Make girls equal! End pregnancy now!
In this Times op-ed, Caitlin Flanagan admits that teenage sexuality can be a bad thing. Quite an admission from a newspaper and an elite that continues to talk about sexuality mostly in the rhetoric of liberation. She even manages to compliment the Victorians for their prudishness:
Pregnancy robs a teenager of her girlhood. This stark fact is one reason girls used to be so carefully guarded and protected – in a system that at once limited their horizons and safeguarded them from devastating consequences. The feminist historian Joan Jacobs Brumberg has written that “however prudish and ‘uptight’ the Victorians were, our ancestors had a deep commitment to girls.”
We, too, have a deep commitment to girls, and ours centers not on protecting their chastity, but on supporting their ability to compete with boys, to be free – perhaps for the first time in history – from the restraints that kept women from achieving on the same level. Now we have to ask ourselves this question: Does the full enfranchisement of girls depend on their being sexually liberated? And if it does, can we somehow change or diminish among the very young the trauma of pregnancy, the occasional result of even safe sex?
Can you believe this? She would seem to suggest that, for girls to be “equal” with boys, they should be spared the “trauma of pregnancy”! The opening of this op-ed seemed to progressive, so new and different, and by the end, I realize that this is the same thing we’ve heard from the left for decades: we must transcend biology!




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back to top34 Comments to “Make girls equal! End pregnancy now!”
Harrison: One op-ed column is not “an admission” by an entire newspaper.
The Times generally does a good job of presenting wide ranging point of view on its op-ed pages.
World, though a different organism entirely, ought to try the same.
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We had just met our neighbor and within a few minutes she bragged about having her 17 yr old on the pill or Norplant etc. The young lady later got preg. Sperm donor later married her. He had to wait until his braces were off to enlist in the USAF.
As for the content of the NYT editorial I here paraphrase Orwell. Only someone from the TIMES could have written or believed it. No ordinary person could believe such rubbish.
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As the father of two girls only 7 and 5 (thank God!) I follow these discussions with more than mere academic interest.
Girls who are given the resources to fully participate in a variety of sports, youth ministry and a rigorous load of challenging classes taught by engaging HS teachers… are such the young girls who are getting pregnant?
I think not. Perhaps some but hardly the majority. Young men loaded up with their own diversionary commitmts are also not sperm donors.
It seems to be most often the young girls whose lives are bereft of all the above who wind up on the teen mommy track.
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So what would this person have us do? Sterilize women?
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The full enfranchisement of girls will only happen when they are made into boys?
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if they do not have sex…………they’ll have no teen pregnancy!
problem solved. Now, it’s up to the parents
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Arcadia,
I understand the sentiment, but unlike the NYT, World has never made any secret of its ideological background and principles. You’ll never find them playing the “fair and balanced” game like some other news outlets. I’m not even trying to bash the NYT here; your point about their editorial page is on the money.
Everyone has their biases; World just happens to print theirs in the title.
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Just for the record: I hate that term “sperm donor”. Especially when used as in # 1, Sawgunner. He is the baby’s father.
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I think, as a responsible male on the planet, that the term “sperm donor” is quite appropriate for young men who sling theirs indiscriminately.
“Father” is a word I’d reserve for those who deserve it.
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Ooops – I meant as in # 2.
MiM – The “flinger” did marry the young woman.
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“Slinger” – oops again.
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With all due respect, whether or not one deserves to be called “father” has to do with his actions AFTER the child is born. Not before.
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I also happen to think Harrison, and many of you, have completely misread the piece. You’re all awfully quick to jump to preconceived conclusions.
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#13: They’re completely misreading it, of course. (If they even read it at all.)
I would summarize the thesis as “When teens get pregnant, the consequences are wrenching and long-lasting, and anyone who says different is lying to young girls.”
HSK somehow came away with: “Girls have to transcend biology to be equal to boys.”
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“The “flinger” did marry the young woman.”
Well that’s a good first step. I still would have called him a sperm donor up til that point at least… If he bugs out, then he still deserves the title Sawgunner gave him.
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I think DCL is right. It’s HUGE that a piece in the NYT admits that Victorians (bold in honor of Victoria) actually cared about girls. “A deep commitment”!
This approaches the unbelievable: a secularist saying, “We don’t have all the answers.”
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With all due respect, is there a reason we can’t teach the boy, young man a/k/a sperm donor that his actions prior to the child’s birth make him the FATHER of a child, said child being his responsibility? In other words, think twice before you get a girl pregnant. DCL’s typically liberal male response is why boys are told to sew their wild oats–get whatever you can get, the consequences aren’t yours, they’re hers, and she can always have an abortion.
Not telling the truth to young girls about what boys really want is the real crime here — and all of society bears the blame every time it endorses the concept that sex without love and commitment is okay. As Justus331 says: it’s up to the parents.
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And NJL’s typically reactionary response completely misconstrues my statement, which was a response to Make it Man’s broadside absolving “fathers” of all responsibility whatsoever by making them into mere “sperm donors.” So how NJL manages to even divine my views let alone characterize them as “typically liberal male” is beyond me.
By all means parents should tell their children, male and female, the truth about the consequences of sex, be it disease, pregnancy, or simple emotional pain. I now have both a son and daughter and they will be taught all of this. They will also be taught how to use contraception, which statistically speaking will reduce their chances of ending up a statistic far more than abstinence only messages seem to do.
Yes, its up to parents (if they exist), but it is also up to schools, role models, and the kids themselves, who will make their own decisions whether you like it or not.
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The second quoted paragraph clearly reveals the sentiment that girls would be better off more like boys. This is forced by the abandonment of chastity.
Girls need to be liberated from being girls.
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I divine them, my dear DCL, from your use of the word “Christianist.” Last year you were trying to tell me that your years and years of Christian education proved you are a practicing Christian. Surely you’re not trying to tell me that your use of the word “Christianist” doesn’t show that you’re a liberal????
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That was on a different thread. And it is not particularly relevant. It simply shows that I am not like you. Most christians aren’t. Neither are most conservatives.
Many conservatives do not, for example, like Mike Huckabee. In fact, one can argue strongly that he is not a conservative at all. But then one must understand what conservatism is, and in my opinion few Christianists (there I used it again, ha!) do. By that term, of course, I mean one who does not subscribe to classical LIBERAL limited government principles and one who believes as many here do that government should be used to advance a particular, restrictive social agenda based on a fundamentalist reading of the bible.
As usual, NJL, you prove nothing by your inferences.
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I’m with DCL I don’t know how HSK derived his conclusion.
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DC Lawyer,
It is up for debate whether abstinence-only education works in the schools. It is not up for debate whether it works to tell your own children that you expect abstinence. As a rule, it does work. And presenting contraceptives doesn’t “prevent” anything. They offer some protection against some forms of diseases (not all–not HPV, for instance), some protection against pregnancy (not foolproof protection, especially for teens), and no protection at all against heartache and sin. So you aren’t doing your children any favors at all if you tell them you expect them to be sexually active.
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Transcend biology?
Ahh, why the heck not. You guys have spent so much time denying it you might as well figure out some way to get past it.
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As fundamentalist as this sounds, straying from God’s ways does not have good consequences.
I agree that there is an implicit message being sent to girls: be more like a boy.
This is sad.
True freedom comes from embracing who you were created to be.
In a way this reminds me of Donatella Versace complaining about Hillary’s pant suits. Her complaint was that Hillary is a woman and should dress like a woman. Being a woman is a powerful thing. I liked her critique.
It sort of fits here, too.
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Cheryl’s rhetoric is typical and very unhelpful. Of course a parent is going to send an message of abstinence to a teen. But making sure they understand birth control is not telling them “you expect them to be sexually active.”
If I enroll my kid in Karate for self-defense, am I telling him he should go pick fights?
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DC Lawyer, if you tell your child, “Don’t ride your bicycle until I get home” and then call ten minutes later to say, “Oh, by the way, just so you know, the key to the bike lock is in my desk,” the child might interpret that to mean it’s OK if he rides his bike while you’re gone, right? If you tell him which local drug dealers have the best prices, you’ve suggested a new form of “recreation,” no?
If he’s expected to abstain from sex until he gets married, then he doesn’t need to know about contraceptives at 14. When you make sure he knows about them, “just in case,” you’ve given a very clear message that you expect, and condone, sexual activity.
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DC Lawyer, by using the self-defense scenario, I assume you mean you’ll tell your daughter about birth control in case she gets raped? Otherwise, it’s not at all the same thing.
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DCLAWYER #12 wrote: With all due respect, whether or not one deserves to be called “father” has to do with his actions AFTER the child is born. Not before.
please refer to my post #6. If the two people involved would ABSTAIN from sex, there would be no need to call anybody “father” or “daddy”…..
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And if you all would spend more time on your own lives instead of everyone elses, Justus, there’d be no need to call anyone anything.
Cheryl, your “logic” is flawed on so many levels. The fact of the matter remains, and none of you can refute this, contraceptive education prevents pregancies.
The other thing you all conflate is that we’re not just talking about 14 year olds. We’re talking about 17 year olds, 18-25 year olds, etc. Would you really send your kids off to college with no knowledge of contraception? Is that what you advocate?
Newsflash — the average age of marriage now is 27. People are not going to wait. I don’t even think its a good idea.
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The fact of the matter remains, and none of you can refute this, contraceptive education prevents pregancies.
That would explain why unintended pregnancy is so rare. Every single day I see pregnant teens. Not a one of them is ignorant of contraception.
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DCL’s head is in the sand. In a perfect world his theories would work, but ever since the Garden of Even this has been a fallen world.
Newsflash — the average age of marriage now is 27. People are not going to wait. I don’t even think its a good idea.
DCL: You don’t think waiting for marriage to have sex is a good idea? Your last sentence is confusing.
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I don’t. Not if you have to wait until you are 30 or 40 as some of my unmarried friends have or would have.
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waiting until you are 35? rolfmao.
Outkast, you didn’t. Why don’t you tell us, o philanderer, just what is the biblical thing to do? Love to hear it straight from both sides of your mouth.
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