i saw wendy shalit a few weeks ago when she came to pittsburgh to give a lecture. it began with a bizarre story about a 16 year old couple who have been dating for about six months and the guy has never has kissed his girlfriend because shes "a gem and too precious." it ended with shalit telling all the mothers the disney princesses are positive role models because of their modesty.

I like how the panel's title is a callback to Jonathan Swift's satirical essay on England's tyranny over Ireland. Or are we not actually supposed to think of that? Because I am really just, "lol baby-skin gloves" right now. I wish I could be there. Someone should ask if their solution to the rash of unwanted sluts is to boil them up and serve them for dinner.

Wow, that song is just awful.

Dr. Grossman came to my campus recently. I didn't go to her talk, because, well, my bullshit meter was full. The college republicans at my liberal all women's college suck. Two years ago they brought in Phyllis Schlafly to speak here, and last year it was Mike Adams. My main point being that my campus was plastered with posters for the event that said stuff like "there is no condom for the heart," and "promiscuous girl? Dr. Grossman has what you need!" and “Why, Dr. Grossman, do they warn you about STDs and pregnancy, but they don’t tell you what it does to your heart?� It was a lot of fun tearing the posters down three days after the event was over.

Prudence: Isn't Jasmine a little bit slutty. I mean, she shows her tummy! How immodest. (can't believe that story, I'm glad women are sparkly rocks that depreciate in value if you touch them)

I got to see Michelle Easton and her talk entitled "the failures of feminism" a couple of years ago.

Hmmmmmm......incredibly liberal Quaker school full of hairy feminists.......wow, I bet they would love to hear about how they're morally deficient and should go home and have babies.

I don't know if you covered the case in Philly of the judge who reduced a rape charge to theft of services, but here's a good article with a feminist take on the issue.

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20071012_Jill_Porter___Hooker_raped_and_robbed_-_by_justice_system_.html

^ that is so screwed up.

maybe i haven't done enough research about the women who are on the panel, but i feel concerned that there's so little respect for women who chose to promote abstinence, or family values. I don't agree with abst.-only education, but that doesn't seem to be what any of these women are promoting. Princeton's chastity group doesn't promote abstnce only, it's simply a support group for men and women who chose not to have sex. It seems to me that all these women are doing is promoting discussion on what promiscuity and abstinence mean, and how they effect our culture. It makes me anxious that feministing would hastily jump to conclusions about this conference. This only serves to reinforce unfair stereotypes about feminsts, namely that they claim to be about choice, but when women chose domesticity over public life, or abstinence over sexual activity they are sneered at by "hard-core" feminists. If feminism is really about choice, how can we possibly object to a conference that promotes discussion and provides young women AND men with alternate choices.

affect, not effect. sorry.

av3, I don't think there is disrespect to these women for choosing abstience (or any other woman who does). The way I feel is that the women on these panels aren't talking about making individual choices, they're talking about why the choice to have sex is wrong. They assume women who don't ptractice abstinence are "slutty" and reduce all women who are sexually active (outside marriage) to pawns in a "hook up culture." Pointing out their flawed logic and dishonest techniques isn't disrespectful.

You put that beautifully acronom. Also, there is a certain amount of hypocrisy involved in a lot of the positions. I, as a woman, am standing here out of the home, telling you other women that you should stay in the home, even though I have a career and make money telling you to stay in the home. (at least as far as phyllis schlafly, not at this particular conference, is concerned) And Dr. Grossman offends my sensibilities not particularly because of her opinions, which she has every right to state, but because she presents her opinions in such a way that people take them to be scientific or medical fact. If you say that having sex outside of marriage is a sin, well, great, your opinion, but if you say that having sex outside of marriage is emotionally hazardous and physically hazardous, I would like to see research studies to back up this opinion.

Why is it that all these people think you can only have your heartbroken if you have sexual intercourse?

What about unrequited love or relationships that are celibate but still have nasty fall out?

It's almost as though they think sex is the most important thing in a relationship. Oh.

Oh, Av3, there is nothing wrong with choosing abstinence.
But this panel will serve to discuss and promote compulsory-abstinence-until-marriage. They will do so by distorting facts, spreading misinformation, and slut-shaming. These women are incredibly sexist (and heterosexist) against women.
Bowleserised makes another good point, which fits into the "distorting facts" category.

I'd like to know - what do you mean by "family values?"

Do sexually active folks not have families they love and care about? Can they not be kind, generous, wonderful people?

Alternatively, is everyone who waits until marriage for sex a "good" person?

I mean, really; people are not defined by their consentual bedroom activities.

The phrase "family values" is code for preserving male dominance. Do you agree?

MLEmac, did you go to Earlham too!? Or did she speak at more then one liberal Quaker school? She was part of the ill-fated "bring diverse conservative voices to campus" theory, which included Ann Coulter. Sigh.

It hurts my soul, but, alas, I will be unable to attend this discussion. I'll be stuck at work and, as you noted, it filled up pretty quickly.

av3, I'm right there with you. But this discussion is being sponsored by a group that just came out with an article titled "Want Protection from Breast Cancer? Have Some Babies." This isn't about choice. It's pop out babies or die.

i sent an email to register with them...will see how its goes.

SarahMC, exactly!
I wanted to ask AV3 about their definition of "family values", because I hold "family values".

My family values involve love, respect and appreciation of the diversity of human identity and experience.
I respect all the different kinds of families there are in the world, and VALUE the idea of equality for families in all their diverse forms.
AV3, I'm sure this is what you too mean by "family values", right? ;o)

ok, if this is the case, "pop out babies or die", then obviously this panel is ridiculous. what i was looking at was the Princeton group they were referring to, and all i could find about it seemed to indicate that it was simply support for people who chose, for reason religious or personal, to abstain. and, as a college student, who doesn't abstain, i can tell you honestly that there is indeed very little support for those who want to wait. I read parts of unhooked, and although there were some big problems with the book, i still felt that it was valuable information about how young women feel about casual sex at college.
i commented because i was also disturbed by the Julia Roberts posting a few days ago. I know there was some debate about what was meant by that post, but i just wanted to say that i feel like feminists need to be really careful not to condemn women who chose to live lives that look to us as if they were dictated by misogynists.
on another note, i completely agree that women who make a PUBLIC, salaried career out of telling women to lead private, unpaid lives make me want to pull my hair out.
finally, on further consideration, i really regret my use of the term family values. this was a terrible habit picked up by listening to conservative pundits. What i meant when i said family values, and i was using a conservative term to talk about what i assume are conservative people, was a traditional mother-wears-an-apron, father-knows-best situation, which some women apparently find fulfilling. i think some women can genuinely find happiness and contentment within this paradigm, and that should be their choice. but i certainly did not mean to imply that those of us who will probably or are choosing to work outside the home don't have 'family values'.

Thanks, av3, for responding so rationally.

I guess I do have a problem with "tradtional mother-wears-apron, father-knows-best" because I don't believe it really is a choice - hear me out!

For the first time in who know how many hundred years in Western culture, women are finally achieving economic, social, cultural and political freedom.

We still have a ways to go, and it's only in the last generation or two that these changes have really sunk into alot of areas of mainstream culture.

And then we have "traditional family values", which translates into "doing things how they've been done for x-number of years, whereby women are not treated as fully human".

To me, this doesn't seem like a choice at all, rather a 'backlash' (to coin a phrase), a desire to close the gate after the horse has bolted, if you will.

I don't mean that there shouldn't be a parent at home to look after small children, but I honestly see the model you describe as being anachronistic - it's time has passed.

Sorry this is a bit incoherent, I'm sure it would make more sense if you could see my hand gestures and vocal inflections!

Princeton's chastity group is hardly so benign. Their website is full of blatant heterosexism, and devalues any sexual relationship other than within the context of marriage. They have position statements on how they think the family and marriage are the building blocks of society, and that nothing else is acceptable or even valuable. Which I think is why feminists have a problem with it...

sorry for all the typos - I actually have a postgraduate degree in English lit, promise!

Cherlyp, I would go further than saying the website is heterosexist.

I think it is queer-hating.

It basically says that homosexuals should be chaste. AT ALL TIMES.

Like, don't ever have sex except with an opposite-sex partner in a marriage.

Um, kthnxby, Princeton Chastity Society!

I don't mean that there shouldn't be a parent at home to look after small children, but I honestly see the model you describe as being anachronistic - it's time has passed.

Or better yet, to have a paradigm where it's okay for men to take paternity leave and choose to stay at home the same way women do. To have male actors say in interviews, "I'm happiest as a stay at home dad."

The burden is still heavily on women to do this and there are people actively fighting in our government to keep it this way.

Exactly, Ultramagnus, that's why I said parent, not mother.

Word, anorak, I agree 100%

As a 21 year-old (bisexual feminist) virgin, I have to say that these goddamn chastity-pushers make it HARDER for me to get respect for my particular lifestyle choices.

Saving it for marriage? Don't have much respect for the institution, and there's a 50/50 chance I wouldn't be able to marry my partner of choice. Worried about polluting myself? More like worried about pain of penetration and unintended pregnancy. Waiting to make my father proud? Like Hell he has any say over my sex life. Looking for romance? I'm a grad student. LIKE I HAVE TIME FOR EVEN A HOOKUP, MUCH LESS ROMANCE.

Yet those are the reasons that the chastity crowd puts out for abstaining from sex, and it makes me look like a slave of the patriarchy for not wanting to bother with an active sex life.

yeah I was at Earlham! I actually just transfered to Hendrix College in Arkansas. I loved Earlham, but I needed to be closer to home. Michelle Easton spoke my freshman year. My name is Emily Kern, are we facebook friends?

Emily, I just added you. I graduated in 2004, but my sweetie did the MAT in 2005 so I was still around Richmond.

um, just to be sure, I was agreing with you anorak, just pointing out how it would work if it were truly equal:)

"I think it is queer-hating.

It basically says that homosexuals should be chaste. AT ALL TIMES.

Like, don't ever have sex except with an opposite-sex partner in a marriage."

Exactly the position of Joel Grey, head of the Evangelical Alliance - who has been appointed to the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission. You couldn't make it up.

alright, cool.

yeah, I heard about the disasterous Ann Coulter talk, and of course the infamous Bill Krystol. It really frustrated me that the school was spending money on speakers who did nothing but insult us. If they want to bring in more conservative speakers, fine, but invite someone who is able to attract a bit more respect, and who's tagline wasn't "this is why liberals are evil."

I don't get it? Where are the men? Surely "chastity fest" isn't just for women? I can't believe that men aren't lined up to attend this event where they learn how wonderful it is to keep their pants zipped.

Although I don't agree with Wendy Shalit on a lot of things, I thought her book had a very feminist core message. She is basically telling young women that they can be respected and admired for who they are, rather than trying to empower themselves by focusing on pleasing men and flaunting their bodies. I really don't think she did any victim-blaming or slut-shaming in her book, but maybe some people are more sensitive to this than others. Anyway, I wish feminists could try to look more for what they have in common rather than splitting so much over cultural and ideological lines.

Right on, Ultramagnus! :o)

Julie, you may want to read Jessica's article at the Guardian to see why feminists are not "splitting so much over cultural and ideological lines".

While Shalit's messages to women about countering hypersexualized culture and choosing when to engage in sexual behaviours are great on their own, other things she says about women 'naturally' wanting only one man for life and her bullshit 'family values' are highly problematic to many feminists. And so she should be called out on them.

I had to respond to this particular line: "Wowza. It's bound to be chock full of slut-shaming, victim-blaming, and pining for the good ol' days when women went to college to earn their MRS."
I live in Auburn, Alabama -which by definition is a college town. (I am here to go to school and then will return to the midwest as quickly as possible.) In Auburn, Alabama, it is common for women (particularly undergraduates) to still report they are here to get their MRS degrees. I was completely shocked when I heard this- because even though I had already noted a hightened level of sexism embedded within the southern conservative culture personally, I just really couldn't believe it could be that bad.
I felt I had to report that the "good ol' days" have hardly died. They are alive and well in Auburn, Alabama.

I had to respond to this particular line: "Wowza. It's bound to be chock full of slut-shaming, victim-blaming, and pining for the good ol' days when women went to college to earn their MRS."
I live in Auburn, Alabama -which by definition is a college town. (I am here to go to school and then will return to the midwest as quickly as possible.) In Auburn, Alabama, it is common for women (particularly undergraduates) to still report they are here to get their MRS degrees. I was completely shocked when I heard this- because even though I had already noted a hightened level of sexism embedded within the southern conservative culture personally, I just really couldn't believe it could be that bad.
I felt I had to report that the "good ol' days" have hardly died. They are alive and well in Auburn, Alabama.