Teen pregnancy, shame, social problems and intersectionality

Once again, I am blogging on the  ways in which young people themselves are challenging stereotypes and conventions regarding teen sex, sexuality and pregnancy...I found this blog post - referencing a couple of articles about a teenage girl who faked a pregnancy for a school assignment, and recorded the reactions of those around her to demonstrate how shaming and morality impact the topic.

Read this story...what do you think about her findings? Do you think this was a good way to fulfill the assignment? Would you have taken this one? How does intersectionality impact her experience (see her words regarding society's assumptions about Latinas).

Empowering Teenage Moms

We have spent the semester debating how and why teenage pregnancy is considered a social problem, but we haven't really looked at the ways in which teen girls and young women who choose to parent might be empowered by their parenting identities. Some of you have heard the stories I have told about old friends and acquaintances who because of their status as young mothers made significant gains and created important and dynamic programs and policies that address inequalities that young women and men face.

Take a look at this website: Girlmom

This was started by a teen mom years and years ago, but the site continues on without her now. Read around, get to know some of the contributors - what do they have to say? How might it be different than what we have been hearing or reading? How does it make you think?

Pregnancy Prevention

I found this article about how the Candie's foundation, which has as one of it's foci, teen pregnancy prevention, paid Bristol Palin over two hundred thousand dollars for her to be a spokeswoman, but paid much less in actual pregnancy prevention programming.

What do you think about Bristol as a spokesperson for abstinence? Do you think she represents a good story about a teen who choose not to wait? How does her class, race, social location, etc impact her ability to be a parent to her child? How did it impact her choices? Do you think she had the same options as other teens - given who her family was and what they represented?

Bristol's story is complex...there has always been a great deal of media around her, but if we look closely at the actual events - we see a teenage girl who got pregnant, with a very political and influential family - one who staunchly supports abstinence only education and is stridently anti-abortion. What does this really mean for her? Is she being responsible now that she is advocating for other women to wait? What about the commercial she made...what is the message it portends to send versus the realities of her life...is it real? Is it fair?

Remembering Birth Control

In the lecture this week, we talked a lot about the various options available to teen girls...and whether or not the show 16 & Pregnant framed each option as healthy, or available, or even at all...
There were a couple of things I overheard and wanted to point out. First, there was a discussion of who is responsible for birth control...as I was searching the internet this week I found this website that is supposed to inform, educate, and assist women in understanding their contraceptive options, remind them to take them, and give them the info that they need that they often miss...Take a look at how the website presents the information both about the forms of contraceptives, but also the services and products they offer to inform, remind, and educate women. Is it helpful? Check out who sponsors the website...does that surprise you?

Perhaps more interesting to me, when listening to this discussion, was that many students spoke up about how it was the woman's job to know about birth control, to prevent pregnancies...and how she should be strong enough to ask her doctor, to find contraceptives, and to ensure that she doesn't get pregnant again...This seems to put a lot of responsibility for prevention of pregnancy on just one person....the teenage girl.

But is she really the only one responsible? What about her partner, parents, doctors, friends, family, community? What if she has no insurance? What if her pharmacist refused to give her birth control? What if her doctor treats her like a child and doesn't sit her down to inform her? What if she doesn't understand her doctor, or nurse?

We have spoken a lot about how sexuality education in this country is a little bit lacking...and we have talked about how girls are often uninformed about pregnancy and contraceptives....can we really only blame the girl?

Choice...gender and abortion

Last week in class we had a lot of discussions surrounding what choice really means. In labs we split into "couples" and discussed what our choices would be should we be pregnant right now...and we talked about how other people's input might make a difference in how we thought about our choices.

One thing we mentioned, but didn't spend a lot of time on, was the impact of the woman's partner's idea of what the choices mean....this article is written by a man whose girlfriend and mother both made the choice to have an abortion, and his thoughts, experiences, and ideas about the abortions themselves as well as how men's voices should or can be a part of the debate about choice.

What do you think, after reading this article, about the role that men have in the debate over choice?
Do you think that he raises valid points?
Is abortion just a woman's issue, or is it a human issue?
Given what we know about the problems of masculinity and fatherhood, how much credence do we give to men in the choices of teen mothers?

Please remember to sign your name if you leave comments here...alternatively, if you would like to take this "home" to your blog to have a discussion for comment points, please let me know you chose to do that....
Marilyn

Pregnancy, Prevention, Women, Teens and Abortion

We will talk about this as the semester rolls on, but I hope everyone is paying attention to the very drastic things happening in the US House....last week the House voted to cut funding for Title X - which provides money to subsidize contraceptive, family planning, and prevenatative healthcare services for men and women. The bill also explicitly cut all funding for Planned Parenthood  - one of the main providers of this care.

Read this article here.

Keep in mind, regardless of our individual views on abortion - over 95% of services offered by Planned Parenthood are not abortion - they are cancer screenings, pap smears, birth control, etc.

How will this impact teen pregnancy? What is the goal of this bill?

First Week of Posts

Good job you all, on making your first posts interesting, and asking critical questions.

I wanted to share something with you for the New York Times this week - this article is about whether or not the new healthcare law will be required to cover contraceptives for FREE...evidently the new law, which is currently under threat of repeal or dismantling from conservative politicians and groups, vows to cover preventative care at no cost to patients....
So the question is....are contraceptives considered part of "preventative care"?

Some say no....like Jeanne Monahan, who serves as the Director for the Center for Human Dignity - at the Family Research Council (please note - as a family studies scholar, I cannot support the "research" from this center)...according to Monahan, preventative medicine is to prevent diseases and illness - and pregnancy and fertility occur to healthy people...

So...what do you think? Would covering contraceptives for free be a useful way to change the landscape for adolescents regarding pregnancy and sexuality? Is fertility and pregnancy a disease? What is the definition of disease? Or preventative medicine, for that matter?

Notice the stakeholders in this debate? Who are they? What are their interests in this debate?  Maybe this will be up for discussion on Friday...

Enjoy your snowstorm!

Group Blogs!

Hi All,
Notice the toolbar on the right -----> and you will see all of the group blogs for the class. Don't forget that a blog is due this coming week (January 31-Feb. 4) and you will need to not only post a main entry, but everyone will comment as well. Linking to outside content is easy, on the "new post" page you will click the button "LINK" on the toolbar, and copy and paste the web address of the content you want to link to in your blog.

Finally...don't forget to sign your posts and comments with your first name and last initial.

Good luck blogging!
Marilyn

Welcome!

Welcome to the meta-blog for the University of Missouri's WGST course on the show 16 & Pregnant. This blog will link to all of the student-created blogs in class, and contain helpful information and resources for creating your own sociologically focused blog. Check back for links to student blogs!