Posts Categorized: Summer
Why Providers Want to Hear from Young Activists
Being a second semester college senior, I wouldn’t necessarily classify myself as a morning person. My earliest class starts at 9:30am and Tuesday/Thursday mornings are struggle city. So when I saw that the panel I’d be speaking on started at 7:45in the morning (!!) I was a bit nervous. Would I be ready to have important conversations at that hour? Would others? Luckily for me (and for those who attended my session) the answer was yes. “Uniting Leaders of Tomorrow’s Reproductive Justice Movement with Providers of Today” was a short panel discussion centering around issues that are important to the reproductive justice as a whole movement from a variety of angles (including activism, organizing, policy, and education) and the MDs in the room were completely engaged. We presented the panel at the… Read more »
Hey NPR: Stop Shaming Teen Parents!
Earlier this week NPR published an article detailing the success of comprehensive sex-education in lowering the teen pregnancy rate in Denmark, South Carolina. While I believe firmly in the power and importance of comprehensive, sex-positive, sex education for all young people I was disappointed by the assumption that all teen pregnancies are unwanted and that all teen parents would be better off postponing their families. The article quotes Michelle Nimmons, an advocate for comprehensive sex-ed from Denmark, S.C., saying, “”Great-grandmamas were in their 40s, and parents were in their teens, so a lot of education had to happen.” While I don’t doubt that Denmark’s sex-education was in dire need of a revamp, this kind of rhetoric shaming young parents has dangerous implications for families and the reproductive justice movement as… Read more »
In Defense of Bossy Girls
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer and the author of the famous Lean In, is calling for a ban on the word bossy. Sandberg argues that words are powerful and that the word bossy discourages girls from taking on leadership positions, ultimately holding them back long-term. I love the message this campaign sends to young women as well as those who help raise them. Words do matter, they are incredibly powerful, and the way they’re used when we’re growing up helps to shape the way we interact with the world around us. “Bossy” girls are often strong-willed and opinionated, two of my favorite attributes in any person and vital skills that we need in the workplace and in society.
Culture of Shame: What Duke’s First-Year Porn Star Says About Us
There have been about a million posts about Belle Knox, the Duke first-year and self-proclaimed porn star, over the past couple of weeks. From the apparently shocking news that there is a current porn star actually pursuing her education (!!) to the immediate and incessant slut-shaming and double standards, to the conversations around porn consumers and producers, to Stoya’s beautiful and eloquent piece on sex-workers and privacy in the New York Times, it would seem that there is not much left to add to this conversation. But I feel the need to add a few of my own words to all of this. Part of the critique against Knox inevitably comes from the fact that she is relatively young. At eighteen years old, her work in the porn industry is entirely… Read more »
Let the Budgeting Begin: Why Obama’s Version Makes Me Smile
We had some good news out of the White House recently — President Obama just released his version of the budget this week and in it he gives some major attention (and money) to comprehensive sex education! I’m especially excited about President Obama’s five-year re-authorization and maintenance of funding for the Personal Responsibility Education Program, an education initiative for young people to help prevent unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, specifically for youth who are homeless, in foster care, or who come from areas with high levels of teen pregnancy, including youth of color. He also proposes increases in funding for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative, which helps to prevent unintended pregnancies in teens and support teen parents in communities around the country.
I <3 my IUD
This is a message to all you lovely period-having people out there – stop asking if I have a tampon you could borrow. I have no tampons, I’ve never tried a Diva Cup, and I can’t commiserate with you about the awfulness of the whole menstruation thing. It might be nice to bond about this with you all and it might be nice to sync up cycles with my best friends but truth is I haven’t had a period since September of 2012. Don’t freak out — there’s nothing medically wrong with me! If I want to reproduce in the future I totally can! But for now, I am the proud owner of a Mirena IUD and have happily avoided my period since its insertion. I haven’t met a lot… Read more »
18 And Clueless: How California’s Proposed Affirmative Consent Law Could Have Helped Me
I remember my very first week of college, my first real night at a college party. Newly independent and recently single, I was determined to have a night I’d never forget. I pulled myself together in an outfit I’m sure I was very proud of at the time (though, in retrospect, #fashionmistakecentral), downed some shots, and set off to dance and try to meet boys. I had a nice time but didn’t meet anyone, so around 1am I decided to head back to my dorm room by myself. When I was almost there, I heard a voice calling at me from a car driving next to me. It was a boy, a cute boy, and he asked where I was headed. He told me that he was an RA at… Read more »
What the Drop in the Abortion Rate Won’t Tell You
It’s official, America. According to the newest study on abortion rates from the Guttmacher Institute, the national abortion rate is now in decline. According to the study by Rachel Jones and Jenna Jerman, the abortion rate declined to 16.9 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 in 2011. In comparison, the recorded peak of the American abortion rate was in 1981, with 29.3 per 1,000 and the lowest since 1973 (16.3 per 1,000). Since 2008, the abortion rate has fallen wholly 13%. It’s easy to get excited about numbers like these from either side of the aisle. For anti-choicers, fewer abortions is always a good thing. For reproductive justice advocates like myself, fewer abortions may reflect fewer unintended pregnancies and therefore more reproductive freedom and autonomy. But a closer look at… Read more »
Make Roe Real: How I Make My Personal Life Political
This week marks the 41st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the famous Supreme Court Case that “guaranteed” the right to abortion to American women. But as we discussed just last month, subsequent court cases like Planned Parenthood v Casey seriously compromised the Roe promise, especially for young people. Limited funding and restrictive laws like parental notification requirements make it hard for young and low-income people to get the abortion care that they may need. There are many ways to help make the promise of Roe real for everyone. As a young, generally broke, over-committed college student I sometimes worry that I don’t have the monetary or social capital to really make a difference. But then I remember that the personal is political and by sweating the small stuff, fighting the… Read more »
Project Unbreakable and New Young Organizing
Sometimes social justice can be exhausting. Trying to convince the general public that issues like abortion, birth control, and sexual violence aren’t only important for women, blogging consistently, attending meetings, organizing protests – a social justice advocate’s work is never over. This work can be emotionally draining and every once in a while, I find my commitment wavering. I’m tired, I’m busy, and I’m stressed about my future so why should reproductive justice be one of my priorities? At times like that, when I feel tired and unsure and dare I say uncommitted, I turn to blogs like Project Unbreakable. The site, founded in 2011 by then 19-year-old Grace Brown, features pictures of survivors of sexual assault holding one or more posters with the words of their attacker. These startlingly… Read more »
