous literary awards since then. And her graphic novel, The Amazing True Story of a Teenage Single Mom, published in 1998, was named one of the top ten books of the year by Entertainment Weekly, was awarded two American Library Association Awards, and is being made into a major motion picture.

Katherine Arnoldi became a single mother when she was 17, living in Canton, Ohio in the 1970s. The Amazing True Story of a Teenage Single Mom chronicles Katherine’s journey through abusive relationships, toxic factory work, and the backlash she received as a single teen mom, to a college education at the University of Arkansas. Katherine has been advocating for the rights of teen moms to education and mobility ever since. And is currently a doctoral candidate in creative writing at Binghamton University in New York.

Busy Katherine emailed me her answers to my questions. Here’s Katherine…

The Bush administration recently announced it's easing restrictions to encourage more sex-segregated public schools. I'm with most of the major civil liberties groups in saying I'm not happy with this smackdown of Title IX.

(And before everybody goes shouting that, "Hey! But feminists loooove women-only colleges!", let me say that seg-segregated education is a vastly different issue when we're talking about public K-12 schools. )

Sure, some studies have shown that both girls and boys can benefit from being in a sex-segregated learning environment. But the right-wingers who are pushing for more single-sex schools don't have these benefits in mind. This is more of a tool to reinforce traditional gender roles than it is to improve learning.

Brad illustrates this with a great quote from the ACLU's complaint (PDF) against sex-segregated schools in Louisiana:

Mr. Murphy briefly outlined the differences in instruction that would be given to girls and to boys.

For instance, girls would receive character education and be subject to high expectations both academically and socially. Girls would be taught math through "hands-on" approaches. Field trips, physical movement, and multisensory strategies would be incorporated into girls' classes. Girls would act as mentors for elementary school girls.

On the other hand, boys' teachers would teach and discuss "heroic" behavior and ideas "that show adolescents what it means to truly 'be a man.' Boys' classes would include consistently applied discipline systems and offer tension release strategies. Boys' classes would also feature more group assignments.

The National Women's Law Center points out that the Bush administration is pushing for segregation without proper safeguards against this type of gender stereotyping and discrimination. Without such protections, it's easy to be worried. One of the biggest backers of the new regulations is Leonard Sax, executive director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education. Sax wrote a key book about male and female brain differences that David Brooks has cribbed from to write his stereotype-laden columns. These are the same types of conservatives who are alarmed about the "boy crisis,"

Sure, some people are saying, but sex-segregated education is voluntary -- we're not forcing anyone to attend a sex-segregated school! That may be true. But in practice, as we know from watching the proliferation of abstinence-only sex ed, school districts go where the federal dollars are. So if the Department of Education is opening up additional funding streams for schools that separate the boys from the girls, and local fundies are pushing for it, you can bet districts will line up to get in on the action.

I don't know about you, but "separate but substantially equal" doesn't sound good enough to me.

Ah, how kids love a broken promise.

Faculty, parents and students were thrilled to read on the Oklahoma Public Schools website that this year’s new student handbook would include language prohibiting bullying on the grounds of sexuality.

Shortly thereafter, the section on LGBT bullying conveniently disappeared. The school district officials say that the policy had not been approved by the school board yet, and apparently won’t be at all. According to the district, the language didn’t consist with “board-approved policy language,� and the material was officially retracted.

"They're nuts," teacher Joe Quigley said of district administrators. "They are telling students, 'We were thinking of protecting you, but we changed our mind.' Student safety should be paramount."

True that. What I'd like to know is exactly what language in the original handbook didn't meet the board's approval.

To launch their ninth year of work towards improving the lives of teenage girls through writing, Girls Write Now is having a fundraiser next month around the ING New York City Marathon.

GWN matches young teenage girls in New York City with professional women writers in the community, creating a safe environment where girls can not only expand their writing skills, but to help them develop into healthy and confident young women. (In other words, we heart them.)

Their goal this Fall is to raise at least $26,200 representing the 26.20 mile marathon each person will run. Go here to support the cause, and/or come check out the runners on November 5th! They’ll also have their table where you can buy t-shirts and anthologies. We'll surely be there supporting them with towels and cone cups full of Feministing love!

We're happy to see that Adrian College in Michigan is kicking off their own Women's Studies Program today, with Jessica as their keynote speaker, talking to the students about "Why Feminism is Cool."

The program is just offering a Women's Studies minor degreee for now, but I don't doubt that will change once Jess gets her F-game on.

A recent study in the UK showed that women who attended single-sex schools have higher incomes than those from co-ed schools.

Because there wasn’t a significant difference in students’ exam results from both groups of women, the researchers suggested that the contrast in income was a result of girls in single sex schools not being subjected to gender stereotypes.

Researcher Dr Alice Sullivan said, "Single-sex schools seemed more likely to encourage students to pursue academic paths according to their talents rather than their gender.“

While the issue of single-sex education is pretty complicated, this study can simply be a reminder that gender discrimination in co-ed classrooms still exists, and shapes the outcomes of girls’ and boys’ futures.

If one person has sex, the whole school gets AIDS...and a gunfight will surely follow.

There really are some great posters at I Choose My Future, a New Mexico abstinence program. (Including this somewhat-baffling one with a pregnant boy.)

But my favorites are the "Abstinence is my choice..." line of posters. They start off innocuous enough:

But then I saw this one (pic after the jump) and I just lost it. Is that wrong?

June 5th marked the 25th anniversary of the first report of what is now known as AIDS. I spoke with Shelagh Johnson, Youth HIV Prevention Coordinator at the Cascade AIDS Project (CAP) in Portland, Oregon, a couple of weeks after this historic date.

No one from CAP was in Toronto for the 16th International Conference on AIDS that took place this week, but they were following the conference’s developments, Shelagh informed me over email:

“When Bill Gates talks about women being the key to stopping the HIV pandemic, that could directly affect the future of funding, programming, etc. It’s fascinating. Plus, any International AIDS Conference puts HIV/AIDS back in the media, which is needed!�

Here’s Shelagh…

I guess that would be a hint that your sex ed program is less than successful.

In Canton, Ohio, a school board decided to expand sex education to allow for discussion on contraception after realizing that 13 percent of one high school's female students were pregnant. Yeah.

There were 490 female students at Timken High School in 2005, and 65 were pregnant, WEWS-TV in Cleveland reported.

The new Canton school board program promotes abstinence but also will teach students who decide to have sex how to do so responsibly, bringing the city school district's health curriculum in line with national standards.

I guess better late than never?

Food Network junkies know them from their hit cooking show, “Too Hot Tamales� (1995-1999). But Chefs Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger have known each other since 1978, and haven’t stopped working together since the opening of their first restaurant in 1981.

In 1988, they were the first women to receive the California Restaurant Writers’ “Chef of the Year� award. And in 1993, they were two of only 16 chefs worldwide invited to appear with Julia Child on PBS’s “Home Cooking with Master Chefs.�

Mary Sue and Susan took time out of their busy day to do a conference call with me. Mary Sue called in from Border Grill, their restaurant in Santa Monica, California; they also have a Border Grill in Las Vegas. And Susan called in from Ciudad, their restaurant in downtown Los Angeles

Here are Mary Sue and Susan…

As an update to the recently proposed Guarantee of Medical Accuracy in Sex Education Act, a new report introduced by Rep. Henry A. Waxman has revealed that $30 million of federal funding towards abstinence-only programs have been funneled into anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers since 2001.

Whie thirty mil out of the hundreds of millions spent towards abstinence-only programs over the past five years (over one billion was spent since 1998) isn't a huge percentage, we can't forget that it's still millions of federal dollars being put into illegal and extremely harmful practices that are conducted in these supposedly "safe spaces" for women to go when in need.

Nonetheless, it's good to see Waxman isn't giving up on this. Let's just hope that this new legislation is passed.

Check out the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) for more detailed information on federal funding of abstinence-only programs.

From UPI: Women more likely than men to earn degrees

From The Washington Post: Drop in working women

Winifred Breines is a sociology professor at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts (my alma mater;). I spoke with Winifred about her latest book, The Trouble Between Us: An Uneasy History of White and Black Women in the Feminist Movement. Winifred's research spans from the Civil Rights Movement through the 1970's women's movements, to 1980's activism and a brief look at third-wave feminism.

In addition to her research, Winifred personally partook in the new left, anti-Vietnam War, and women's movements in Madison, Wisconsin; Ithaca, New York; and Boston, Massachusetts.

Here’s Winifred…

There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned abstinence essay contest.

The fourth annual abstinence essay contest held by the Wayne County Health Department in North Carolina announced its winners recently.

In addition to small scholarships and gift certificates to the local mall, students also received “a t-shirt, abstinence bracelet, and gift certificate from McDonalds.� Can I get oral with that? (Sorry, couldn’t help myself.)

The first place winner, 17 year-old Brandy Hardison, is the current Miss Teen Heartland.

"Dad made me do it. I'm glad he made me do it," she said. In her entry, she said she keeps a picture of her parents in her head and lives by the cliché, "your body is a temple."

Living by a cliché is scary enough. But “Dad made me do it?� What is it with these abstinence folks and their Daddy issues? In any case, I know I’m cruel to poke fun. It’s just when I read Hardison’s winning essay, I thought this excerpt was simply brilliant:

I view my virginity as a gift to my future husband. I don't know him yet, but I know he's going to be deserving of my love and for my waiting for him.... and all those punk guys I dated in high school will not come close in comparison.

Love it.

Yes those are scare quotes, and this time around they’re appropriate.

A study released yesterday by Washington think tank Education Sector shows that the media frenzy over the educational ‘boy crisis’ (god, I love these scare quotes!) is pretty much for naught.

From The Washington Post:

...over the past three decades, boys' test scores are mostly up, more boys are going to college and more are getting bachelor's degrees. Although low-income boys, like low-income girls, are lagging behind middle-class students, boys are scoring significant gains in elementary and middle school and are much better prepared for college, the report says. It concludes that much of the pessimism about young males seems to derive from inadequate research, sloppy analysis and discomfort with the fact that although the average boy is doing better, the average girl has gotten ahead of him.

"The real story is not bad news about boys doing worse," the report says, "it's good news about girls doing better. (Emphasis added)

I’m not one to say I told you so. But yeah, I did.

The report points out that the real educational concerns are over race and class issues for both boys and girls.

What I love about the article is that not only debunks the ‘boy crisis’ myth, but it also suggests that this whole thing is just a backlash to all the gains that women have made. Duh.

The "boy crisis," the report says, has been used by conservative authors who accuse "misguided feminists" of lavishing resources on female students at the expense of males and by liberal authors who say schools are "forcing all children into a teacher-led pedagogical box that is particularly ill-suited to boys' interests and learning styles...Yet there is not sufficient evidence -- or the right kind of evidence -- available to draw firm conclusions," the report says. "As a result, there is a sort of free market for theories about why boys are underperforming girls in school, with parents, educators, media, and the public choosing to give credence to the explanations that are the best marketed and that most appeal to their pre-existing preferences."

Yeah, like “the feminists did it!� Silly conservatives.

And fume.

This is a bit old, but necessary to bring attention to. ABC News reported last week about a sexual assault case of a disabled woman in Colorado Springs, where the district has refused to take up the case that the woman’s parents filed because their expert claimed the attack was “pleasurable� for the victim.

I warned you.

While the 15-year old boy plead guilty to unlawful sexual contact (who was the 20-year old woman’s peer trainer), the parents filed a federal law suit against the school district. The boy had apparently been suspended 20 times the year before and hadn’t been screened or trained for his time spent with the young woman. Seeking to resolve the case through mediation, the district declined the parents wishes.

"A professional hired by the district said the assault was pleasurable, not traumatic," said the woman’s mother. "He said it ignited her female desires."

What?!? How would a professional even use that phrase? Talk about the interlocking of oppressions to the umph degree.

What's truly hysterical/terrifying about this clip is that it really could be an ad for the virginity pledge sect.

In a move to combat wildly inaccurate language in abstinence-only programs, two House Democrats have introduced a bill to prevent the federal government from funding groups whose "materials on human sexuality contain medically inaccurate information."

Comically, Focus on the Family is calling it a bill "to cut funding for purity."

It's actually called the Guarantee of Medical Accuracy in Sex Education Act, introduced by Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Jim Moran (D-VA). And if the Waxman report (which found that over 80% of abstinence-only curricula contain false, misleading, or distorted information about reproductive health) was any indication of the scope of this problem, most of the providers of this curricula would be in trouble. Too bad the bill is unlikely to go anywhere.

This isn't the first time members of Congress have attempted to call attention to this issue. In March 2006, more than 120 House members signed a letter urging that federal funds not be spent on inaccurate abstinence-only programs. And last year the Senate voted unanimously to adopt similar language as an amendment to the FY 2006 appropriations bill. But conservative lawmakers kept the language out of the final bill.

In related news, the House Appropriations Committee recently said no to a requested funding increase for abstinence-only education. And Kansas has just decided to teach sex ed with an "emphasis on abstinence," rather than "abstinence-only-until-marriage," as many conservative lawmakers had hoped.

If it were only that easy.

Check out this article that questions whether school athletics that are sponsored should divide their benefits equally between girls’ and boys’ teams. Seems easy enough, right? Problem is, most teams that are sponsored are male.

Most know that companies aren’t held liable for sponsoring more male teams than female. It’s schools that are required under Title IX to protect their students from being “excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination...� Experts say that this includes "the benefits" that come with sponsorship from a company like Nike.

One suggestion given is to approach the sponsor about giving the girls’ team the same gear/sneakers/what-have-you as the boys, because most of the time, they will. Or merely divide the profits in some way or another. Some schools do just that and all is dandy. But many are hesitant to ask for more from a sponsor in fear of losing the sponsorship altogether. Others, well, don’t really care.

For example, Mary Salisbury of Oregon sent a letter to the athletic director of her daughter’s school, Dennis Murphy, (who also happens to be the boys’ basketball coach) because the boys’ team had been receiving gear from Nike for the past three years. She suggested he ask Nike to hook the girls up or distribute the gear evenly. He replied by telling her that he wouldn’t do it because he didn’t believe that the school was violating Title IX, and that the fact that Nike donated to the boys’ team instead of the girls merely reflects that “life isn’t fair.� We’ve got some inspirational role models in these schools, I tell ya!

The fact of the matter is that every school district is required to hire and train an official Title IX coordinator to address matters such as these, and the majority of the time they just don’t exist. All they have is assholes like this telling the young'uns, “Life’s a bitch, get over it, now let me get back to the real athletes.�

While Lawrence Girls-Suck-at-Math Summers promised to make the Harvard faculty more diverse, a university report shows that women are still a bit screwed at the school.

Women represent considerably less than half of the faculty in all but one of Harvard's schools, and while the number of women in tenure-track positions grew slightly from the last academic year to the current one, women still make up a small fraction of the university's tenured professors.

...In the natural sciences, 25 percent of the faculty on a tenure track were women in this academic year, the report found, compared with 22 percent a year ago. But among the tenured professors in natural sciences, only 8 percent were women.

That must be cause our girly brains want to go read a romance novel...not deal with icky boy "science."

Just one more reason why I love me some Rosie.

From Geraldo Rivera's Geraldo at Large:

Rivera: "But many are unsatisfied with the pace of progress. Even as world leaders gathered at the United Nations Wednesday to find new ways to tackle the epidemic the actress Rosie Perez led AIDS activists at a rally outside."

Rosie Perez: "I’m disappointed in our leadership here in the United States. Yes the United States is giving a lot of money for the, for the fight against AIDS but to push a program of abstinence is just insane. It, it doesn’t work. We have to be realistic and we have to do even more than what’s being done."

(Swoon.)

Virginity pledgers often dishonest about past

Ya think?

I know we’ve posted on Janet Rosenbaum’s report before, but I thought this was worth repeating.

Teenagers who take pledges to remain virgins until marriage are likely to deny having taken the pledge if they later become sexually active. Conversely, those who were sexual active before taking the pledge frequency deny their sexual history, according to new study findings.

These findings imply that virginity pledgers often provide unreliable data, making assessment of abstinence-based sex education programs unreliable. In addition, these teens may also underestimate their risk of exposure to sexually transmitted diseases.

"Teenagers do not report their past sexual activity accurately, with virginity pledgers giving more inaccurate reports of their past sexual activity," study author Janet Rosenbaum, of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, told Reuters Health.

Shocking, I know. When oh when will people just admit that this shit just doesn’t work? Get over it already!

In a post-Title IX world, with more and more women playing college sports, universities are trying to figure out what to do when female athletes get pregnant. Current policies are all over the place.

Some agreements protect the scholarships of pregnant players for at least a year and require the athletes to notify their coaches as soon as they learn they are pregnant. Other policies state bluntly that if a player becomes pregnant, she will be dismissed from her team.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the NCAA's bylaws state that an athlete is allowed a sixth year of eligibility if she becomes pregnant (even though I couldn't find any mention of pregnancy in the bylaws). However, the NCAA also allows colleges to strip scholarships from athletes who voluntarily withdraw from their sports. But is pregnancy a "voluntary withdrawal"? I'm guessing that if a woman is a committed college athlete, her pregnancy probably isn't planned. Sure, having sex is voluntary. But so is playing a pick-up game of basketball. And if athletes suffer injuries during a pick-up game, they're still eligible for "medical redshirt" status.

Which is how college athletic departments should deal with pregnancy -- the same way they deal with injuries that require months of recuperation. A woman shouldn't have to choose between continuing her pregnancy and keeping her athletic career, even though getting pregnant (while it's often an accident) and blowing out your knee aren't exactly the same thing.

One advocate suggests that colleges form support groups for pregnant athletes, to offer guidance and then ease the transition back to the playing field after she's given birth. In essence, granting this type of medical redshirt would be more like allowing maternity leave. Sounds good to me. Like it or not, college athletes, at least at major universities, are employees. They're paid (in the form of scholarships and perks) in exchange for their "work" for the university. So bring on the maternity redshirt!

Get ready to lose your shit.

The Abstinence Clearinghouse is hosting a Leadership Conference in Kansas next week with all of the usual misinformation and scare tactics. But this year is a little different. This year has a theme. Wait for it...The Wizard of Oz.

The movie shows a classic struggle of a lost girl and her misfit friends finding their way, against great odds and in the face of risk to reach their full potential. Many of the scenes and themes in this classic movie can be allegories for today's youth.

Ok, you want a cheesy conference theme? Sure. But the wicked witch of abstinence-only ed, Leslee Unruh, is taking it to the next level.

Just check out some of the panel titles:

If I Only Had a Brain: The Effects of Sex on Brain Physiology

A Horse of a Different Color (This is a group of hip hop dancers. Ahem.)

And my personal favorite: Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead! Which Old Witch? (The "Safe-Sex" Witch)

I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.

Also, there's a jingle. A jingle!

Four women were arrested for protesting schools that are turning away poor children that are unable to pay their school fees.

The women were part of a group involved in a community based protest aimed at both Government and Council schools, which have continued to turn away children for non-payment of fees.

The women delivered messages to schools in Bulawayo and Harare requesting that Headmasters stop sending children away for non-payment of fees.
In Chitungwiza, over 200 women visited three schools, namely Fungisai Government, Farai Council and Seke High Schools.

I mean that is pretty low.

via African News Dimension.

I love me some good news.

The Rhode Island Department of Education ruled last week that schools should stop participating in a federally funded abstinence only ed program:

Last Wednesday, the state Department of Education (RIDE) Commissioner Peter McWalters sent a letter to all school districts stating the program, run by Heritage Rhode Island, had been deemed inconsistent with the Rhode Island’s education standards. "This program should therefore not be offered as part of the public school health curriculum," he said.

McWalters’s decision came partially in response to a complaint filed with the Department of Education last fall by the Rhode Island arm of the American Civil Liberties Union (RI ACLU).

In a letter sent to McWalters, RI ACLU director Steven Brown said the Heritage program used false information about sexually transmitted diseases and conveyed negative stereotypes of homosexuals and women to students. Additionally, the ACLU charged, Heritage invaded student’s privacy by collecting information about sexual activity.

Damn. Sounds real “educational.� I’m glad that the states are taking some action over these ridiculous programs. I’m wondering if there are any parent-led initiatives to put an end to abstinence-only ed. I know if this was going on in my kids’ school, I’d be livid.

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle signed a bill yesterday that will require all sex education classes in the state to put an extra-special emphasis on abstinence.

A spokesman for the governor assured that most Wisconsin schools already take that approach. So why make it mandatory? They probably don’t even have orgies in the classrooms until the very end of the term!

It makes enough sense -- instead of trying to replace sex education with abstinence-only education, the sex-haters thought they might as well just try to change the actual curriculum of sex ed itself.

Sounds like some kind of faux compromise that’s just going to get worse.

This educational video from Planned Parenthood really is a must-watch. I mean, who doesn't love talking genitals? (Though I have to admit the pre-ejaculate on Mr. Penis' head made me cringe.)

Via Feministe.

The Virginia Department of Health released a report on the top 10 cities for teen pregnancy rates--Petersburg and Hopewell were on the list.

Middle school and high school students in Hopewell receive abstinence education through their family life courses in school.

In Petersburg, a health outreach worker has been visiting five of the city's elementary schools to talk about abstinence with fifth-graders. "We're looking to expand to be in the middle schools and the high schools with this program," [Mattlyn] Debrick said. "You have to be really careful about what is stated. We want the youth to know the benefits of being abstinent ... We all need to come together to make a difference in the teen pregnancy rate."

And clearly telling them nothing about birth control is doing wonders. Viva la chastity!

Many thanks to Madeline for pointing me in the direction of this great documentary on abstinence-only education.

Abstinence Comes To Albuquerque takes a comprehensive look at abstinence-only ed through a controversy that sprouted up in a New Mexico school.

Parent Susan Rodriguez was outraged when she found out that a faith-based private group was being funded by federal dollars to teach her daughter that sex is bad and condoms don't work. Yeah, I'd be pretty pissed too.

There's a lot of interesting/scary stuff in the film, but nothing quite beats the craziness that is Leslie Unruh of the Abstinence Clearinghouse who talks about her "covert" efforts: "Kind of like with the CIA, they’re not going to tell you everything they’re doing...Well the abstinence community has its own war room and it’s own CIA." Um, ok.

Another thing that really struck me while watching the film was the insane race and class issues. It's basically a bunch of white, Christian women teaching young women of color--many of them poor--about appropriate sexual behavior and what constitutes a family. A lot of kids in New Mexico come from single-parent homes (bad!), some of them may have parents that aren't straight (sin!). You'll see what I mean.

It's a short film, so go watch it now. It's really amazing.

As a senior prank, someone sent a fake letter to parents of San Diego high school students, announcing the school would be providing free condoms at all future dances.

“It's awful,� said [Principal Barbara] Gauthier, who believes the culprit may have committed a crime. “I got wind of it when a dad called me concerned, and oh my gosh, I would never send something like that. It's clearly not anything I would ever endorse.�

Nah, she's more into promoting unprotected sex.

I know it's just a joke, but it shouldn't be so outrageous to think about providing teenagers with contraception. The parents' and teachers' response shows they prefer to ignore the fact that teens have sex rather than empower them with information and contraceptives. Because it's not only those slutty girls involved in fictional teen sex cults who are doing it. New research shows that even virginity pledgers are getting it on: half of teens retract their purity pledge within a year.

Because politics are clearly more important than people’s health.

The 2006 National STD Prevention Conference, which is government-sponsored, has been changed up (screwed up) after an abstinence-only-loving congressman made a stink.

An aide to Rep. Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.), sent an e-mail April 26 to the Department of Health and Human Services raising questions about a panel titled "Are Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs a Threat to Public Health?"

"Just the title alone was enough to cause us concern," said Martin Green, Souder's spokesman. But the congressman also was alarmed because one of the speakers was focusing on a report produced by the office of Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) that was critical of abstinence programs, and because no one would be speaking in support of such programs.

Right. Because no one who cares about public health would support these programs.

In response to Souder’s objections the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the main conference organizer, changed the name of the panel to “Public Health Strategies of Abstinence Programs for Youth� and removed the panelist set to discuss the Waxman report. Take a wild guess who replaced the original speaker. Not one, but two abstinence-only panelists: Eric Walsh of Loma Linda University in California and Patricia Sulak of Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Texas, founder Worth the Wait.

Green said that the change took “basically a propaganda panel� and made it into “a more accurate reflection of the scientific opinion.� Right.

By the way, here are some of Worth the Wait’s very “scientific� recommendations on how to not get an STD: Go shopping at the mall with your friends; have an 80's movie marathon; make a scrapbook; make a quilt out of your old T-shirts and blankets; play catch with water balloons in the yard or have a water balloon fight.

Who needs condoms when you have arts and crafts?

The Abstinence Clearinghouse is so “unconcerned� about a new study reporting that virginity pledges are ineffective that they’ve put out a preemptive press release.

"A paper by Harvard student Janet Rosenbaum released this week...gives health advocates no useful information in helping youth choose healthy behaviors."

(Healthy=hymen, in this case.)

In the yet-to-be-released June 2006 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, Rosenbaum--a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard’s Program on Health Policy--found that virginity pledges were a big ole waste of time.

Five years after taking a virginity pledge, most virginity pledgers fail to report having pledged. Virginity pledges do not affect the incidence of self-reported pre-marital sex or assay-determined chlamydia.

The Abstinence Clearinghouse takes issue with the findings (wonder why) and says that in addition to Rosenbaum’s “less than scientific� method, the study’s results are marred by “the questionable answers of the survey's respondents.� And by questionable, the Clearinghouse means that they owned up to having pre-marital sex. Which just can’t be right.

UPDATE: Here's the abstract, you have to pay for a complete pdf of the report.

Today is the National Day of Silence, "the largest single student-led action towards creating safer schools for all, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression."

A project of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and the United States Student Association, the National Day of Silence was created in 1996. Participating students (high school and college) take a day-long vow of silence to protest anti-LGBT discrimination, violence and harassment.

More than 450,000 students participated last year. Sounds great. Too bad assholes had to ruin it.

Pam at Pandagon points us to the Alliance Defense Fund's The Day of Truth event:

The Day of Truth was established to counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda and express an opposing viewpoint from a Christian perspective...It is important that students stand up for their First Amendment right to hear and speak the Truth about human sexuality in order to protect that freedom for future generations.

Students are encouraged to pass out cards and wear shirts denouncing the Day of Silence. Lovely.

A U.S. appeals court ruled last week that public schools can ban clothing that have hateful slogans. The case was originally brought by a student who wore a shirt that read: Homosexuality is shameful. The Poway High School student wore the shirt in response to a “Day of Silence�—a protest organized by the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance.

School officials made him take off the shirt and he subsequently sued, claiming they violated his free speech rights.

Writing for the panel's majority, Judge Stephen Reinhardt affirmed a lower court's decision against an injunction against the school and said schools may bar slogans believed to be hurtful.

Students "who may be injured by verbal assaults on the basis of a core identifying characteristic such as race, religion, or sexual orientation, have a right to be free from such attacks while on school campuses," Reinhardt wrote.

"The demeaning of young gay and lesbian students in a school environment is detrimental not only to their psychological health and well-being, but also to their educational development," Reinhardt added.

Good stuff, but it’s upsetting that this shit was an even an argument. The outcry among conservative Christian groups is that the kid should be able to wear the shirt because being anti-gay is part of his religious beliefs. Please. What’s truly shameful is using religion as an excuse to hate. Would this case have come so far if the shirt had carried a racist message instead of a homophobic one?

Who knew the Pill could be so damned great for guys, too?

Economist Heinrich Hock of Florida State University says that women’s use of the birth control pill has increased men’s educational level (as well as women’s.)

Hock examined education data collected by states during the 1960s and 1970s when the Pill became widely used.

...The surprise came when he looked at college completion rates among young men during the same time period. Guys, too, indirectly benefited from the Pill because it allowed them to complete their educations rather than have to drop out and get a job to support a baby.

Cool shit. I wonder if the same could be said for other forms of birth control--though I suppose nothing compares to the popularity of the Pill. Oh, Ortho Tri-Cyclen. You slay me.

It seems abstinence-only ed wasn't crappy enough with its bad science and sexism. The Bush Administration just had to add little more stupid to the pile.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently announced new guidelines for organizations that want funding for their abstinence-only ed programs. May I present...uber-abstinence (for straights only, please):

Abstinence curricula must have a clear definition of sexual abstinence which must be consistent with the following: “Abstinence means voluntarily choosing not to engage in sexual activity until marriage. Sexual activity refers to any type of genital contact or sexual stimulation between two persons including, but not limited to, sexual intercourse.�

...Throughout the entire curriculum, the term “marriage� must be defined as “only a legal union between one man and one woman as a husband and wife, and the word ’spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.� (Consistent with Federal law)

So if you're gay, you get no sex. Ever. Not even some rubbing action, sorry. In fact, in our happy abstinence-only world, you don't even exist. (Lalalala...I can't hear you!)

PEEK, Via Think Progress.

We're all aware that the Bush administration loves to fund abstinence-only education programs that provide high school students with all sorts of misleading information about sex and contraception. But why stop there? Now they've moved on to medical students.

A group called the Medical Institute for Sexual Health has scored $200,000 from the CDC to "develop a sexual-health curriculum for doctors in training." Who's leading the project? None other than Feministing favorite Dr. David Hager, whose hobbies include raping his wife and denying American women over-the-counter access to emergency contraception.

The institute objects to being called "abstinence-only"... Yet the institute mainly discusses condoms to disparage them and sexually transmitted diseases to assert that only abstinence offers reliable protection. Its core message is that "the behavior choices necessary for optimal health are sexual abstinence for unmarried individuals and faithfulness within marriage."

Their language is couched in health and science rather than morals, which might make them more palatable than conventional abstinence-only groups. (They say "nonmarital" pregnancy instead of "out-of-wedlock," for example.) But the message is the same: stay pure if you don't want to die and go to hell.

The Medical Institute secured CDC backing for its med school curriculum by way of a Congressional earmark. (It won't say which members of Congress intervened on its behalf, and they're not jumping to take credit, either.) ... When word got out about the curriculum, sexual-health experts affiliated with the CDC were taken by surprise. The agency had posted no request for proposals. It had put on no competitive bidding process.

While this may be common practice for publilc transportation projects and military projects, it's almost unheard of to award a non-competitive public-health grant.

Unfortunately, the article doesn't detail exactly how or what the Institute will be teaching medical students, or give much background about the importance of CDC curricula in med school. (Any med students out there who know?) But whatever the curriculum looks like, my hope here is that medical students are far too knowledgeable about the facts of life to be swayed by conservative propaganda about condoms and "unhealthy" sex.

Caryl Rivers (who I had the pleasure of hearing speak at WAM) and Rosalind Chait Barnett have a piece in yesterday’s Washington Post that debunks the myth of the educational boy crisis. Thank god someone is taking this shit on.

The boy crisis we're hearing about is largely a manufactured one, the product of both a backlash against the women's movement and the media's penchant for continuously churning out news about the latest dire threat to the nation.

Honestly, there’s too much good stuff in this article to only focus on one thing. So go read it and judge for yourself.

This is kind of scary. A teacher in a UK Catholic school had to contact the police after she received threatening letters from an anti-choice organization over her teaching contraception.

Diana Vernon, of Woldingham School, in Surrey, was sent hostile letters and e-mails by anti-abortionists attacking the move to teach girls aged 14 and 15.

Anti-abortion group UK LifeLeague said the school did not have to teach it.

Vernon said that “we make sure that the girls are aware of the options and then can leave here and make an informed moral choice for themselves.” Well there’s the problem! I guess no one told her that young women aren’t allowed to make decisions for themselves--that’s what old white men are for. Duh.

While school districts in Kansas have always had an “opt-out” policy when it came to sex education (this means that unless a parent sends a letter of objection, their child will receive sex education), a new “opt-in” policy has recently replaced it, requiring written permission from all parents to enroll their kids in sex ed. Check it:

Critics of the measure said that the children whose parents won't see a permission form or won't turn it in are the ones most likely to need the courses. Some also said that the rule may violate the Kansas Constitution, which gives local school boards broad authority.

One board member wants the new policy to go further and require abstinence-only courses. ‘We need to send the correct message,’ Kathy Martin said.

You know, the message that condoms don’t work and sex is the devil.

The board has said that it plans on discussing Martin's proposal at a later meeting. It’s better to let a bit of time go by so the agenda doesn’t look so obvious.

This new policy was recently voted by the school board, just three weeks after the state Senate approved a bill that will require sex education classes in all school districts. (At least we get some good news.) Similar regulations have already been existent in these districts, but have expired, and this new bill is now before a House committee.

Arizona, Nevada, and Utah also currently require parental permission to receive sex education. At this rate, permission slips will soon look something like this:

I, _________, do hereby allow my child to receive immoral and pornographic information from philandering ‘sex educators’...

Then comes Bible study -- er, I mean, science class. (Remember, evolution doesn't exist in Kansas no mo'.)

A lawsuit brought forward by several Tulane University alumni seeks to stop the school from closing a women’s college as part of the post-Katrina reconstruction.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, seeks an injunction blocking Tulane from closing its 120-year-old H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College, one of the nation's first degree-granting colleges for women. The suit also seeks to bar the university from tinkering with Newcomb's endowment, which has been estimated at $40 million and is separate from Tulane's $745-million endowment.

While Newcomb and Tulane merged faculties in the 80s, Newcomb has a separate student government and programs for women. Women’s college advocates also say that women’s colleges give a “disproportionately high number of degrees in fields in which women have been historically underrepresented,” like math and science.

I went to Newcomb for a short while...I’m hoping they win this one.

The ACLU has settled the lawsuit against Silver Ring Thing, the Jesus-fied abstinence-only program. HHS froze Silver Ring Thing's funding back in August, and this week's settlement ensures the program won't receive federal dollars to Bible-thump until they change the curriculum.

But, like all federally funded abstinence-only programs, Silver Ring Thing will still be able to tell young women they're sluts and spread misinformation about condoms. Anyway...

Check out the ACLU's press release on the settlement, then compare it to the one put out by the Alliance Defense Fund, the group that defended Silver Ring Thing:

"Apparently, the ACLU of Massachusetts would have us believe that discussion of abstinence is unconstitutional, and that it is purely a religious issue