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I am a twenty-two year old itinerant feminist organizer - which means I am based in NYC but to quote Mother Jones, "My address is like my shoes. It travels with me. I abide where there is a fight against wrong." I've been an activist for comprehensive sex ed since I was fifteen and I continue to speak all over the nation about ending ab-only programs and getting REAL sex ed into classrooms. I also speak about reproductive justice and how young women fit into the modern fight for women's equality and all the issues young women face: lack of access to health care, economic woes that affect our health and lives, partner violence, and homophobia, among many. Activist activity I am most excited about right now: I am training to become an abortion doula, meaning to sit with women at the public hospital to help them through the experience of having a second trimester abortion.
ShelbyKnox
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Here is my very dorky but very heartfelt reaction to the TIMELY AND DESERVED death of abstinence-only-until-marriage funding!!!
"Ding dong, the witch is dead!!!"
Post your own videos and stories about your activism toward this amazing day. There is still a lot of work to be done, but (hate to break it) we don't win all that often - so let's take this moment to do a little happy dance!!
ShelbyKnox(Originally posted at RH Reality Check)
Every year when I was in high school in Lubbock, Texas, we were herded into the auditorium for a lecture from a local youth pastor about the birds and the bees.
At the culmination of every presentation, the pastor pulled a girl up on stage, produced a dirty, dingy toothbrush from his pocket and asked if she would brush her teeth with it. When she invariably said no, he pulled out another toothbrush, this one in its original box, and repeated the question. When she said yes to that one, he brandished the rejected toothbrush above his head and announced to the audience, "If you have sex before marriage, you are the dirty toothbrush."
A report recently released on the state of sex education in Texas details other bizarre things students are taught in the classroom about sex, contraception and their bodies, all subsidized by federal dollars. One skit titled "Jumping Off the Bridge" concludes that giving a condom to a teen is like saying, "Well if you insist on killing yourself by jumping off the bridge, at least wear these elbow pads." Another presentation equates pre-marital sex with instances of marital murder-suicide. Still another compares women's sexuality to crock pots that take awhile to get warmed up, and men's to microwaves that are ready to cook at a moment's notice.
An entire generation of American teens has been confused, misinformed and endangered by abstinence-only-until-marriage programs like these. They are not just paid for by the federal government; states can't use these dollars for anything else.
In the past fifteen years alone, more than a billion taxpayer dollars have been doled out to every state to teach curricula that often contain factual inaccuracies about condoms and contraceptives, generalizations about sexuality that are based on biases about gender and sexual orientation, and religious messaging that probably violates the U.S. Constitution.
ShelbyKnoxActress Scarlett Johansson, of "Lost in Translation" fame, has come out swinging on the Huffington Post today in response to recent rumors that she's been crash dieting and exercising to the point of exhaustion to lose 14 pounds to slither into a latex catsuit in the forthcoming "Iron Man 2" film.
She squashes the rumors plainly, saying:
But more than simply clearing up misinformation about herself, she goes after the magazines that make a profit selling unhealthy body standards to American women, 10 million of whom, she notes, are battling anorexia or bulimia:If I were to lose 14 pounds, I'd have to part with both arms. And a foot.
Johansson, 24, seems to know exactly who the magazines target and affect the most. That's why she's responding:I believe it's reckless and dangerous for these publications to sell the story that these are acceptable ways to looking like a "movie star." ...The press should be held accountable for the false ideals they sell to their readers regarding body image — that's the real weight of the issue.
ShelbyKnoxYesterday on Capitol Hill Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Senator Frank Lautenburg re-introduced the REAL Act, federal legislation that would for the first time in history put federal dollars toward comprehensive sex education.
I was honored to be at the press conference for the introduction of the bill; it's was like watching a dream I've had for a long time almost come true. I have a long history with abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, starting when I was fifteen in Lubbock, Texas. I've now spent eight years (more than 1/3 of my life!) as an advocate for comprehensive sex education because I've seen my generation lost to programs that put ideology before our health - and I don't want it to happen to the next one.
My school district had a strict abstinence-only-until-marriage policy - and some of the highest rates of STI's and unwanted pregnancy in the nation. Not only did we skip the anatomy portion of biology in deference to the ab-only policy, our "sex education" didn't start until high school - FAR too late to do us much good. During freshman year we were herded into the auditorium to listen to a lecture from a local pastor on 'Love, Sex, and Dating.'
As the culmination of every presentation, the pastor pulled a girl up onstage, produced a dirty, dingy toothbrush from his pocket and asked if she would brush her teeth with it. When she invariably said no, he pulled out another toothbrush, this one in its original box, and repeated the question. When she said she said yes to that one, he brandished the rejected toothbrush above his head and announced to the audience, “If you have sex before marriage, you are the dirty toothbrush.”
ShelbyKnox(Originally posted at RH Reality Check)
Today, National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, the Women's HIV Collaborative of New York released Women Living with HIV and AIDS in NYC, a geographical analysis and comprehensive examination of the epidemic as it affects women in the five boroughs.
Using statistical data compiled by government agencies, the report visually depicts by ZIP code a clear reality: women of color living in low-income areas are most at risk for HIV/AIDS infection, suggesting socio-economic factors depressing their communities, like high rates of incarceration and low rates of high school graduation, as well as lack of access to reproductive health care and information about risk reduction, put them in a uniquely vulnerable position for infection and at a possible disadvantage for treatment.
Young women of color are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS; black and Latina women ages 13-24 account for 75% of all new infections nationwide. Not surprisingly, the "hot spots" with the highest HIV/AIDS infection rates in the city also have the highest rates of sexually transmitted infections (STI's) and unplanned pregnancies.
The report recommends mandatory comprehensive sexuality education in New York's public classrooms to slow the epidemic's devastating effects on the next generation. It calls on local and state leaders to take the lead in providing young people the information to make informed, responsible decisions about sex. Unfortunately, that's an area in which New York politicos have proved, in all senses, quite deficient.
ShelbyKnoxA new report out of the Lone Star State tells it like it is: in the state that gets the most federal abstinence-only money, only 4% of school districts teach responsible information about preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.
Of the other 96%, 2% choose to teach absolutely nothing at all, while the rest use programs and tactics of the "abstinence clowns" including using program materials with factual inaccuracies about condoms and contraceptives, generalizations based on stereotypes about gender and sexual orientation, and religious messaging that violates constitutional statutes.
The report, based on materials gathered from over 1000 Texas school districts, goes into shocking detail about exactly what young people are being told about sex, contraception and their bodies.
One skit titled "Jumping Off the Bridge" concludes: Giving a condom to a teen is just like saying, "Well if you insist on killing yourself by jumping off the bridge, at least wear these elbow pads - they may protect you some?"
Another presenter inexplicalby equates pre-marital sex with post-marital murder-suicides, while yet another compares male sexual desire with a microwave and female sexual desire with a crockpot. Huh?
ShelbyKnox
Bristol Palin, the 18 year-old daughter of Alaska governor and former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, introduced Fox News viewers to her son, Tripp and discussed teen motherhood with Greta Van Susteran this weekend.
While her mom has publicly supported the failed abstinence-only-until-marriage policy, Bristol said “everyone should be abstinent but it’s not realistic… [sex] is more and more accepted among kids my age.”
Even her mom seems to have had a change of heart, saying about abstinence-until-marriage, “It sounds naive. Life happens.”
This seems like a perfect place to find common ground with conservatives: comprehensive sex education is a way to prevent teen pregnancy and promote positive sexuality. 25 governors, several federal studies, and rising teen birth and STI rates suggest we need a change of course. But, it's even more compelling to hear it from the mouth of a young woman who knows firsthand what some education could do.
So, who's going to ask Bristol if she'd like to blog for Amplify?
ShelbyKnox(The following is part of our weekong Roe v. Wade Blog-a-thon)
“We are women whose ultimate goal is the liberation of women in society. One important way we are working toward that goal is by helping any woman who wants an abortion to get one as safely and cheaply as possible under existing conditions...” – Abortion Counseling Service of Women’s Liberation (JANE) Pamphlet, 1969
Existing conditions in 1969 meant that abortion was illegal, under almost all circumstances, as was providing information about it. Desperate women were forced to extreme measures to end unwanted pregnancies and in the years before legalization it’s estimated that more than five thousand women died from botched “back alley” abortions every year.
At 22, I’m part of a second generation of women that’s never lived this reality. By 1969, New York was a year away from legalization and a case in Texas was working it’s way up the pipe, pushed along by a determined young lawyer named Sarah Weddington. She argued her first case, given the name Roe v. Wade, to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1973 – and changed the history and future of American women forever.
That’s ‘sheroism’ – and we owe a debt of gratitude to Weddington, and to the Redstockings of New York City, who organized the first abortion speak-out, and to George Michaels, who effectively ended his political career when he changed his vote from ‘No’ to ‘Yes’ to allow New York State to legalize abortion, and to all the nameless activists who protested, wrote, and lobbied for the rights we now enjoy.
ShelbyKnoxA title like that and it's not even a story about Bill Clinton...
Christopher Buckley may have gone up a few notches in the world in the eyes of some liberals, what after the heir of the conservative intelligentsia thumbed his nose at the party, endorsed Obama, and started writing snarky copy for the slightly more left-leaning Daily Beast.
But he's still got it in with the crotchety ol' patriarch crowd, and evidently thinks it's funny that our 41st President, Bush Sr., took time to sexually harass a female member of the armed services on Obama's inauguration day:
Did you notice that he winked and grinned and lightly whacked the young military woman standing ceremonial guard in the hallway? That’s George Bush: kind, gentle, and frisky, even in his dotage. She’ll be telling her grandchildren that the 41st president of the United States whacked her in the tummy the day Barack Obama was sworn in.Let old men be old men and sexism and total disregard for the women serving this country abound! Ugh. Perhaps it's time to shoo Buckley back to his side of the sandbox.
