a bird and a bottle

The fabulous Ms. Lindsay Beyerstein has taken a new job as a reporter for In These Times. Her first piece, up today, takes on the Democrats and their recent support for abstinence only funding. What do the Dems have to give up, she wonders, in order to secure the success of some of their other priorities? Here’s a snippet:

Even opponents of abstinence-only education might concede that a few extra million for abstinence education is a small price to pay for easing the passage of a very important domestic spending bill that contains a lot of spending that’s important to Democrats.

Yet, principle is at stake here. Few people realize that the CBAE program promulgates out-and-out quackery and barely disguised religious dogma. These programs don’t just encourage students to remain abstinent as teenagers. By law, they are required to teach “a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of sexual activity,” among many other stipulations. In other words, the program must teach that all sexual activity outside of marriage, even between consenting adults, violates some nebulous “expected standard.”

Go check out the whole thing here.

The mantra in the six weeks or so since the Supreme Court handed down its truly awful decision in Gonzaels v. Carhart has been that elections have consequences. After Gonzales, that phrase was used to wag fingers at all of those supposed social liberals who voted for Bush. The phrase has also been used to rub Republicans’ faces in the new Democratic congressional gains.

However it’s been used before, I am feeling today like it’s a bit of a silly phrase, lacking meaning. Why? Because a Democratic Congressman, David Obey of Wisconsin, is pushing for an increase in funding for abstinence only programs. Obey, who is part of the Democratic House leadership and the head of the House Appropriations Committee, is supporting an increase in Community Based Abstinence Education (CBAE) funding by $27 million — up to $150 million. CBAE is one of the many abstinence only programs that has been proven to be both ineffective and filled with lies. And yet, a Democratic leader in the House is throwing bad money after bad money in support of abstinence only programs.

I’m sure this is a political move on Obey’s part to placate some of te more conservative members of his home state. I get that politics is a game. But Obey shouldn’t roll the dice when young people’s lives are on the line.

SIECUS has an action alert. Got tell Pelosi and Obey what you think.

Abstinence only “education” programs are chock full of misogyny and are totally ineffective. This we know.

Yet the Bush administration has allotted more and more money to them at every turn.

That’s the bad news.

The good news? With the help of the new Democrat-controlled Congress, that might be about to change. Jessica’s got the word that Congressional Democrats are planning to let Title V — the main funding stream for federal abstinence only programs like the one Jill wrote about here – quietly die.

How’s that for legislative inactivism?

(also at Feministe).

With all the recent bad news about abstinence only programs here in the U.S., one hopes that their popularity is on the decline. Sure, there are still plenty of communities in which v-cards and silver rings are the thing, but there’s at least hope, with so many states refusing abstinence only funding, that its influence will wane.

For those who still doubt the potentially disastrous effects of refusing to educate teenagers about contraception (not to mention preventing the transmission of STDs), we can direct their gaze to China’s big cities to see what one result of such a policy might be. As the NY Times reports today, abortion rates are on the rise in China’s urban centers. Why is this happening? It’s not married women trying to avoid fines for violating the country’s one child policy. It’s young urbane women who, though sexually active, have never been taught about contraception or even the basic mechanics of pregnancy.

Health experts say that many single women lack even a basic understanding about reproductive health and contraception. At the same time, premarital sex, once rare, is now considered common, particularly in urban areas. So as more single women are having sex, despite often knowing little about it, they also are having more abortions.

“There is a blind spot in sex education in China,” said Xu Jin, director of the [women's health] clinic, which is run by Marie Stopes International, a nonprofit group that provides sexual and reproductive information and services. “We are here to fill the hole in the system.”

Using abortion as a way to fill a knowledge hole is the worst nightmare of the wingnut antis. And I don’t think it’s necessarily the best approach either; better would be to educate women on how to prevent pregnancy if they do have sex. Instead, the U.S. - and it seems China, too - have decided to ignore that need and leave women to figure it out on their own. The result? Higher rates of unintended pregnancy and women who have no idea about how their own bodies work. Case in point:

One afternoon in mid-April, Dr. Deng was between appointments when a black telephone rang on her desk. It was a hotline for single women.

“You have a pregnancy problem?” Dr. Deng asked. “Where are you?”

“Gansu,” the caller answered, naming one of the poorest provinces in western China.

“How old are you?” Dr. Deng continued.

“22.”

The woman had had sex twice in early March and had taken a morning after pill. Her period had come on March 17. She had not had sex since then but it was late April and her period was late. She was worried. Dr. Deng offered reassurance: no sex, no pregnancy.

Oy. On the whole, knowledge is greater about sex and pregnancy here, even (i think) among communities where abstinence only is the norm because of the ubiquity of sex in pop culture. That said, is this really a level of knowledge and a way of dealing with reproductive health that we want to emulate?

Yeah, I don’t think so either.

I love it when the Times avoids real social commentary by sidelining articles in the styles or travel sections. Yesterday, for example, the Times had an article in the Escapes section about prisons. Prisons? In the friday travel section? Well, yes, because it’s not about prisons today, per se, but rather about how prisons of the past have become tourist attractions.

Turns out, prisons around the country are becoming big tourist destinations and, in some places, big business. Alcatraz has, of course, been a big draw for quite some time (and is now owned and operated by the National Park Service). Turns out, the conversion of Alcatraz into a park and museum was the top of a much larger trend. Today, it’s one of many prison parks.

There’s a lot of good that come out of this — particularly, education about life inside a prison and about the errors of the U.S. penological past. But, because these museum/theme park prisons are not often political entities, the lessons that can be learned today are often notably missing. For example, Eastern State Penitentiary, the prison on which the Times article focuses and which was the subject of Dickens’ musings, was built around the idea that rehabilitation could be found only through solitary life. All incarcerated men were in solitary confinement for the duration of their sentences. Of course, this proved effective not as a rehabilitation tactic but as a way to ensure that people went insane. Today, in Supermax and other maximum security prisons, people often remain in solitary for months if not years on end. Should we really still believe that this is makes penological sense?

Also, there’s a danger to opening prisons up as theme parks. They become Disneyfied (to borrow a term from SF). Take this example from the NYT article:

At the Crime and Punishment Museum in Ashburn, Ga., visitors can eat lunch at the Last Meal Cafe, which has, the museum’s Web site proclaims, “meals to die for.”

Get it? Yeah. Because wolfing down a greasy burger can help a person really understand the American prison system. Or can help some company make a buck. There’s also this:

In just about every prison tour, there seems to be at least one poster child whose bad behavior helps bolster ticket sales, and the more notorious, the better. Al Capone is featured at Eastern State. The Wyoming Territorial Prison Museum in Laramie, Wyo., which gets 20,000 visitors a year, highlights the fact that Butch Cassidy was imprisoned there for stealing horses.

If Al Capone knew he was Pennsylvania’s Mickey Mouse, he’d be rolling over in his grave.

So what’s the takeaway here? To me, it’s the lost opportunity to really re-examine the failings of American criminal justice. As the article notes, some visitors view the prisons like they do a car accident — it’s impossible to look away. But as SF noted in an email to me, that’s the wrong analogy. The better comparison is to a torture museum, which have become popular around Europe. This stronger connection, of course, exposes the fatal flaw: torture is illegal across Europe while the tortures of the U.S. prison system persist.

Courtesy of very talented cartoonist (and new commenter(!)) Mikhaela Reid, have a laugh at the expense of abstinence only “education” programs (click the image to see it full size):

Seems that last week’s report that abstinence only “education” programs are totally ineffective has emboldened some of ab-only’s opponents.

Earlier this week, Salon’s Broadsheet reported that the ACLU (full disclosure: where I will work this summer), Advocates for Youth, and SIECUS, hot on the heels of last week’s report, have sent a letter to the director of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), warning him that if HHS doesn’t comply with federal law (which the groups claim abstinence only programs violate), they’ll file a lawsuit challenging the Federal abstinence programs. Salon tells us that the case would be based on:

evidence that 1) many federally funded abstinence-only programs are filled with medically inaccurate information about condoms, HIV and other sexual health issues and 2) the programs have not proved to be effective in preventing teens from having sex.

But it’s not only the advocacy groups that are getting on the case now. Even the NYT is getting in on the action, though they did bury their editorial in the little-read Saturday paper. In their Editorial this morning, the paper writes:

Reliance on abstinence-only sex education as the primary tool to reduce teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases — as favored by the Bush administration and conservatives in Congress — looks increasingly foolish and indefensible.

I take issue with the fact that the Times is totally hedging here — these programs are not becoming “increasingly” foolish or indefensible. They always have been, but no one was willing to stick out their neck before this report came out and made support of abstinence only a losing game. I appreciate that the Times is helping make this an issue. But their “eh” language won’t help much.

The truth is, it’s on Congress now to defund these programs. Congress has been complicit in their expansion for too long (the Republican Congress, I might add). Now, led by Democrats and changing the priorities, this Congress needs to use the recent report as support for its decision to defund these programs and mandate real, comprehensive sex ed in all our schools.

Sometimes I’m shocked by what people do in the name of religion. Yes, yes, the violence, of course, is the first thing that comes to mind. But really, what surprises and appalls me are the more mundane things. The daily acts of supposed piety that require the denigration of someone else. I’m not knocking all religion (please, trolls, do not accuse me of that). What I am knocking is religion that requires one person to hurt another — physically or emotionally — as act of religious observance.

Not sure what I mean? Here’s an example. KMZ just sent me the video embedded below. It’s from the actor/monologist/author Mike Daisey’s Friday night performance of Invincible Summer, his monologue currently running at the American Repertory Theater here in NYC. On Friday, Daisey was performing one of his extemporaneous monologues to a sold-out crowd. Until, in the middle of a sentence, all of a sudden, eighty seven members of a Christian group got up en masse and walked out. In the middle of the show. One man stopped and poured water all over Daisey’s handwritten outline for the show, an original and irreplaceable document.

Daisey, understandably, was shaken and reeling. He wrote on his blog:

I’m still dealing with all the ramifications, but here’s what it felt like from my end: I am performing the show to a packed house, when suddenly the lights start coming up in the house as a flood of people start walking down the aisles–they looked like a flock of birds who’d been startled, the way they all moved so quickly, and at the same moment…it was shocking, to see them surging down the aisles. The show halted as they fled, and at this moment a member of their group strode up to the table, stood looking down on me and poured water all over the outline, drenching everything in a kind of anti-baptism.

I sat behind the table, looking up in his face with shock. My job onstage is to be as open as possible, to weave the show without a script as it comes, and this leaves me very emotionally available–and vulnerable, if an audience chooses to abuse that trust. I doubt I will ever forget the look in his face as he defaced the only original of the handwritten show outline–it was a look of hatred, and disgust, and utter and consuming pride.

It is a face I have seen in Riefenstahl’s work, and in my dreams, but never on another human face, never an arm’s length from me–never directed at me, hating me, hating my words and the story that I’ve chosen to tell. That face is not Christian, by any definition Christ would be proud to call his own–its naked righteousness and contempt have nothing to do with the godhead, and everything to do with pathetic human pride at its very worst.

And it wounded me in my heart, because I trusted these people. Scared parents and scared teachers running from a theater because words might hurt them, and so consumed by fear that they have to lash out at the work, literally break it apart, drown it.

[...]But they are not simply fools and idiots–I saw them. They are young and old, they are teachers and students, they are each and every one of us. We are the same family, even if it hurts. The hard truth is that you reap what you sow, and I will not sow hatred and discontent–I refuse. I will not forget what that man, older than I am today, did to my work. I will not forget the cowed silence of those who left. I will not forget their judgment and their arrogance–but I will not hate.

Daisey’s experience, and his reaction to it, included in the video below (which is 9 minutes, but well worth watching in full) is a reminder that religious extremism takes many forms, and is both big/political and small/personal.

Texas State Rep. Warren Chisum is at it again. Yes, that Warren Chisum. The one who wanted to pass a law banning the teaching of evolution in Texas schools. The one lambasted by the late great Molly Ivins in her Dildo Diaries video.

This time, the man who wants to fight for a Christian Texas is doing it pretty overtly. The LA Times reported yesterday that he has proposed a bill that would require all public high schools to offer an elective course on the Bible. The course would teach the “history and literature of the Old and New Testaments eras.”

There’s so much wrong with this bill it’s hard to figure out where to start. Here’s the obvious. In many many (many) places in Texas, a class that teaches the Bible will not be teaching it as literature, but rather as a holy document and the word of God. Though Chisum says that won’t be so (he said the course would not treat the Bible as a “worship document” but would promote religious and cultural literacy by “educating our students academically and not devotionally.”), I’m not quite so sure.

Think about it. Especially given the funding structure of the bill. Who would be the teachers?

The bill, which says the class is to be taught in “an objective and nondevotional manner,” does not provide funding or training for school districts and teachers. [...]

“The fear is that teachers with limited training and no guidance will be called upon to teach a course for which their experience draws largely from Sunday school,” Miller said. “It would be difficult for them to keep their own religious perspective out of the classroom. You can almost hear the lawyers lining up.”

That fear is well-founded. There are already studies proving that religion has a tendency to creep in in situations like the one this bill would create:

A study conducted for her group by Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University, found that of Texas’ 25 public school districts with a Bible course, 22 districts’ offerings had a Christian slant.

“When teachers don’t have solid training in biblical studies and 1st Amendment issues, then they fall back on what they know from prior knowledge,” Chancey told state legislators last week. “Courses end up being sectarian, often despite their best intentions.”

He said one teacher showed students a PowerPoint presentation titled “God’s Road Map for Your Life.” Included was a slide called “Jesus Christ Is the One and Only Way.” Another teacher taught students that NASA had found a missing day and time that corresponded to a biblical story of the sun standing still. One school showed “VeggieTales” videos, which feature computer-animated Christian vegetables that talk.

That’s right, folks. Talking Christian vegetables. Of course, the bill also raises serious First Amendment concerns. While Chisum promises that it will not teach religious doctrine (and I am all for teaching the Bible as Literature), it’s hard to see how the bill would not require state funding for religious (as opposed to literary) education. Especially given the empirical studies quoted above.

And it’s not hard to see that that’s exactly the situation Chisum wants:

Chisum’s legislation says the Bible would be the primary textbook for the class. It allows but doesn’t require the classes to include secular books or those from other religions.

Seems to me that teaching the Bible as history and literature, you might want to bring in, oh, i don’t know, a history text. Or perhaps novels or memoirs that illustrate how authors have used or criticized the bible in their writing.

There are other problems with the bill, including the fact that in many Texas schools there isn’t even funding for music education or gym. Is Bible studies the thing that should get the precious few education dollars?

Warren Chisum would say yes. Because to him, religious ideology trumps all. As I said in my post the other day about states turning down abstinence-only funding, to guys like Chisum, school is for preaching, not for teaching.

(also at LG&M)

Turns out, it’s easy for states to just say no.

The L.A. Times reported Sunday on the rash of states that have refused to accept federal abstinence only funding. In a turn that makes me dance with joy, swing state Ohio was among the most recent:

In an emerging revolt against abstinence-only sex education, states are turning down millions of dollars in federal grants, unwilling to accept White House dictates that the money be used for classes focused almost exclusively on teaching chastity.

In Ohio, Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland said that regardless of the state’s sluggish economic picture, he didn’t see the point in taking part in the controversial State Abstinence Education Program anymore.

Five other states — Wisconsin, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Montana and New Jersey — have dropped out of that grant program or plan to do so by the end of this year. California has refused all along to participate in the program, which is managed by a unit of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Strickland, like most of the other governors who are pulling the plug on the funding, said the program had too many rules to be practical. Among other things, the money cannot be used to promote condom or contraceptive use. Students are to be taught that bearing children outside wedlock is likely to harm society and that sexual activity outside marriage is “likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.”

“Harmful physiological effects” gets it about right, though it’s a vast understatement and a sort of shameful glossing over of some important details. Like, say, the fact that abstinence only programs equate girls who have premarital sex (and girls ONLY) with dirty food or glasses of water full of classmates’ spit. As Jill has pointed out, the trope of the “used up girl” is a common theme in many abstinence only programs. How do you think that makes some sexually active 16-year-old feel when she’s sitting in the classroom? I’m going to go with not so good. Abstinence only “education” curricula promote sexism by teaching lies including this whopper: in relationships, women need financial support, strength and flattery. Men need emotional support and sex. I kid you not.

The programs also inculcate heteronormative beliefs; if the only sex that is normal or sanctioned is sex within marriage, what does that say to gay kids? And there’s more. Abstinence only programs receiving federal dollars are required to say things including that HIV can be transmitted through tears, skin-to-skin contact and sweat, and that abortion is wrong.

You would think that with such scare tactics, abstinence only programs would work wonders. But they don’t.

[A]ccording to the [Ohio] governor’s spokesman, Keith Dailey, [Gov.] Strickland sees little evidence that the program has been effective. “We’ve spent millions of dollars on such education since Ohio first started getting grant money in 1998,” Dailey said. “If the state is going to spend money on teaching and protecting kids, the governor believes it’s better to spend it in a smarter, more comprehensive approach.”

New Jersey was similarly galled:

Health and Human Services endured enormous criticism by governors last year after it issued a document underscoring and clarifying key rules for states that took federal abstinence grants. Among the points that unsettled some state officials: Applicants “must not” promote contraceptive or condom use, nor even “refer to abstinence as a form of contraception.”

In the months that followed, states started to turn away from the program. In October, New Jersey said it would do without the $800,000 it had been receiving. Wisconsin followed in March, when Democratic Gov. James Doyle said the state would no longer accept nearly $600,000.

“When we got that first memo, that did it for us,” said Stephanie Marquis, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Health and Family Services Department. “How can we do our best to teach the teens that are sexually active if our hands are tied?”

That’s exactly the point. Abstinence only is not about teaching teens. It’s about preaching to them.

(Via Kaiser Network)

There’s been a lot of news recently about the rising prices of the birth control pill on college campuses. Whereas students used to be able to get the pill at cut-rate prices, those days are gone. And birth control is now too expensive for many college women to afford. The Times has more in an Editorial today:

For almost 20 years, college health centers have been able to purchase contraceptives at nominal prices. This was not a tax-funded subsidy. It was a financial incentive that gave drug manufacturers an exemption from Medicaid pricing rules so they could sell contraceptives and other products to certain charitable groups, like the college clinics, at an extreme discount. In response to concerns that drug companies were abusing this privilege, language was sewn into legislation in 2005 to close a loophole. It also inadvertently slashed this important benefit for clinics and their patients.

On some college campuses, the price of brand-name contraceptives has risen from the neighborhood of $5 per month to $40 or even $50. Switching to a generic is an option in some cases, but it can still entail a 300 percent price increase. Generics often run at about $15 per month. Newer contraceptives, like the NuvaRing, which contains a very low hormone dose and does not require a daily action that is easily forgotten, are not yet available generically. Many students are priced out of the market.

So we now live in a society where young women are unable to purchase monthly birth control and unable to secure state funding for an abortion (in most states). Anyone see a pattern here? Feels to me like mounting pressure for a return to the glory days of women as babymakers. For a long time now, religious conservatives have quietly lobbied against birth control while shouting about abortion. More and more, they’re raising the volume.

Correlation instead of causation? Perhaps. But given the power wielded by the wingnuts, I’m suspicious. Whatever the cause, the new Democrat-controlled Congress has got to close this loophole, and fast.

As Jill has written, the pro-life (anti-choice) agenda is only pro-life if it fits their politics. And if you’re not a woman who has sex.

You might think I’m crazy, but I don’t think that President Bush’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) is all that pro-life. Stay with me here. Yes, the program has done some great things thus far, but in its later stages is where the politics of “life” comes into play. And it’s not pretty.

The NY Times reports today in an Editorial that the program’s early stages, which have been focused on scaling up AIDS treatment, have been fairly successful. That’s certainly good news, particularly for the African countries that receive the bulk of PEPFAR’s funding and are bearing the brunt of the world’s AIDS epidemic.

But, as the Times points out, in the long term it’s AIDS prevention programs that are going to have the biggest and longest lasting impact. And that’s where the “pro-life” agenda comes in.

Programs to prevent the spread of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, are perhaps the most important tool in that long-term fight. Yet Congress specified that only 20 percent of the money could be spent on prevention, and one-third of that had to be used to promote abstinence until marriage. More money has been spent in that area than on other prevention activities, including distribution of condoms and blocking mother-to-child transmission.

What this means is that of all of the PEPFAR grants, a relatively small amount is going toward programs that prevent transmission of HIV through sexual activity. And of that small amount, much of it is going to support abstinence only programs.

PEPFAR’s website reports that the program has done a lot to prevent sexual transmission of HIV/AIDS:

Supported community outreach activities to nearly 61.5 million people to prevent sexual transmission.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? 61.5 million people have learned to prevent HIV transmission through sex. Only problem is, they haven’t really. All they’ve learned is that the American right believes that abstinence is the only way and to hell with all those others (the vast majority of people) who choose to have sex. But despite this message, people still have sex. They just haven’t been taught how to do it safely. As Advocates for Children reports, abstinence only programs have been unsuccessful in the U.S.:

Evaluation of these 11 programs [in the U.S.] showed few short-term benefits and no lasting, positive impact. A few programs showed mild success at improving attitudes and intentions to abstain. No program was able to demonstrate a positive impact on sexual behavior over time.

Abstinence only programs, the choice of the “pro-life” crew and, not surprisingly, Bush’s PEPFAR, just don’t work. Instead of taking a pragmatic approach, which would support abstinence but teach people how to prevent HIV when they do have sex should they choose to do so, PEPFAR says ‘don’t have sex. And if you do, it’s at your own risk.’

To teach this to teenagers in the U.S. is irresponsible. To use it is an HIV prevention tactic is unconscionable.

Yet it’s the favored approach of the “pro-lifers.” Go figure.

Newt Gingrich.

In a week rife with stupid comments (Schlafly, Bush, Gonzales, MC Rove), this one takes the cake.

Speaking yesterday at a meeting of the National Federation of Republican Women, Gingrich shared his enlightened views on immigration, education, and the franchise:

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich yesterday described bilingual education as teaching “the language of living in a ghetto,” and he mocked requirements that ballots be printed in multiple languages.

“The government should quit mandating that various documents be printed in any one of 700 languages depending on who randomly shows up” to vote, Gingrich said.

There’s so much wrong with this statement, I barely know where to start. First, the term “ghetto” in and of itself is offensive. Second, Spanish is spoken by people across socio-economic lines; what he doesn’t want is his precious nativist government catering to poor Spanish-speaking, mostly undocumented, immigrants. Third, Gingrich doesn’t respect the right of all citizens to vote. Yes, as he notes later in his rant, there is an English proficiency test as part of the citizenship test, but it’s a farce. Plenty of people without working knowledge of English are citizens. Floating ideas like this indicates a desire to systematically disenfranchise non-English speaking citizens, many of whom vote Democrat.

What’s funniest to me about this comment (and there is something) is that Gingrich, who is considering a presidential run, just killed any chance he had at success. The GOP more and more needs the Latino vote to win. And I can’t imagine many people of Latino descent will be voting for him now.

I’ve been wanting to blog about this all week, but haven’t had the chance. I don’t have the time now either, but I’m sick of working. So here goes.

Earlier this week, a friend sent me a column from the Arizona Republic called “Misery U: Hookup Culture Leaves Casualties.” The author, Dr. Miriam Grossman, takes college health providers to task for creating a culture in which it’s ok for kids to experiment with their sexuality in a relatively protected environment.

If you can get past how badly written the piece is, you’ll see that she is particularly huffy about Go Ask Alice!, Columbia University’s amazing and respected sexual health Q&A website (there’s also a book). Grossman is mad — shocked even — that the Alice website answers college kids’ (and other people’s — anyone can ask a question through the Alice website) questions about sexuality, whether it’s a decision about having sex for the first time, a worry about an STD, a question about masturbation, or a concern about an emotional health issue. Alice is non-judgmental and respects the worries and vulnerabilities of people who pose questions.

And Grossman just can’t stand it. She writes:

OK, hold on a minute. As a health expert, Alice, aren’t you forgetting a few things?

Let’s start with this: These young women who have turned to you are adolescents, and that likely means their cervix is immature and more vulnerable to infection. Surely you’ve studied basic gynecology and know about the transformation zone, where human papillomavirus (HPV) has infected about half of sexually active college women, usually from one of their first encounters. Did you forget that this area shrinks with time, making infection less likely? This fact alone behooves you to urge these women to wait.

Sounds innocuous enough, right? She’s a healthcare provider and she’s worried about high HPV infection rates. Except she wants to treat college-age women, who are somewhere between adolescent and adult, as if they are infants. Oh, and she fails to mention the new vaccine that prevents HPV.

Dr. Grossman goes on like this for several ever more exasperating paragraphs. And then she gets to her main point. Which isn’t really about women’s health at all, or about education women how to prevent STDs. Nope. It’s about the fact that Dr. Grossman actually kinda likes the patriarchal social structures that sex education and the use of contraception can help fight against. Think I’m exaggerating? Take it from the doctor herself:

One freshman whose first “real” boyfriend had just dumped her wanted to know, “Why, Dr. Grossman, do they warn you about STDs and pregnancy, but they don’t tell you what it does to your heart?”

What could I tell her? In my profession, common sense has vanished. It has been replaced by social agendas. The ideology of “anything goes,” “women are just like men,” “abortion is benign,” “sex is a recreational activity” is alive and well in much of campus health and counseling.

Still not sure? Well how about this: just a few paragraphs later, Dr. Grossman further hones her argument. It’s just the women you see who have to wait. Because, as she noted above, she doesn’t think women are like men. It’s ok for boys to explore their sexuality in college, but girls, you better keep your legs crossed.

But wait! There’s more!

A mountain of research highlights the differences between male and female. We once had a few STDs (sexually transmitted diseases), easily treated with antibiotics. Now, we have over a dozen, including some deadly viruses that have no cure. And even research cited by Planned Parenthood, supporting the notion that most women have no long-term emotional consequences from abortions, indicates that two years later, 20 percent felt that termination of their pregnancy had done more harm than good.

I’m so sick of this tactic, which starts with something that sounds fairly commonsense: STDs are bad, we don’t want college kids to get them. From there, there’s the requisite attack on today’s social norms which allow girls to be slutty, er, I mean explore their sexuality before settling down and popping out babies. And the fin de siecle? No good at all can come from healthy sexuality. Only bad. And bad is abortion.

Because, folks, these days the attacks on contraception, comprehensive sex education, and abortion are all tied together. It’s not about being pro-fetal-life. It’s about being pro-women-in-the-kitchen. The false concern for women’s emotional well being Dr. Grossman exhibits here (much like that of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute) is just a pretext for judging and coercing women.

Dr. Grossman shakes her finger in her column at bloggers who will call her anti-female or right wing. But she doesn’t deny it. Because, let’s face it, she’s sorta proud of it.

This seems fitting for International Women’s Day/Blog Against Sexism Day.

How many times do we have to go through this? Vagina is not a dirty word, people. Not a dirty word.*

Yesterday came news that three young women at a New York (state) highschool had been suspended for performing the piece “My Short Skirt” from the Vagina Monologues. The part they recited reads:

My short skirt is a liberation
flag in the women’s army
I declare these streets, any streets
my vagina’s country.

Their principal claims that they were suspended not for saying vagina, but for insubordination because he told them not to say vagina. Right. Because that makes so much more sense.

Amanda over at Pandagon took apart the Principal’s rationale (and those of the others who have a problem with words like vagina or scrotum):

But as you can see from the dust-up over the word “vagina”, it’s not about the words themselves, but about the concepts. The fury over “The Vagina Monologues” has never been about some mysterious substance inside the letter V-A-G-I-N-A that causes people to lose their minds. The fury is over the themes of the play and Ensler’s attempt to get to fight back against misogyny. Add this little dust-up to the evidence bin—it’s hardly a happy coincidence for the principle that the theme of female freedom would have be excised alongside the forbidden word. When he says that young people were exposed to this passage, is he mad that 14-year-olds learned that women have vaginas? Or is he mad that teenage girls are exposed to the idea that there’s something wrong with a world where women don’t feel free to walk down the street without getting randomly punished for having vaginas? I have my suspicions.

Today, the Times (in an article by my college classmate Anahad O’Connor) has more on the story. And, damn, those young women rock. The students charge that — despite their principal’s claims — they never agreed to refrain from saying vagina. They emphasize that they didn’t do this to be defiant of the school administration. They just believed — rightly — that vagina is not a dirty word. As one of the young women, Elan Stahl, puts it:

“We did it because we believe in the word vagina, and because we believe it’s not a bad word. It shouldn’t be a word that is ever censored, and the way in which we used it was respectable.

[...]

She and the other two girls, all honor students, wanted to read the passage because it had inspired them to “embrace our bodies, our femininity and our womanhood,” and that they had gone out of their way to choose one of the least graphic sections.

“We wanted one that we felt was more appropriate for the setting,” she said. “The use of the word vagina in this piece wasn’t sexual, and the piece and the context of the word is empowering.”

I couldn’t say it any better myself.

*NB: I think the label “dirty word” is in and of itself damaging. Words are not inherently “dirty” or “bad” — it’s the connotations laid upon them culturally that make them offensive. And particularly with respect to words that represent body parts. As I have noted in comments on other blogs, to say “vagina” is a dirty word inevitably leads to the correlate that vaginas are bad or dirty or shameful.