Teaching Abstinence and Abortion in Junior High Sex Education

Gender coding is not a natural or biological characteristic. People are born with different physical and biological characteristics, but make sense of their gender roles through cultural influences. “Stereotypes are amazingly powerful, and we may not realize the degree to which our thoughts, beliefs, and actions are shaped by them” (Silverman, Rader, 2010). Boys and girls are labeled as masculine or feminine, which is considered the “norm” for society. Children are not born masculine or feminine, they learn these roles from parents, peers, media, and even religion. Concepts of gender identity are sometimes placed on children even before their birth, such as with the selection of paint colors for the nursery.” Children begin to form concepts of gender beginning around the age of 2, and most children know if they are a boy or girl by age of 3” (Martin & Ruble, 2004). From an early age, children are encouraged to identify with gender coding. Gender is formed at birth, but self-identification as being male or female is imbedded into their minds by parents and society. A child learns to understand their gender role and their identity by what is taught and expressed to them by others. Yet as a child grows, gender coding can cause cultural confusion, and insecurity issues throughout the course of their life.

Those who agree that gender is a social construct would also argue that gendered behaviour is not innate, and that it is learnt throughout development. Gender identity is defined as “the way in which being feminine or masculine, woman or man, becomes an internalized part of the way we think about ourselves” (Ryle, 2014). The idea of masculinity and femininity and the strong distinction between the two are taught to us throughout our lives. An individual’s earliest exposure to the concept of gender comes from parental influence. Many studies show that parents socialize their children from birth by creating distinct environments for boys and girls and treating son’s and daughter’s differently. For instance, parents are more likely to assign domestic chores such as cooking, mending clothes and doing laundry to daughters, whereas sons are more likely to be assigned maintenance chores such as mowing lawn, small household repairs and carrying out garbage (Lackey, 1989). Parents may also use more emotive language when talking to their daughter’s and might encourage certain interests such as math and science in son’s, by purchasing more math and science toys and committing to other promotive activities (Jacobs & Bleeker, 2004; Leaper, 1998; Tenenbaum &

Children learn as early as age two what it means to be a “boy” or a “girl” (Aina & Cameron). This is described as gender identity, a person’s sense of self as male or female. Gender stereotyping emerges hand in hand with the development of gender identity in Early Childhood (Halim). Gender roles are society’s expectations of the proper behavior, attitudes and activities of males and females. When babies are born they are either put in pink or blue, as they grow up they still maintain the same “gender” colors. As young children start to socialize, they are playing with either “girl” toys or “boy” toys. When they get older they

Home life is a core area that can be the biggest influence on ones opinions of gender roles. The content of the article “Parental Influence on Children’s Socialization to Gender Roles” written by Susan Witt introduces where stereotypical gender association derives. Gender roles can easily be adopted through the household and when children are placed in an environment where it is easily transmitted through the parents’ then that child will follow their parents’ influences (Witt, par. 1). Schooling, media, and society are also large influences on children at a young age to behave a certain way. Self-concept is also a large chunk of the way children see themselves when they begin to grow and criticism from parents can be a large influence on shaping that child’s perspective (Witt, par. 3).

“A mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity. Different people will disagree about the veracity of this statement, but we know that it does not reflect the experiences of the majority of young people” (Collins 1). Sexual education is a mandatory part of every grade school curriculum and is funded by the federal government. “The content of sexuality education curricula in America varies widely by region, by school district, and sometimes, by classroom” (Collins 1). I believe that because of this fact that it should be taught in a one consistent way.

Children are introduced to gender roles at a very early age especially in American culture. As a child, we are taught to follow the norms of society in a variety of ways. For example, by the way we are told to dress, typically pink colors for girls and blues for boys. The term "gender role" refers to society's concept of how men and women are expected to act and behave. Gender roles shape individual behavior not only by dictating how people of each gender should behave, but also creating issues for those who don’t confine to the gender norms of their

The theory of paradox is put into action when policymakers come up with policies centered on sex education. The theory of paradox is used to compromise on an issue at hand. There is one goal at hand, and two different, yet equally valid ways to reach said goal (Bogenschneider, 2014). There are two main approaches to lowering teen pregnancy and birth rates: abstinence-only sex education and comprehensive sex education. The federal government funds both different approaches but has more money available to states that choose to implement abstinence-only programs. Researchers look at teen pregnancy and birth rates in each state to calculate and observe the effectiveness of abstinence-only versus comprehensive sex education programs (University

Let’s talk about sex. In western culture, many consider sex to be an inescapable topic. We are both fascinated with, and terrified of, talking about sex. For many of us, we “learned” about sex in a school sanctioned environment. Halting conversations, riddled with immature giggles at the first sign of a penis diagram, and ominous warnings that sex would lead to diseases, pregnancy, and death. Personally, my health teacher insisted on abstinence and refused to speak of sex at all. She explained New York State required schools to teach an abstinence-based curriculum. Sound familiar? In that case, I must apologize.

Sex education, most commonly known as family life, is any information about sex and sexual relationships taught to maturing young people as a part of a school’s curriculum. Currently, there is a constant political and ideological debate in the United States over the merits of abstinence-only and comprehensive sex education programs in the teaching of our youth. Abstinence only sex education has been the primary sex education taught in the United States. Although different in their approach, the overall goal is to help them build a foundation to be able to make healthy informed decisions as they mature into adults. The objectives of sex education programs are to help adolescents develop a positive view of sexuality, body image and make responsible decisions in relationships (Knowles, 2012). Ultimately, any sex education should be a partnership between parents, guardians and school personnel. However, in recent years, a large amount of information about sexuality is acquired through friends, music, books and the media instead of from their parents. For some individuals,

In the United States, 61.6% of high school seniors have had sexual intercourse (Kittleson and Howard-Barr 115) and the rates of teenage pregnancy are the highest among developed nations (Weaver, Smith and Kippax 179). Despite the prevalence of teenage sexual activity, there is still wide support for abstinence only sex education programs, which teach that marriage is the only context within which it is appropriate and acceptable to have sex. These programs began in the late 1970s “as a way for conservative Christians to counter the spread of ‘comprehensive’ sex education” and have since come to receive federal funding, first from the Adolescent Family Life Act in 1981 and later from Title V, Section 510 of the Social Security Act (Greslé-Favier

Gender- role stereotypes are well-ingrained cognitive schemes we use to interpret and categorize behaviors as either being masculine or feminine. As early as age two and three, children are able to recognize and label themselves as either male or female; around age four or five children have already started to prefer activities defined by the culture as appropriate for their sex and they also begin to prefer to engage in play activities with same-sex peers (Bem, 1981). In the past, researchers have come up with proposals and theories that attempt to explain this phenomenon. “The gender schema theory proposes that the phenomenon of sex typing derives, in part, from gender-based schematic processing, from a generalized readiness to process

From the day we are born we are categorized either a male or female. From that day onward society molds, and shapes us into what it means to be a man or women. Aaron Devor’s “Becoming Members of society: Learning The Social Meanings of Gender” discusses the formation of gender roles. Devor talks about how quickly children develop, and placed into their gender group.He also discusses about the gender role behaviors and attitudes . In Jamaica Kincaid’s ,”Girl”, Kincaid focussed on her relationship with her mother, mainly on the expectations her mother had for her. From the personal observations, examples from Devor and Kincaid’s passages, I see that gender roles are not rooted into our biology, but formed from expectations from society.

The authors suggest that gender identity transitions through various stages much like cognitive development. As children age from toddler toward more maturity into adolescence they move from less gender awareness towards a complete awareness of differences in sexual make up. Typically many of us have been socialized to participate in groups, dress and play with toys that are gender specific. Some examples that explain this is the way in which we bring babies home from the hospital. Girls are dressed in pink and boys are dressed in blue. This continues

The most important solution to preventing abortions, is to give the child up for adoption. In many cases, you can find a family willing to adopt, during the pregnancy. Many people worry about the child going to a bad environment, and I understand that, because you are going to

Many parents dread the day they see their teenage children having children of their own. The teens are not to blame for having sex without protection. They should not have been made to take virginity pledges in their past, because they do not work. The boyfriend should not be arrested just because he happens to be a couple years older than his girlfriend. Instead of hypothesizing ill-formed theories that teens do not know how to make decisions about sex, educate them on it. Girls should not be forced to have their virginity protected for them; it is their choice. Even though abstinence has been proven to prevent teenage pregnancy, virginity pledges have conflicting results of success –proving that consensual sex among teens is natural and should not be treated as a crime based on age, and that the solution is to teach teens of the risks involved.