Tuesday, November 19, 2013

On Women, Spaghetti and Vacuum Cleaners


Those three concepts are interlinked by one abstinence preacher.  Abstinence preachers are invited to local schools in lots of places in this country, and they can get federal funds for that work.  While they promote abstinence, they also promote traditional sex roles and gender stereotypes:  God created boys to lead, girls should not talk so much, boys are thinkers, girls are emotional and so on and so on.

This Mother Jones article on few of the abstinence preachers is utterly and wonderfully hilarious.  For example:

Donahue is a speaker for the Colorado-based Center for Relationship Education, an abstinence-only education program that works with students in 42 states and has received millions in federal funds. In 2006, Donohue caused controversy at Natrona County High School, a public school in Casper, Wyoming, when she gave a religious-themed abstinence presentation. According to the Casper Star-Tribune, she asked students, "Do you get closer to your God or do you get farther away when you have sex?" (The answer she wanted: "Farther away.") She also said that boys are "wired" to like math, science, and numbers, and girls are wired to be more feelings-oriented. She held up a bag of noodles to indicate that girls "are like spaghetti, with their feelings about parts of their lives entangled," according to the Star-Tribune. (She told the paper: "The outpouring and the positive was so much greater than this one kid's complaint.") In a training video posted by the Denver Westword in 2011, Donahue tells students that if a guy gets sperm anywhere near a girl's vagina, it will turn into a "little Hoover vacuum" and she will become pregnant. (No. Vaginas don't vacuum sperm off the couch.) In another 2011 video, she says, "the boys want to love and respect these girls, and the girls won't let them. The girls are backing up the booty, the girls are being assertive, these girls are emasculating these boys." She continues to conduct sex-ed training programs for teachers on public Title V funds and is holding one this month in Greeley, Colorado.

Bolds are mine.  These messages may be brought to schools courtesy of tax payers!

The other preachers talk quite a bit about the need for girls and young women to cover up, which reminds me of some other preachers of other religions.

Then there are all the factual inaccuracies or lies.  What intrigues me most is the paradox of demanding that girls abstain from sex  but also let the boys be the leaders, for doing otherwise emasculates the boys.  How do you manage to refuse sex if your leader wants you to have it?  Especially as you are supposed to shut up and bat your eyelids admiringly instead of saying anything.

The government is to blame here, for letting these preachers among our young people and for paying them lots of money.