More on the shameful spectacle of the Ontario sex Ed program

I am currently attending the Western Canadian Conference on Sexual Health where I got to hear directly from members of the Canadian Teacher's Federation who were involved with the development of the Ontario sex Ed curriculum. Imagine my surprise to hear from them that, before the program became public, it was reviewed AND APPROVED by the Ontario Catholic Bishops! Did we hear that in the media? No, certainly not. What we've heard is them loudly and publicly proclaiming that they do not support the implementation of the full program in Catholic Schools. Whether or not they actually approved of the full program including the grade three section regarding differences and homosexuality is unclear to me. But what is clear to me is that they seemed to do their best to make sure that there participation in and approval of the program was not public and that their objections to it, whatever they are, are not. All of the details and subtleties of this issue are being lost and all we are really hearing is that there is massive outrage about this program. In actual fact, this is not true. It was set for implementation in the Catholic school system with their blessing and the blessing of the bishops. What we are also not being told is that the program was developed in order to bring Ontario into line with other provinces and the recently developed Canadian guidelines on school-based sexual health programs. The international declaration on sexual and reproductive rights guarantees the right to accurate sexual health education and it specifically identifies the things that are taught in this new program. And guess what? Canada signed this declaration. Canadian children are promised access to this information by international declaration. The Catholic bishops clearly know that. It's time for them to tell the whole truth and publicly stand up for a program they supported in private.

Ontario Fails the Public School System

Last week, I heard on the radio that the Ontario School System was introducing a new sexual health education curriculum. This new program, which covers grades one all the way to junior high, has been in the works for two years. It includes, among many other things, basic health education in grade one, mainly learning the proper names for all the body parts, including sex organs. In grade three, children will learn about the concept of sexual orientation and preference - understanding terms like 'straight' and 'homosexual'. The topic of puberty will be dealt with in grade four and five. In grade six and seven children are taught about different types of sexual activity and they learn what oral and anal sex are. I was thrilled to hear this. Studies have shown clearly that comprehensive sex education programs are more effective in reducing early pregnancies than abstinence-based programs. The radio story also noted the outpouring of objection from religious groups. I wasn't surprised by that, anytime you even say the word 'sex' in public, someone objects.

But sadly, the very next day, the news came that Ontario premiere Dalton McGuinty had caved in to public pressure and put the program on hold. He stated that there had not been enough public consultation on the issue and that more time was needed to consider those views. Does this make any sense at all? Why in the world is he allowing anyone, much less conservative religious groups to dictate what is taught in public schools?

Those who object to it make it sound like a bunch of gay teachers got together and decided they should tell grade 3 children about sodomy. This is not at all what this is. This program was developed by educators and experts in sexual health education over a two-year period. It is based on other programs in Canada and around the world that are considered best practices in sexual health education. What makes Dalton McGuinty, or anyone else for that matter, think that these lobby groups know better than actual researchers and educators? Why is this open to public consultation at all?

If the Ontario school board came up with a new curriculum for Math or Language Arts would we even know about it? No. We would simply trust that teachers and the school board know what they are doing when it comes to education. But when the topic is sex, suddenly that confidence in teachers goes out the window.

The pressure groups, including the Canada Christian College and the London Islamic School, are objecting, in part, to the fact that the curriculum was not initially made public, but rather quietly rolled out to public school employees in January. It was only recently made public. Conservative MP Christine Elliot says that the Ontario government 'got caught trying to sneak the curriculum through'. Really? Are they under any obligation to clear this curriculum with anyone? They didn't get caught doing anything. What happened was that this coalition of religious groups caught wind of it and threatened to pull their kids out of school. Then it became a media story.

Charles McVety, president of the Canada Christian College has accused McGuinty of listening to special interest groups with an agenda in allowing this curriculum to go through. Wait a minute? What are you Mr. McVety? Hmmmm.......you are the head of a conservative religious group that lobbies the government. Wouldn't that make you a..........special interest group? And you oppose comprehensive sexual health education and you strive to promote 'family' values. Wouldn't that mean that you have................an agenda? And yes, Dalton McGuinty listened to you. So yes, he did listen to special interest groups with an agenda. But only when he choose to put a hold on the program!

What makes me so angry about this is that I'm sure if you could do a poll of all Ontario parents, the vast majority of them would say that they support sex education for their kids and that they want the new program. But those are the ones that are not speaking up because they don't think they have to. Are they going to sit back and let these people determine how their kids are taught? Are they going to stand by and allow these groups to push their religious agenda on their kids in the public school system? It appears that they are because I haven't heard anything about protests from the other side.

I haven't seen the details of the curriculum but I bet you anything that children are sent home with a note about upcoming sex education portions of their health program and an option for parents to pull them out of the class. This was the way it was when I was in elementary school many years ago and I'm fairly certain they are still doing that. If you don't want your kids to hear that information, pull them out of that class. It's as simple as that. Don't tell other parents what their kids should and should not learn.

The fact of the matter is that kids learn about sex before they even hit the school system. They have already heard a lot about body parts and oral sex and who's gay and who's queer. This is not new to them, even in grade three. The point is to take the opportunity at school to give them accurate, more objective information so they can better understand what these things actually mean. And they can make choices based on all the information that's coming at them, not just what they get from the net or from their friends.

People say that it's not the business of the schools to teach sex ed. That parents should teach their children about it. But what do parents know about sex? Many of them don't know a damn thing and that's because they never learned it in school either. And a lot of parents are just too embarrassed, to unsure, or perhaps just too disinterested to teach their children about sex. Should the kids miss out on vital information because of that? If you want to keep sex education in your home, that's fine, do that. Keep your kids out of the classes and teach them at home. Or better yet, let them go to the class and then discuss it with them at home. But don't deprive other kids from learning information that could very well save their lives.

Shame on you McGuinty. I wish you had the balls to stand up to these groups. I only hope that in the end, you will give them only lip service (pun intended) and put the curriculum back in place.

Is It Addiction, Is It Self-Help, or Is It Just Schadenfreude?

In searching my usual spots for new sexual health news, I came across this article from women's health . Yet again, another angle, another spin, another reason to write about Tiger Woods. I am sick to death of hearing about Tiger Woods. I couldn't care less about Tiger Woods. For his family and friends, what's going on in his life is vitally important, but why should the rest of us, who have never met the man, even know about any of this?

And yet the media seem to be mesmerized and will use any excuse they possibly can to write about it. I hesitate to write even one word about Tiger Woods but this article really caught my eye as being particularly ridiculous. The article quotes Mary Canning, a marriage and family therapist as saying “Woods has created a dialogue among couples, giving them a definition for a serious problem that’s plagued relationships...Women are finally realizing, ‘I’m not the only one.’” Come on now? Are we really saying that it never occurred to women that other husbands cheat until this story broke? Couples never dealt with infidelity and never talked about it until Tiger Woods cheated on his wife? This is the saddest excuse I've seen for continuing to report on this story and continuing to invade Tiger's and his family's private lives. It's helping people? No one ever talked about this before and now they recognize that it's a problem? No, cheating has been going on for centuries, millenia, really, and people have been talking about it that whole time. We do not need to hear about Tiger Woods to know that we are not alone with our problems around trust and fidelity.

The funniest part of it is that, after trotting out this quote, the author of the article lists 4 other examples of wayward husbands who attracted huge media attention when their affairs became public. Wait a minute, I thought no one had a definition for this until Tiger ended up in the news.

The article purports to be about the concept of sex addiction and whether it is simply an excuse for cheating. What I would contend is that this article is simply an excuse to write about Tiger Woods, yet again. The fact of the matter is that the media loves a feeding frenzy and they want it to continue for as long as it possibly can. It sells magazines and TV ad spots and they like that. But they want to tell us that all of this perverse voyeurism is actually good for us. They try to make us believe that it's okay for us to pry into people's private lives because we are learning from it and people are being helped.

The sad and plain fact is that all of this is nothing other than making entertainment out of the mistakes and miseries of others. Is Tiger Woods the only person to ever cheat on his wife? Of course not. Have a million men done exactly what he did? Of course. So why are we supposed to be shocked and appalled by it? I'm not excusing his behavior. It's abhorrent, for sure. But it's not news. Not by a long shot.

Idealizing the Innocence of Girls

Before Telus decided to kill our SEX TV Channel, I caught an episode of 'Sex TV' entitled 'Girl Power'. I'm not a fan of Sex Tv at the best of times. It oversimplifies and over-sensationalizes. This episode was no different.

It started out with a backstage look at a Spice Girls tribute group (shows how old the episode was) as they got ready for a show, interspersed with scenes of the teenage girls in the audience waiting for the show to start. The voice over at the beginning explained how the image of female sexuality has been changing, with more and more representations of women who are both strong AND sexual, rather than there having to be a choice. It talked about the stronger presence of images of powerful sexual women. This got my attention and I kept watching. Perhaps, I thought, we'll see some discussion about a newer feminist paradigm around female sexuality.

Not so much.

It turns out this opening narrative had nothing to do with the show as those statements ended with a 'BUT......are young girls becoming too sexual too soon?' And so here we go again. The rest of the show talked about how girls are maturing much faster than they used to, and are bombarded with images of sexuality everywhere to go. Is this forcing them to grow up to fast and to have sex too early? According to this show, yes it is.

What really boils my potatoes about this old saw of an idea is that we are trying to pretend that girls are not sexual beings - at least until they become adults. It's just not true. Just before this show was a little montage of women confessing when their first sexual thought was. They all shared memories from their early or late teens. Come on already! My first sexual thought would have been somewhere around age 4 or 5. It's not that I wanted to have sex but I certainly thought about and was curious about things related to bodies and sex. We all are. Sexuality is not a separate little compartment in our lives that suddenly pops open at puberty. Girls are sexual from the time they are born. So if that's the case, why are we so terrified about them expressing that part of themselves?

It is only in much more recent times, around the turn of the century, that we have held these kinds of ideals around innocence and purity, and yet shows like this and people who share these views distort the historical facts by claiming that girls are entering puberty earlier and earlier and that they are being 'thrust' into the world of sexuality when they are so very young. In fact, this same show, after reporting 'alarming' statistics how the age of menarche has become progressively younger, suddenly switched gears and reported that in ancient Rome, girls were normally married between 12 and 14 years of age. How does this make any sense at all? Since the main reason for marriage at that time was creating families, those girls would most certainly have not been married had they not reached menarche and been capable of having children. So what is really going on here? Clearly, throughout history, it has been understand that women mature physically at a young age and that they are ready to take on adult responsibilities of sex and child-bearing. So why now, do we treat girls so gingerly and make such an effort to protect their innocence? Why is female sexuality so precious and yet at once so threatening.

Don't get me wrong here, I really don't think that girls should be getting married and having babies at 14. But the reason that I believe that is because we our society is not set up to prepare and then adequately support girls to do that at that age. Come to think of it, I don't think our society is set up to support women to make good sexual decisions and to bear children at any age. But that's another story.

The fact of the matter is that both girls and boys are sexual. They are not innocent. The innocence we work so hard to protect is an ideal created by adults who find it easier to pretend their children are ignorant than to deal with the realities of their lives. This idealization and refusal to deal with reality has some dire consequences. Why are the vast majority of teens afraid to talk to their parents about sex and contraception? I think a big part of it is that they are afraid they will destroy their parents image of them. Most parents think their children are perfect and in our society, a perfect child does not have sex, and doesn't even think about it. How can a child talk openly and get good information from a parent who idealizes their innocence? The result is children who hide their real lives from their parents and parents who have no clue what their children are really doing.

There was a very strident young woman on the show who had written a book that I've since forgotten the title of. She believes that sex is sacred and that girls in our society are tramps who have lost all respect for themselves. She shared a story that she heard (she could give no real information to support whether this story was even true or how often something like this might happen)about an 18-year old girl who had planned to go to a motel to have sex with her boyfriend. This plan came about because both of them lived with their parents and had no privacy. The girl needed a ride to the motel so she asked her Dad take her. On the way there, she discovered she had forgotten her birth control pills. The father drove her home to get them and then back to the motel. We were clearly meant to be horrified by this story. I thought it was an example of a nice father. This is an 18-year-old girl who can make a decision about whether she wants to have sex or not. She'd thought it out and planned for it because she was already on the pill. She told her parents what she was doing instead of sneaking around. And her father helped her out with her good choices. I think this is how we all ought to behave where our sexual choices are concerned. But in this looney woman's mind, the idea that parents would be that open and accepting with their children was abhorrent. It's ass backwards - rewarding ignorance and decrying honesty.

So for the end of the show, we cut back to the Spice Girls concert and watch 12 to 14 year old girls mouth the words to 'Stop Right There' as they dance around in their boas and satin shorts. Exactly what we are meant to feel about this, I don't really know.

Why Women Studies?

Yesterday on CBC's 'The Current', one of the topics was the number of 'Women's Studies' departments in Universities across Canada that have changed their names to 'Gender and Sexuality Studies' or something of the like. The guests, strangely enough, were columnists from the Toronto Star and National Post rather than directors of or professors in women's studies departments. Barbara Kay, columnist for the National Post, spouted off her view on why women's studies programs are unnecessary and, she seemed to say, actually dangerous and unethical. Having taking many women's studies classes, studied feminism and women's history, worked for many feminist organizations, and being a proud feminist myself, I found her viewpoint absolutely stunning. I kept shaking my head wondering where this woman actually lives. It certainly isn't our planet. But the sad fact is that her view is one shared by many women today. So many women today think that feminism is about hating men and trying to prove that women are better. They believe that feminism is no longer necessary as we've achieved the equality the feminists were fighting for. It would be great if this was true, but it's just not.

Although, as The Current always does, they had an opposite viewpoint, expressed by Catherine Porter of the Toronto Star, I was still frustrated that Barbara Kay was not challenged even more vigorously on some of her arguments. It's clear to me that she is a product of her society who is so immersed in it that she cannot even entertain the idea that perhaps things could be different.

She maintains that women's studies programs are merely a recruitment camp for feminists that teach biased information and that they are not places of serious study. This is ridiculous and unfair. The purpose of the women's studies programs is to bring into the universities viewpoints and information that are not taught in other courses. It is a fact that regular history courses all but ignore the contributions of women throughout history unless those women happen to have become world leaders. There is no discussion of the contribution of women in society, politics and economics. Almost all the information covered relates to the contribution of men. And if anyone would like to argue that with me, I welcome it because I majored in history and I can tell you what I learned. Women have contributed and truly changed the course of history in many ways but those things often happen in the sphere of the home and community, not on the grand stage of world politics. And because of that, they are ignored. Women's history courses seek to teach that. They don't alter history or teach a biased view, they simply provide a place to learn about vast chunks of our human history that are ignored. Of course, there are may other aspects to women's studies courses than history but this is what I know so that's what I can talk about more easily. The same can be said of economics (I took a course that looked at alternate views of what actually constitutes 'work' in our society - utterly amazing because we never get to hear these ideas), and philosophy, and sociology, and political science. Barbara Kay maintains that the courses she took in University were good 'objective' courses free from the bias that is found in women's studies, but that is utter bullshit. Every course has a bias, the only difference is that women's studies programs are usually clear about theirs.

She also talked about how feminism is not relevant to women today because we've already acheived equality of opportunity. Women, she says, can have any job they want and the only reason for the vast under-representation of women in our government, in the head office of our corporations, and among the partners of our law firms is that women self-select out of those positions because they don't want to put in the hard work and hours required. She doesn't even consider the idea that maybe the fact that those crazy hours that preclude having and raising children are required for those types of positions is actually the problem. When Catherine Porter raised the idea that perhaps those things needed to change, perhaps we needed to change the values of our system so that wanting and needing time to raise a family is not considered a career liability, she was accused of being an idealist. Why? Why is not permissible to posit an alternate way of doing thing? Why should we simply accept that the way it is is the way it must be? Women do not self-select out of these positions, the system selects them out because they cannot participate in the same way men can. And if they choose then, not to have children or not to spend any time with their children, they are forced into making a choice and a sacrifice that men simply do not have to make. And yes, men have children too but the vast majority of child-rearing is currently done by women. It just is not the same.

She also said that feminism is no longer promoting equality but rather women's interests and that men are suffering because of that. That almost made me puke. I am so sick of hearing this. She accused feminists of setting up and 'us' and 'them' mentality and then went and used the same argument herself. Boys are suffering in schools because there's so much emphasis on education for girls. Bullshit! Why does the advancement of women have to hurt men? And if men actually are falling behind, they need to do exactly what women did, and fight for their rights WITHOUT taking away rights from women.

She mentioned that feminists are so concerned about violence against women but they don't care about violence against men. Says who? Pretty much all of the feminists I know who are concerned about violence against women (and I know a lot of them) are against violence in general and are peace activists on many levels. She questioned why there are no men's shelters. I'll tell you why there are no men's shelters. It's because we don't need them. Yes, I'm fully aware that there are some men out there who are abused by their partners who have nowhere to go but it's a small number. Most of the men who experience abuse in their homes will either not be forced to leave their home or if they are, they will have the resourced to pay for a place to stay because they have more economic power in their relationships (ie. they are usually working and not staying at home with their kids). The fact of the matter is, domestic violence happens much more to women because of the inequality of women in our society. Men who experience it usually have more options. and if they don't, they should be working together and making the shelters happen, just like the women did! Don't whine that you don't have a shelter and the women get all the shelters, make it happen! Women didn't just get shelters, they worked hard for them and they continue to fight hard for their funding to keep them.

Women everywhere, and particularly young women need to understand that feminism is not a question of 'us versus them'. It's a question of valuing, protecting, and nurturing women's contributions to our society and to our world. We have come so far in Canada to making that happen but we're not done yet. And their are women all over the world who are just beginning and deserve our support. Feminism is not a relic, it's alive and vital. And women's studies programs are not recruitment camps for feminism, but they are an important part of the effort to value, protect, and nurture women's contributions. Because if we don't know what those are, how can we ever nurture them and how can we move forward?