A Feminist Father’s Day Post

This post is for my dad, who maybe didn’t get everything right, but definitely gave the job everything he had.

 

I’m still not 100% clear why we have Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, but we do.  They’re a little heteronormative, and they celebrate a family structure that not everyone has, and I dislike that about them, but we have them.  And so, just for today, I’m going to talk about Father’s Day and fathers, just for a minute.

The first thing I want to say is that being a dad is often not the same as being a mom, and that’s a shame.  The burdens of child-rearing are too often not split equally between parents, even if both work, even if the mother earns more than the father.  There are far fewer stay-at-home dads than there are stay-at-home moms.  Men do less of the domestic work than their wives even beyond child-rearing, simply in terms of homemaking.  All of that falls under the umbrella of “things feminists wouldn’t mind changing”.

But in the meantime, dads DO play an incredibly important role in their children’s lives.  Maybe the most important thing is that they provide a male role model, or more accurately, a model of what being a man is.  This is what sons learn to emulate, and what daughters learn to expect.

What this means is that dads who are present in their children’s lives have an incredible amount of power in conveying what it means to be a man and what should be accepted of men.  It means that dads have the ability to show their children how a man should talk to and treat a woman, based on how they talk to and treat the mothers of their children.  A boy who watches his father treat his mother with love and respect, who watches his dad help clear the dishes at night, is going to internalize that behavior as that which he wants to emulate.  It can serve as a counterpoint to messages coming from the outside, which might indicate that it is not necessary to treat a significant other with respect, and because it is his parents, he is more likely to identify with his father’s behavior than, say, raunchy lyrics.

Likewise, girls learn what to expect from guys from watching their moms and dads, and from how their dads treat them.  This means that when their fathers treat their mothers with respect, they internalize the idea that men should respect them.  This is an idea that fathers are in a position to reinforce throughout their daughters’ lives, as they grow older and start dealing with boys their own age.  Fathers are in a position to set the example that their daughters should not accept being hit, for instance, or being called certain names.  While mothers are also in a position to convey that through words, a girl who has watched her father treat her mother right throughout her life is more likely to internalize those expectations, and not accept poor treatment.

And coming back to what I said in that first paragraph, about what needs to change: if the young men of my generation adopt a shift towards those behaviors when the time comes-~-towards taking a more active role in their children’s lives, towards helping out more around the house-~-then our children’s generation will begin to see that as normal.  That’s how gender roles change.  That’s how masculinity can change.  Dads are in the unique position to shift our cultural dialogue about what it means to be a man away from shows of power, away from masculinity defined by conquest and control, and towards a concept of masculinity that’s about responsibility and respect.  Dads are in this unique position because it is dads who, through their behavior and their conversations, start this dialogue with the next generation.

So that’s my feminist bit.  Take a minute today and say thanks to the men who have made a difference in your life-~-even if they’re not a dad.  There’s no rule that says everyone has a dad, or that everyone’s dad did a great job, because that just isn’t always the case.  But if you do have a dad and he’s been a positive force in your life, take a second to appreciate that.  And if you have someone else who stepped up-~-an uncle, a family friend, whomever-~-take a minute for them too.  It takes all types.

Happy Father’s Day.

In Which The Senate Should Just Be Ashamed

Like many advocates working on the issue of sexual assault, I was relieved when I first heard that the Senate was finally-~-FINALLY-~-going to be holding a hearing on the issue of sexual assault in the military.  The rampant sexual violence experienced by men and particularly by women in uniform should be considered a national embarrassment, and our government’s lack of willingness to act has been frustrating at best and heartbreaking at worst.  Though the military has begun to take steps to try to reduce incidence at West Point and the Air Force Academy, the reality is that far, far more needs to be done.

The problem is, I’m not sure the Senate is going to do it right.

Remember last year, when hearings were held about birth control and no women were invited to speak?  Instead of learning from that, the Senate put together a line-up wherein NO SURVIVORS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT WILL BE ASKED TO SPEAK on the issue of sexual assault in the military.  Wonderful.  On top of that, of the 20 people asked to testify, only 2 are in favor of reform.  The other 18 all oppose the kinds of reform that advocates and activists have been pushing for.

What kind of reforms ARE we looking at?  So far, no one seems to be against providing more support for survivors, and that’s a good start, but it doesn’t change the way that the military handles these incidents.  Military chiefs also seemed amenable to tougher laws for sex offenders.  A fifth of the Senate co-sponsored a bill that would remove the ability to oversee these cases from commanding officers and give that power to uniformed prosecutors.  And that’s where the military leaders drew the line: they don’t want this power taken away from unit commanders, saying it undermines they way in which the military operates.

Here’s WHY we need uniformed prosecutors handling this, instead of unit commanders: unit commanders have a vested interest in the operation of their unit, and may deem a perpetrator’s work to be too valuable to actually take action against him/her.  Unit commanders may also decide to take action against survivors for being “troublemakers”.  People high up in the military hierarchy are often unable to provide the necessary levels of oversight to ensure that unit commanders are, in fact, adequately addressing this issue-~-a problem that Gen. Martin E. Dempsey admitted to.

But back to the Senate, and why I’m so frustrated: it’s pretty clear that at least some of the Senate Armed Services Committee have zero interest in seeing reforms passed, and in fact are somewhat tragically out of touch with the issue.  The only word I can think of for the kinds of comments that have been made by some of our Senators is “embarrassing”.

For example, Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) claimed that because those who enter the military are young, their hormone levels drive them to commit these acts.  His argument, which was echoed by Senator Jeff Sessions, is essentially that men lose control when they are aroused around women, and this has led to high levels of sexual assault, and this is why we apparently have no ability to address the problem.

Sorry…what?

So first of all, the facts indicate that no matter WHAT conservative politicians seem to think, sexual assault is not about sex, it is about dominance.  If I had a dollar for every time I’ve said that, I could have paid for this semester of college, easily.  Even though most men experience high levels of sexual desire, only a very small minority (Slate’s sources indicate about 5-6%) commit rape.  The reality is that men are not mindless machines controlled by their erections-~-and if they were, would we really want people with no self-control in our military?

I think not.

It’s probably worth it to give a nod to the seven women on the Senate Armed Services Committee, who grilled military leaders and challenged the incredibly false statements put forth by colleagues like Chambliss.  Senator Claire McCaskill pointed out that it is absolutely ridiculous, and unacceptable, to treat a violent crime as a human resources issue.

I feel like I have to pause to point this out a lot, but rape is a felony.  When universities treat it like it’s just student misconduct, and the military treats it like an HR issue, the severity of the action gets downplayed, and it is not adequately addressed.  We would never just stand there and allow members of our armed services to violently beat each other and leave the bodies covered in bruises, or to commit crimes such as armed robbery; why would we allow them to get away with sexual assault, simply because the context is sexual?

The reality is, our men and women in uniform deserve better than to be subject to sexual violence.  They absolutely deserve better than to be subjected to sexual violence and then given no means of recourse.  The military has come to serve as a microcosm of some of the elements of rape culture that our society as a whole struggles with: the position of the perpetrator being used as an excuse not to take action, victims being silenced and/or punished for coming forward, people in authority failing to take the issue seriously, male survivors not being given enough attention, and survivors being accused of lying are all systemic issues that have become magnified within the military context.  But we can do better, and we must start doing better.  Those who risk their lives to defend the United States deserve better, and it’s time for Congress to come through, for once.

To those Senators who fought to keep survivors off the panel and continue to victim-blame and refuse to engage with the real facts about sexual assault: you should be ashamed.  You should be ashamed that as members of our government you are willing to stand up and say that men simply have no control, that this is not the time to act; you should be ashamed that you are not willing to listen to the voices of those who have survived these abuses, that you are only truly willing to listen to those who oppose reform, that you stand not with those of our troops who have endured trauma at the hands of their comrades, but with those who perpetrate violence, or those who let it happen.

Breadwinner Moms: How Far We’ve Come and How Far We’ve Got To Go

Last week, the Pew Research Center released a report about “breadwinner moms”-~-women who are the sole or primary providers for their households.  If you have not read it, the full report is available in PDF form here.

Let’s just talk about some of the important points of the report:

• There are two groups that are considered breadwinner moms.  When Fox News covered this story, they focused on women who earn more than their husbands, but that group is actually the smaller of the two.  Most breadwinner moms are the sole providers for their families, generally single mothers forced to be the family breadwinner.
• The income gap between the two groups is quite large. The median total family income of married mothers who earn more than their husbands was nearly $80,000 in 2011, well above the national median of $57,100 for all families with children, and nearly four times the $23,000 median for families led by a single mother.
• Single mothers are more likely to be younger, are more likely to be women of color (usually African-American or Hispanic), and are less likely to hold a college degree.
• Married women who out-earn their husbands are disproportionately white and are likely to be more educated than their husbands.
• The number of people who see unmarried mothers as a “big problem” in society has been shrinking across demographics over the last couple of decades.  So has the number of people who see having women work be destabilizing to marriages and bad for children.
• Most people now reject the idea that it is bad for a marriage if women out-earn their husbands.
• Though about 51% of survey respondents said it is better for children if the mother stays home (as opposed to only 8% who said it could be better for children if the father stays home), only 35% of FEMALE survey respondents said that it was better for children if mothers stayed home.
• In addition to gender gaps across certain questions, there were age gaps in responses across almost all questions in the Pew survey.

What do results like this tell us?

For starters, they indicate that public acceptance of changing gender roles is increasing.  My generation is less likely to think women should stay home, more likely to be accepting of stay-at-home dads, more likely to accept working women as normal, and less likely to say that single motherhood is a big problem, than the generations which preceded us, and my parents’ generation is more likely to hold those same views than my grandparents’ generation.  That indicates that over time, the population in general is becoming more open to these changes in gender roles, and passing that acceptance on to the next generation.

It also tells us that while acceptance of changing roles for women is increasing, changing roles for men are less palatable for the population in general.  Only a tiny portion of the population said it would be better of fathers stayed home, even knowing that in those houses, women were likely the primary breadwinners.  The fact that working women are still in many cases considered detrimental to marriage, and that so many people say it is better for the children if their fathers work, indicates that to some extent, Americans are holding on to these traditional gender roles.  Men are still not seen as caring and nurturing, and therefore would not make good primary caretakers, and there is still some expectation that things would work better if women stayed home-~-even though a large number of respondents recognized that having both men and women work was more economically viable.

Third, it tells us that while feminism has made great strides in terms of getting women opportunities to go to college, enter career fields they were previously barred from, and pursue jobs that can support them…those strides have largely benefited middle- and upper-class white women.  And while we are in fact a group and it is good that we have made advances, it’s past time for intersectionality to be embraced by the feminist movement.

Take a look at those bullet points again.  Never married mothers are more likely to be younger and minority.  WHY?  First, because women of color are oversexualized in ways that create dangerous expectations.  Second, because young women of color are more likely to report that they can’t say no to a boyfriend if he wants to have sex (I’ll find the source for this).  Third, because young women of color are more likely to grow up in poverty, which means they are less likely to have access to resources, including resources for sexual and reproductive healthcare.  I’ve been saying this all along: women need to actually be empowered to say no or to make good decisions for themselves when they say yes.

What else is this telling you?  Never married mothers are more likely to live in poverty.  Look at the median income of this group: $23,000.  Women who fall into this category are often struggling to make ends meet.  Again, for a couple of reasons.  First, because there is a cycle of poverty contributing to lower levels of educational attainment, which in turn provide barriers to getting jobs that pay well.  Second, because early motherhood (especially teen motherhood-~-and since I do NOT have studies to back this, this is in no way me saying that women of color are disproportionately likely to be teen mothers) is often linked to lower levels of educational attainment as parental obligations make it harder to continue with school.  Third, because never-married mothers and poor mothers are less likely to be able to force a man to pay child support, and they are therefore more likely to be fully financially responsible for their children.

I could have talked about the ways in which Fox News really mis-represented this study, but I figured it was better to talk about the important points that they just didn’t bother to discuss at all.  This study tells us a lot about the need for better social services, the need for education reform, and the ways in which feminism has thus far failed to adequately help poor women and women of color.  Issues like access to education ARE feminist issues when you frame them this way, and while feminism has done a lot to help women at a certain level gain access to opportunities, we need to be doing more to help ALL women.

 

If Male Sexuality Was Treated Like Women’s Sexuality….

…then this would be the story:

FDA MOVES TO MAKE CONDOMS OVER-THE-COUNTER: PARENTS EXPRESS CONCERN; RIGHT-WING GROUPS OUTRAGED

Yesterday, the FDA announced a controversial move to make condoms available over-the-counter, without age restrictions.  Previously, the contraceptive devices needed to requested of a pharmacist with ID shown to prove the man was at least 17.  Parents are frustrated and concerned by this change in FDA regulations.

The FDA claims that there is “no medical need to restrict the use of condoms to those over 17.  The pose no health threat to younger men,” according to an agency spokesperson.  ”In fact,” she went on, “the only real concern is that young men may not use the condoms correctly, but there’s no direct medical harm to this, only a greater chance of condom failure, and it can be pretty easily rectified–they’re not that hard to use.”

But not everyone is on board with this change.

“This is an assault on family values,” says Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX).  ”Parents should have the right to know if their sons are trying to access condoms.  If they don’t have to be present for the purchase anymore, they lose the ability to know what it is their kids are doing.”

“I don’t want my son having sex!” comments enraged New Jersey mother Sheila Weber.  ”If he has condoms, he’ll think that it’s okay!”

Mrs. Weber isn’t alone.  Family groups across the country are speaking out against the proposed changes.  Some have even started petitions urging the administration to block the FDA’s decision.  In the past, the Dept. of Health and Human Services has blocked similar attempts to increase access to condoms for younger men.

The administration, however, says it stands with the FDA.  ”It’s time for us to start deferring to science when we create our policies,” said President Obama at a press conference yesterday.  ”And the science indicates that condoms are safe for younger men.”

“It’s just downright irresponsible,” according to Mark Sanford (R-SC).  ”America has got to start teaching personal responsibility, and our young people need to learn that the responsible thing is to wait.  Policies like this just encourage reckless behavior.  What’s next?  We’ll start promoting pornography?  This policy is simply unacceptable.”

Men’s rights groups have pointed out that women are able to receive birth control at all ages, albeit with a prescription, but doctors and parents alike seem at ease with this.  ”There are lots of good reason for a girl to be on birth control,” according to Suzy Young, the director of Mothers for Better Families.  ”Millions of women are on birth control for non-contraceptive purposes, like treating cists or regulating their periods.  There’s nothing scary about that.  But the same simply isn’t true of condoms.  Those are a whole other ball game-~-it makes perfect sense that parents are upset.”

But many liberal groups are delighted by the proposed changes.

“Making it harder to get condoms doesn’t prevent kids from having sex, it just prevents them from having safe sex,” says Dr. Lindsay Weir.  ”Putting them over the counter just means that teenage boys will finally be able to make smart decisions about their own health.  This won’t encourage more guys to have sex, but it will help prevent them from getting their girlfriends pregnant-~-it can only be a good thing.”

*Note: all quotes in this piece are fictional and are accordingly attributed fictitiously.

Devaluing Women’s Work, Devaluing Women: A Feminist Perspective On Staying at Home

True freedom is about choices.  It is about having the ability, the agency, to evaluation options and choose for oneself the best course.  Feminists have fought long and hard for women to be able to choose careers they desire-~-for gender to no longer be a reason or an excuse for keeping women out of any given field.  But in doing so, there has been some risk of vilifying staying at home, and we’re long overdue to fight for women who choose not to enter the workforce, to fight for a more fair evaluation of homemaking.  

Homemaking is the traditional “women’s work”: housekeeping, cooking, raising children, etc.  While feminists have fought for women to be able to do more than simply stay at home, the reality is that staying at home may well be the life that some women desire, a life that they choose.  When feminists allow for this work to be degraded, what in fact happens is that women’s work, and consequently women and their contributions to society, are devalued.  

The primary reason why women’s work is devalued in our modern society is simple: homemaking is not classified as productive work, but rather as reproductive work.  Consequently, it is a non-income-generating activity, and in a society that bases value in terms of wages and cost-benefit analyses, it become impossible to adequately assign a value to this kind of work.  But that’s not to say it doesn’t have value.  On the contrary, homemaking still needs to occur regardless of whether or not both parents in a household are able to or choose to work, because children still need to be raised and food still needs to be put on the table.  Regardless of whether or not homemaking generates income, it is incredibly important. 

On top of that, when we degrade homemaking, we place a negative connotation on something that should be an option for women, if it’s financial feasible.  While it is true that many households require two incomes in order to sustain their desired lifestyles, the truth is that if a woman has the ability to stay home with the children, that should be an option she should be able to pursue without feeling like she HAS to be doing something more.  Even more importantly, degrading this work reinforces the idea that this work is undesirable, which adds to the struggle to gain gender equity with regards to homemaking: that is, men are less likely to want to take part in homemaking, or to consider staying home with the kids, if this remains stigmatized or frowned upon by society.  Placing greater value on and according greater respect for domestic work is going to be an important part of improving this area of balance.  Feminists can’t keep acting like this work is not valuable and then insisting that men help out: we are sending mixed messages that are just getting muddled.

There’s another aspect of this worth considering: there are women who take on homemaking and care-giving jobs for income, and if we are going to advance their position in society, we need to accord greater respect for the work that they do and the contributions they make.  This is particularly important from the perspective of intersectionality, because women of color are more likely to take on jobs working in domestic labor, and they in turn become degraded or devalued when feminism insists that this kind of work is not valuable, or that they should be aspiring to more.  I’m all for feminism fighting for women of color to have choices, but not for feminism to stand by and let women who do this important work be talked down to or treated like they are lesser members of society.  Who is to say that the woman watching your children is doing something less important than the teacher leading class or the lawyer defending a drug trafficker?  Who is to say that the woman cleaning your house isn’t providing you with a service just as valuable as the service provided by your accountant?  

Earlier this month, Venezuela made an incredible move to change the way homemaking is seen within the country: by creating a system that would allow for full-time mothers to collect pensions.  This is huge, and I’m not sure why we’re not hearing about it.  It makes a clear statement on the value of homemaking, and it provides women with some sense of security in their retirement, such that they aren’t fully dependent on husbands in their old age.  It’s a new program, and I am sure there will be some hiccups, but the sentiment is fantastic: women’s work is real work, and we should treat it as such.

I am not saying the US is in a position to start providing pensions for all stay-at-home moms.  But I do think it’s time to change how we talk about homemaking, and about stay-at-home mothers.  We need to stop devaluing this work, and devaluing the women who do this work.  We need to start treating homemaking as something important…because otherwise, we’re not really sticking up for women and validating their choices.  Feminism needs to be for women, regardless of their social location, regardless of what they choose to do with their lives…and this includes women who choose to be in the kitchen.

Five Lessons We Learn In High School That Set Us Up For Failure

For a while, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do my next blog post about.  There are, on any given day, a number of issues that are on my mind and in the news, and sometimes I have no idea how to decide on a topic, or how to choose the right words to explain the issue.  But then I tripped over an article about high school dress codes and slut-shaming, and remembered a previous post about the “boys will be boys” mentality, and it hit me: a lot of our problems become normalized in high school.  Middle school and high school represent periods of our lives during which norms are internalized; we are taught to fulfill certain social roles during our adolescence, and we carry those lessons with us throughout our lives.  For this reason, I have chosen to highlight certain norms that we are taught to internalize during our teen years, some of which have previously been touched upon, and some of which are brand new.  They are as follows:

1. Girls need to alter their wardrobes because their clothes are distracting for boys.

If you haven’t read the ThinkProgress piece, you should check it out, because the authors are absolutely right about the ways in which school dress codes normalize slut-shaming and police women’s bodies in a way that is fundamentally harmful.  The authors of the post argue that these dress codes are ultimately based on the idea that men cannot control themselves when distracted by women’s bodies, and for this reason women should have to cover up.  It conforms to the idea that women’s bodies need to be policed and controlled for the benefit of men-~-and unlike with rape culture, they can’t even couch this in terms of self-defense or prudence.  It really is just a matter of bodies being “distracting”.

I actually think the analysis needs to be taken a step further.  These dress codes set up a system by which female students are directly punished for what they wear and how they present their bodies.  In particular, for being at all sexual.  This is, first of all, a double standard, as these rules do not apply to men.  Second, this normalizes the idea that women can and should be punished for the ways in which they are dressed.  It says that it is totally acceptable for society to regulate the ways in which women present themselves, while not holding men to parallel standards.  

2. Boys will be boys…

This is potentially the worst lesson we teach in high school.  Why?  Because it reinforces the idea that hypermasculinity is normal, and because it says that men should not be held accountable for their actions, simply because they are men.  When we let men slide on things when they are young, we fail to teach them the personal responsibility that we need them to have internalized by the time they reach adulthood.

I’ll talk about the impact on women in the second, but let’s just consider for a moment the impact this has on male students.  Plenty of young men in high school are bullied by other male students, often because they don’t conform to these norms of hypermasculinity.  Hypermasculinity shuns homosexuality, academia, and affiliation with the arts~-~which is why every movie about high school ever has a nerd or a marching band student getting beaten up by the football team.  These are men who are getting hurt by the cult of hypermasculinity promoted by patriarchy, and the perpetrators of this kind of abuse are written off with “boys will be boys”.  Even when they are punished, the use of this excuse allows people to fail to internalize that there is truly a problem.  The reality is, we need to stop making excuses and start holding people accountable.

3. …and girls should just deal with it.

Here’s where I’ll speak briefly about the impact on girls.  I’ve actually already done a post on this, but I think it’s worth revisiting.  ”Boys will be boys” tends to extend to everything from teasing in the hallways to excuses for a guy picking on a girl because “he likes her” to writing off young men sexually pressuring young women into things they may not want or may not be ready for.  The normalization of this sets women up to accept abuse later in life, whether its with a romantic/sexual partner or if it’s sexual harassment at work.  Parents and educators alike need to stop writing off male harassment of women as “boys being boys” and starting treating it as harassment.  Now.  Thank you.

4. Certain statuses mean the rules don’t apply, or don’t apply in quite the same ways.

I think this issue probably got blown wide open with Steubenville, but it’s worth mentioning again.  Schools have a tendency for cracking down on certain students and going easier on other students.  First, students who are written off as “problem students” tend to get harsher punishments than the so-called “good students”, even for the same offenses.  This may make sense if you buy that repeat offenders need harsher punishments because the initial punishment obviously wasn’t enough deterrent, but the fact is, it still makes these students feel more disenfranchised.  Second, certain groups-~-especially student athletes-~-tend to get preferential treatment, especially if the school has a good sports program.  This sends the wrong message, and Steubenville highlighted all of the reasons why this is a harmful message to allow students to internalize.  But even more, this makes it very difficult for students who are harassed or harmed by students in these categories to report problems-~-again, we saw this with the backlash against the victim in the Steubenville case, and it needs to change.

5. There is no good way to report a problem, and you cannot handle it yourself.

Speaking of reporting, I’ll leave you with this problem.  When a student reports bullying or harassment, they risk social backlash, especially if the student they are reporting is popular.  Because any attempt to retaliate on one’s own is subject to punishment by the school, this is also not an option.  My high school’s rule was that if you were hit-~-if you were beaten up-~-you were not allowed to hit back, because you would ALSO be suspended.  You had to wait, and tell the vice principal.  I can tell you right now, if someone were hitting me, I’d be shoving them away from me, and to heck with the suspension, but the reality is, this leaves many students with no good means of recourse.

Sometimes reporting problems in HS feels like this.

Now take that problem and use it to focus on the issue of sexual harassment.  When sexual harassment occurs in high schools, a girl has to hope that a) the school will take her seriously if she reports, which they may well not, because “boys will be boys” and “he probably just likes her”, and b) that the school will then do something, and c) that there won’t be substantial backlash, which there may well be, especially if she dresses in a way that could be seen as “provocative”, because then she was “leading him on” or “just asking for it”.

In this way, we embed and internalize the rhetoric and mentality behind victim blaming, slut shaming, and rape culture, and teach girls from an early age that if something goes wrong, it is their fault, and they are not going to be helped.  These are not acceptable lessons to be promoting in our schools, and it’s time to start re-examining what it is that kids are getting from their education-~-because more than algebra, more than European history, these are the lessons that stay with us for life, and these are the lessons that shape our society.  It’s time to ask if this is really what we want to be teaching.

The FDA, Plan B, and How America is Missing the Point (Again)

When I heard that the FDA was prepared to lower the age restriction on Plan B from 17 to 15, I got excited-~-until I remembered that the FDA has tried this before, and failed.  In November/December 2011, the FDA announced a plan to remove the age restriction, and women’s health advocates were hugely optimistic.  But the Department of Health and Human Services blocked the change, keeping the age restriction in place.  This past week, however, the FDA announced that they were ready to lower the age limit, and the Obama administration announced that they were “comfortable” with said change.  Here’s hoping the change really sticks this time.

The change in policy is based on scientific evidence that shows that the morning after pill, or Plan B, is safe for women younger that 17.  Girls under 17 can actually already access Plan B, but only if they have a prescription; as previously discussed on this blog, young women are unlikely to feel comfortable going to their parents and announcing that they need to see a doctor about Plan B, as it is essentially an admission that the girl has had unprotected sex, news most parents are unlikely to take well.  Since it’s not medically necessary to have the decision reviewed by doctors, it makes sense to make Plan B made available over the counter.

15 is still an arbitrary age restriction.  Girls who are 14, or 13, or 12, who are sexually active may still need access to this medication, who are likely to feel uncomfortable having this conversation with their parents.  15 is a victory, but it’s not a complete victory.  There’s more to do in terms of making it so young women are able to access reproductive healthcare.

A big part of the controversy over Plan B is the lack of understanding of what this medication does.  To be very clear: Plan B is emergency contraception.  It must be taken within a couple of days of unprotected sex in order to be effective.  Plan B does not terminate pregnancies and is not an abortifacent; its only purpose is to prevent a pregnancy from occurring.  Because people sometimes refer to it as the “abortion pill”-~-even though it’s not-~-it often gets more backlash than is truly warranted.

That aside, politics is of course rearing its ugly head in the conversation over lowering the age restriction.  Conservatives seem concerned that this will lead to 15 and 16-year-olds having rampant unprotected sex.  This is an unwarranted claim: people are going to have sex regardless of whether or not they have access to Plan B.  This isn’t going to lead to more sexually active teenagers; it is just going to lead to fewer pregnant teenagers, which can only be a good thing.  For whatever reason, though, the age-old “if you don’t talk about teens having sex, they won’t have sex” rhetoric still seems to hold, despite mounting evidence that this approach is not working, and this debate has been thrust back into the spotlight by the proposed changes to the Plan B regulations.

This was a debate that was highlighted last year when New York City’s health clinics started issuing Plan B to minors, causing outrage.  Despite the criticisms, however, the program appears to be successful: falling rates of teen pregnancy across the city and increased access to comprehensive healthcare for students are major victories for this initiative.  But what the New York City program included was something that America badly needs: conversations on how to come up with an acceptable Plan A so you don’t need to keep falling back on Plan B, and an acceptance of the fact that teens are having sex, and this is a reality that we need to engage with.

This is a broader debate about teens, sexuality, and sexual health, and America needs to start having real conversations about how to address the real problems they are facing.  If abstinence-only isn’t working, then it is time to look at what options we can offer teens to help them have safe sex and make positive decisions about their sexual and reproductive health.  The time for these conversations is now-~-we can’t keep putting it off so we can debate about the morality of letting a 16-year-old prevent pregnancy.

I understand the concerns about teens having sex.  Teen pregnancy is a legitimate problem, and the 15-24 age bracket accounts for 50% of new STI infections every year.  If I were a parent, this would be terrifying to me.  But pretending that teens aren’t having sex, or trying to simply stop them from doing so, is not halting the spread of these problems.

Making Plan B available for younger girls is an important step in helping them prevent pregnancy, but we need a much broader debate on why young women should have access to other forms of contraception, so that they can have a legitimate Plan A.  We need a much bigger dialogue about consent and female sexual empowerment, so that girls are able to say no when they mean no, and can make good decisions when they choose to say yes.  We need to teach people how to correctly use condoms so that they can be effective, and make sure teens feel that they can get tested if they may be at risk.  Most of all, we need to lift that taboos on discussing sex and sexual health that make it impossible to really deal with the issues.

The personal may be political, but it is also very personal.  It’s time for people to be able to make the right decisions for themselves, and I for one am glad to see our government moving towards allowing young women to do just that.  My point is simply this: it’s not enough.  It’s not enough to let girls clean up the mess after they’ve gotten into it.  It’s not enough to tell them not to have sex.  It’s not enough to say “use a condom” if people still feel they can’t just buy them, or they’re worried their parents will find said condoms and there will be repercussions.  We don’t just need to change our policies, we need to change our rhetoric, and we need to change it now.