AJC.com > Opinion > Woman to Woman > Archives > 2008 > September
September 2008
Should people aspire to virginity until they are married?
Shaunti Feldhahn, a right-leaning columnist, writes the commentary this week and Andrea Cornell Sarvady, a left-leaning columnist, responds.
Rebuttal
As a mother of three, I’m appalled by the extremes of the hook-up culture that surrounds me. However, if we assume that virginity until marriage is something people should aspire to, then we assume all virgins are the same.
Should a 15-year-old girl have a sex life? Most of us would give a resounding “no.” Should a responsible single professional have a sex life? Given that the average age of marriage in this country is around 26 for men and 25 for women, I’d say that someone old enough to vote, drink, rent a car and buy a house is old enough to determine if remaining a virgin fits in with graduate school, career goals and other aspirations.
There is nothing “crazy” about choosing to stay chaste, and VMA awards host Russell Brand is an opportunistic spotlight grabber. Yet let’s not pretend that there isn’t some PR calculation on the part of Team Jonas as well here (their handlers, if not the boys themselves). One hopes the group is prepared for public scrutiny of their behavior, especially if they fall off the virginity wagon. Or should I say when they fall off; even those enamored of the concept of promise rings concede that statistically such programs simply delay sexual activity for an additional 18 months.
Now a year and a half of additional chastity is nothing to sneeze at—it buys a kid a lot of growing-up time. What it doesn’t seem to buy virginity-pledge kids, though, is personal responsibility. Even those Heritage Foundation folks Shaunti cites admit that “pledges are less likely to use contraception at initial intercourse.” So young people who have publicly renounced premarital sex by signing a pledge and putting on a ring are less likely to use birth control when they finally succumb to their hormones? Yeah, that sounds right.
Promoting self-awareness and self-protection isn’t the same as advocating promiscuity. On the other hand, an abstinence-only plan for all single people isn’t merely an unrealistic expectation; it gives strength to policies that ban access to birth control information and services for those most in need of them.
Now that’s crazy.
Is ‘teaching to the test’ damaging our education system?
Andrea Cornell Sarvady, a left-leaning columnist, writes the commentary this week and Shaunti Feldhahn, a right-leaning columnist, responds.
Commentary
Good teachers vary in substance and style, but they tend to have a few things in common: They inspire students to push themselves. They don’t put up with a lot of nonsense in the classroom. Oh, and they hate the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education mandate.
NCLB sounds, on the surface, like a great accountability program. So why are top-quality teachers uniformly decrying a system designed to help kids?
Because it doesn’t. The achievement shown on “spit back” tests may satisfy NCLB advocates, but it does nothing to increase general subject mastery, forcing dynamic teachers to become purposeless drill sergeants. Talk about a regression to the mean — in order to create some accountability in the worst schools, it sucks the life out of classrooms that once thrived on creative, experiential learning.
A small price to pay if test scores are going up, right? And NCLB fans cite articles and government evaluations touting improvements in both math and reading. Yet upon closer examination, even these seemingly encouraging results don’t pass the smell test.
“Kids are beefing up on the state test material” explains Bob Schaeffer of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing. “But it doesn’t mean they know the subject matter.” Proof can be found with inferior scores on similar external tests, from the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) to the SAT. In other words, test the same knowledge in a slightly different way and you realize that kids are adept at filling in bubbles on a sheet, not gaps in their education.
Are there still great schools out there? Sure, mainly due to dedicated teachers who deftly juggle the demands of NCLB and their own talent at lesson plans that deliver both good test scores and life-long learners. Rewarding those teachers through merit pay makes a lot more sense than a punitive system that puts a bunch of misleading numbers ahead of the young people they’re intended to serve.
Still have doubts? Then here’s your homework: Ask a teacher how the very process of teaching has changed since No Child Left Behind took over his or her curriculum. Then prepare to be schooled on the devastating effects on learning when superficial benchmarks trump real reform.
Rebuttal
The devastating effects on learning? How about the devastating effects of not learning? Andy and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) detractors seem to think that everything was just peachy before that darned law came along. But the very furor over the law is proving the need for it. Because NCLB, established in 2002, was simply an add-on to learning requirements that existed (in theory) for decades. The 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act has been re-approved by every president since Lyndon Johnson, but finally included one major ingredient: accountability.
NCLB established benchmarks for how proficient every child should be for his or her grade, requirements that schools get them there, then child-by-child tests to see how that was going. And forcing individual tests finally made it clear how far our education system still had to go. Because, it turns out, great schools with great “averages” were still each leaving hundreds of individual children behind — and it’s each individual child that matters.
Is the NCLB system perfect? No, of course not; the U.S. Department of Education is trying something that has never been done before on a national scale, and it will take more than just six years to get the mix right. But one thing the requirements don’t include - and policymakers don’t want — is “teaching to the test.” The law shouldn’t be blamed for the fact that too many school districts force good teachers to focus more on the test than the point of the test.
In an interview, Dr. Mary Cohen, the Region Seven representative for the U.S. Department of Education — and a long-time teacher herself — explained, “I always say that if you focus on the goal, the test will take care of itself. I am a strong supporter of the law. If pieces of public policy are good they are constantly being scrutinized. Yes, there are places that need tweaking, but my fear is that in tweaking we will emasculate the law and fall back to the averages, as opposed to testing every individual.”
We don’t want to turn our kids into rote-memorization bubbleheads. But we can’t be content with leaving individual kids behind, either. And there’s no way of determining whether we are, without those benchmarks and a test.
Do Democrats have a double standard about Sarah Palin’s family choices?
Shaunti Feldhahn, a right-leaning columnist, writes the commentary this week and Andrea Cornell Sarvady, a left-leaning columnist, responds.
Commentary
In November, I believe we’ll be able pinpoint when the Democrats lost the presidential election. It won’t be with the electrifying news of Sarah Palin on the Republican ticket, but a few days later when prominent Democrats and the press began publicly questioning whether a mother of five — including a special-needs infant — could or should be a good vice president.
If they had treated her like any other candidate: no problem. But questioning her because she was a working mom suddenly stripped the Democrats of the progressive, tolerant image they’ve spent years building. Democrats have long made their money from attacking conservatives as chauvinistic, intolerant and bigoted, and from positioning themselves as the only champions for women’s rights. And even though that’s all hogwash, it spread — largely because the press believes it to be true. Many younger working women believed it as well and voted for the Democrats in droves.
Then suddenly - here comes a Republican woman with whom working moms can identify. And “women-power” Democrats start the most jaw-dropping, hypocritical attacks. Liberal power-broker Sally Quinn explained that the vice presidency “is extremely time-consuming” and that because Palin’s children have special circumstances, “That is a distraction, and when you are in a position like that, suppose she became president in the next several months, she would have an enormous number of distractions on her hands. And I can’t believe that she would be the dad and her husband would be the mom.”
Wait a minute, did she just say out loud that a woman wouldn’t be able to do a challenging job because her children would be a distraction? That a husband isn’t capable of being just as good a parent? As Rudy Giuliani memorably exclaimed at the Republican National Convention, “When did they ever ask a man that question?”
The impact of this situation comes less from the question itself — it’s healthy to be able to raise touchy subjects — and more from the revelation that the Democrats aren’t the only champions for women and can seem just as “intolerant.” In an era when women are increasingly aware of alternatives to the old approaches to women’s rights, that paradigm shift will decide this election.
Rebuttal
Wow. Talking about shopping around a desperate theory. Now we’re being schooled in feminism by the far-right wing of the Republican Party? Chastised for offending women by Rudy Giuliani, a man who let his wife know of his plans to divorce her via a press conference?
Many have worked to get us to where we are today in terms of parity, but it’s the GOP who tore into the Family Leave Act, slammed proponents of equal pay for equal work and ruthlessly mocked Hillary Clinton for the very parenting philosophy that makes Palin’s complex multi-tasking possible. (And can you even imagine the uproar from that crew if Chelsea Clinton had gotten pregnant at 17?) Apparently “it takes a village” only makes sense if it’s an Alaskan fishing village.
Cries of sexism from such unlikely quarters would be laughable if they weren’t effective at distracting voters from the only concern about Sarah Palin that matters: What if something happens to John McCain? What would a President Palin do on Day One? The more folks focus on that issue, the more they’ll want to put Sarah Barracuda back in the tank.
Democrats aren’t alone in championing issues that matter to women. Many Americans yearn for a commander in chief whose knowledge of foreign policy doesn’t come from a teleprompter. They value a Supreme Court that isn’t stacked with justices ready to force women to keep the pregnancies of their rapists. They want stem cell research. They want schools with fewer teen parents and more sex-ed lectures. They’re amazed by denial of our role in global warming — and disdain for the real work in combating it. Finally, they’d like to elect a true agent of change, not someone who says she stands up to Washington, when in truth she pesters Washington for handouts.
Sure, there’s been a Paris Hilton-level buzz around Alaska’s feisty “hockey mom.” Yet when political window shoppers morph into values voters, they’ll discover that a McCain/Palin ticket is even worse than a Bridge to Nowhere—it’s a bridge back to the Bush White House. As that realization hits, working moms and dads alike will walk on by the slick selling of Sarah Palin.
What is the key factor behind the GOP selection of Sarah Palin for VP?
Andrea Cornell Sarvady, a left-leaning columnist, writes the commentary this week and Shaunti Feldhahn, a right-leaning columnist, responds.
Commentary
“The heart wants what it wants,” director Woody Allen once famously said of his own controversial marriage, and so it is with John McCain. He decided on his vice-presidential “soul mate” Sarah Palin after meeting her just twice — announcing the tactical choice mere days after failing to sell his base on pro-choice pals Tom Ridge and Joe Lieberman.
So why did John’s heart suddenly pine for Sarah? Well, it didn’t, of course, but Maverick McCain is as much a slave to market research as any candidate. For the religious far right, she’s Miss Congeniality personified: Anti-choice, even in the case of rape? Check. Creationism in the schools? Check. Abstinence-only education? Check. Against embryonic stem cell research? Check. Add to that millions of Hillary fans so hormone-driven that they’ll vote for anyone with two X chromosomes —- and Sarah Palin’s girl cred is bound to bring McCain the White House, right?
Wrong. The more both men and women learn about Palin, the more they wonder if her vetting process merely involved a candlelight dinner and walk on the beach. McCain partnering with a woman with ties to the secession-obsessed Alaska Independence Party? A candidate with a complete lack of foreign policy experience? Palin didn’t even have a passport until last year. Add to that an ethics investigation for possible abuse of power, and plenty of flip-flopping — she was for Alaska’s “Bridge to Nowhere” before she was against it; she was for $27 million worth of federal earmarks for her own little town before she was against them for the Alaska she now governs — and you have concerns aplenty.
Finally, with a special needs infant and a teenage daughter whose pregnancy is necessitating an arranged marriage of her own, can Palin really add “lead the free world” to her to-do list? There’s nothing sexist about this question; many of us wondered the same thing when John Edwards continued his candidacy after wife Elizabeth’s cancer prognosis. No, the sexism here lies in the GOP’s belief that women will pick gender over the health of our bodies, our families and our nation.
They cordially invite you to this cynical marriage of convenience on Nov. 4.
Speak now or forever hold your peace.
Rebuttal
Um… Isn’t a candlelight dinner and a walk on the beach about as much as the infatuated Democrats know about their presidential candidate? It is pretty hard for a Democrat to blast Sarah Palin as a VP choice when their own candidate for the higher office is in the same age bracket with the same local-boy-makes-good trajectory into a rookie position in the major leagues. She was on the city council, then mayor, then chairwoman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (overseeing all oil and gas production and drilling) before becoming governor of Alaska almost two years ago. Barack Obama was a local civil rights attorney, then a constitutional law professor and part-time state senator before becoming a U.S. senator almost four years ago.
What Sarah Palin does have is more experience than any man on either ticket in one crucial role: being a chief executive. She’s been overseeing a $5.5 billion budget — roughly the same as companies Blockbuster or tech giant Unisys, and larger than Genzyme or A.G. Edwards. (*See correction below). If McCain had picked a two-year CEO of a $5.5 billion company as his running mate, would people scoff?
Well, yes, people probably would. This is politics, after all.
Anyone wanting to ding this as a “tactical choice” and “cynical marriage of convenience,” is decades too late. Every vice presidential candidate in modern history has been a tactical choice.
My research assistant, Tally Whitehead, was a delegate at the Republican National Convention, and as politico Mary Matalin told the crowd at a Sept. 1 luncheon, “All this talk about it being a political decision — duh! It is politics! And Biden wasn’t a political decision? Like John Edwards had that much experience!”
The reason Sarah Palin electrified the race isn’t just tactical: it’s because she represents the future for conservatives. She’s a bright, successful leader who is a wife, mother and eloquent leader in the effort to protect American traditional and religious values. I loved it recently when a New York Times editorial described her as “militantly anti-choice.” For those who believe that our most important values - like the preciousness of all human life — are being undermined, that is a badge of honor.
* CORRECTION: An earlier version of the column included incorrect information that overstated the comparative size of Alaska’s budget to Microsoft, Dow Chemical, Dell and Target.
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Commentary
By Shaunti Feldhahn
What is wrong with this picture? Three young men, ages 16, 19 and 20, commit to respect themselves and the opposite sex enough that they’ll wait until marriage to have sex - and are mocked for it on national television.
When host Russell Brand of MTV’s VMA awards repeatedly hammered the Jonas Brothers, he made it that much more difficult for those watching to make the right choice. The natural temptations of dating are tough enough without pre-marital abstinence being derided as “crazy” instead of applauded as the healthiest and wisest choice.
Both youth and adults need to hear the overwhelming evidence that waiting until marriage is the wise choice. The Heritage Foundation looked at 21 studies and found that 16 documented positive results of forgoing, reducing, and delaying sexual activity. Some of the more obvious negative results of sex before marriage were greater risks of STD’s and out-of-wedlock childbearing. But the studies also found lowered grades, and lowered psychological and emotional well-being.
My own research backs this up. In nationally representative surveys of 15 to 20- year-olds for “For Young Men Only” and “For Young Women Only” — my books to help teen guys and girls understand the opposite sex — the young people themselves expressed a significant emotional impact of sex outside of marriage.
For example, although the guys admitted they were probably the ones pushing for sex, two-thirds also said that once they got it they began to doubt whether they could trust the girl again. And although the girls said they had some positive feelings after beginning the sexual relationship (such as greater feelings of closeness) 82 percent also began feeling insecure, clingy and possessive. Both responses arise directly from knowing that they are not in a committed marriage relationship.
And “waiting until you’re older” doesn’t fix it. In a thorough 2008 Rutgers study, Dr. David Popenoe confirmed earlier findings of the negative emotional results of adult cohabitation, most poignantly including a greater likelihood of divorce once the couple eventually gets married.
A 2004 Gallup poll found that 56 percent of teens believe “people should abstain from sex until marriage.” Prior to becoming jaded by the culture, teens recognize that just because the ideal is difficult doesn’t mean it shouldn’t remain the ideal.