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...dinner table conversation. My mother, for her part, forbid Barbie dolls because she didn't like the messages they sent about women.
I am fortunate to have had generations of women pave the way for me and my peers (by the year graduated from college 43% of all law degrees and 39% of all medical degrees were earned by women), but coming from this environment, I have always seen myself as a fighter for gender equity.
In fifth grade gym class, for example, I protested the fact that boys were given most of the gym to play a basketball game, while girls were given a small corner to practice free-throws. My athletic ability, however, didn't match up to my righteous indignation and I dropped my protest relatively quickly for fear of having to actually play. My sister one-upped my protest when in ninth grade she asked her gym teacher why girls were learning tumbling while the boys were being taught wrestling. Mr. Brooks responded that one day over tea and cookies he would try to explain the rules of wrestling to her. Not surprisingly my sister showed up the next day with a tea bag and a box of Fig Newtons and declared herself ready to learn.
Given this family background and penchant for complaining, there is no doubt that we would not have kept quiet if our school's formal sexuality education courses over the years had suggested traditional gender norms as preferable or passed on gender stereotypes as truth.
GENDER BIASES IN ABSTINENCE-ONLY-UNTIL-MARRIAGE CURRICULA
Perhaps this is why I was so surprised when I first began to review fear-based abstinence-only-until-marriage curricula. In addition to trying to scare and shame young people, many of the curricula used in abstinence-only-until-marriage programs (programs that are both...
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