Dorries’ Sex-Ed bill will roll back sexual equality in our schools
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This is a guest post by Jo O’Reilly
We knew something different was happening in science, the day when all the boys were herded up and out of the room by the male lab assistant, leaving the girls with our female teacher. This was my introduction to secondary school sex education, an obvious divide. There was little to no provision for LGBT students back then so it was naturally assumed we were only a danger to the opposite sex.
Boys didn’t need to look at tampons and girls were advised to avoid boys waving prophylactics at them at all costs. The numbers of girls in my year who ended up pregnant before they took their final exams suggests this approach was flawed.
By all accounts things have moved on since then, the move towards sex and relationship education, not just sex education has seen things become more inclusive and geared towards the realities of life. There will never be an easy way to approach educating young people comprehensively about sex, relationships and all the emotional and social complexities that come alongside the basic biology of the subject.
The best we can hope is that all young people, male, female, gay, straight and unsure are given as much correct, unbiased information as possible and that this education is given equally to all hopefully enabling them to make their own informed choices in this minefield of hormones and peer pressure.
Conservative MP Nadine Dorries wants to undo all this. She has tabled a 10 Minute Rule motion today calling for the introduction of abstinence-based sex education for girls aged 13-16.
“Sex Education (Required Content): That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require schools to provide certain additional sex education to girls aged between 13 and 16; to provide that such education must include information and advice on the benefits of abstinence from sexual activity; and for connected purposes.”
I won’t go into all the reasons that abstinence based sex education is at best ineffective and at worst damaging. There is plenty of research and analysis out there that explains this in detail.
What I will say is that making it compulsory to educate young women differently to young men in sex education is a backward step, undoing years of working towards equality in our schools.
Sex is something shared by two parties. If we want to set young people up to have a healthy equal sexual relationships with their partners then we need to start by educating them equally.
To contact Reuben email reuben@thethirdestate.net
Reader Comments
Well, the ‘just say no’ thing worked so well for drugs.
What surprised me most about this was my almost instant venomous reaction. Suddenly I was 13 again, sitting in a class having sex explained to me be an adult and thinking… what planet are you on, lady?
And it’s clear from her speech that she doesn’t just want abstinence taught in schools. She doesn’t like masturbation either.
Oddly enough, if she’d simply proposed that abstinence be included in sex ed as another option, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. But it was clear from the rest of her speech that she’s got serious problems of her own with sex, with sexism, with bodies and with nature in general. The woman is clearly psychologically disturbed and she is using her position as a member of parliament to vomit up all her own personal demons on everyone else.
This topic is something which needs discussion and serious attention. Further, even this article has an inherently somewhat transphobic bend to it (and certainly the old approach of men here, women there does)–people are not only male or female, but there are many who fall between. Even more so, as there are people who fall between the two genders, there really is a rainbow of sexual orientations.
I think a more unified approach to teach all genders at once is important, one that teaches of other genders.
Based on what I’ve seen from trangendered friends, I think transgendered people are likely the most discriminated against subgroup of people in Western culture, even more so than gay or lesbian. They challenge what we all have been taught from day one–boy OR girl. From the moment we are born, our gender is inflicted and enforced on us. Even if parents are open to gender exploration, society, media, advertising, and everything else not only is heteronormative, but also enforces gender stereotypes. To challenge that challenges what we have been told since the day we are born.
Education needs to teach there are many ways of being who we are, accepting others as they are, and protecting our bodies to make sure we do what is right for us.
@Remittance Girl
I could’ve spent ages dissecting why abstinence based sex education is a silly idea but there is already so much out there it didn’t need adding to. My real issue here was the inequality of making something compulsory for young women alone. She seems to have some very odd ideas about gender that have no place in Parliament in 2011.
@Mega Nicole
Like I mentioned in the post the sex education I received at at school presumed we were all straight. It barely broached the subject of homosexuality, and transgender issues were well off the curriculum.
You make the fantastic point about those who fall between the two genders and the whole spectrum of sexualities, and I would agree that more work needs to be done to incorporate inclusivity into our sex education especially around these issues. That is something that we should be moving forward towards. What is worrying here is that we are moving backwards to dividing people up into presumed genders to educate them.