"He's Chill, She's On The Pill"
Valenti quotes "The job of being responsible, at the end of the day, has always been lain with me. Because I'm a woman. It's our responsibility to have safe sex: birth control pills, diaphragms, spermicides - shit, we even have to convince men to wear condoms!"
Valenti raises a few arguments towards the inequity of practicing safe sex. She claims that the responsibility lies heavily on the woman and that there is more behind it than just getting on the pill. The birth control responsibility comes with a cost, a lecture, and maybe even a consequence.
Colleges are beginning to lose their drug company discount, requiring the students to pay the full price of about $50 each month for a dose of birth control pills when they should normally get them for $12. Can someone explain why we can have condoms basically forced into our hands for free when the fight for free birth control is still in action? Why are we still arguing for birth control coverage?
Valenti also makes a point about the lecture that comes with birth control. When seated in the doctor's office, women are questioned about their sex life, their sexual intentions, and even put through multiple tests to make it very clear we want to have safe sex. Men go to the store and buy a box of condoms.
What happens when the contraceptive just doesn't follow through with its job? The woman is pregnant and is forced to take on full responsibility. She is left to decide what to do and, once again, is forced to potentially deal with another American controversy: abortion. Not only are we fighting to have full coverage of birth control, we are fighting for our right to have our own choice in what to do with our own bodies when birth control fails. A percentage of men, Valenti explains, will argue that they were "tricked" into pregnancy when in reality, if they would take on half the responsibility of using a condom, this "trick" wouldn't occur.
This subject is a little hard for me to write about. I do believe in birth control and pro-choice, but I also believe in complete sex education, especially here in rural Alaska. I don't think the problem lies in who the responsibility of safe sex lies on, the problem is who knows and understands the importance of safe sex. How do we expect women to understand and take on the responsibility when they aren't even taught about it first? While growing up here, I remember having only one lecture about practicing safe sex and it was as a freshman (when I wasn't even thinking of sex yet) and it only lasted about 30 minutes. I am not the first to notice that the percentage of local teen pregnancy is dramatically increasing. I believe that as an action towards decreasing the high teen pregnancy percentage, we must educate both sexes on the processes and benefits of safe sex.
MISS Woman of the Week
Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama is the wife of the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama. She is also the first African-American First Lady of the United States. Obama is an alumni of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. Obama has become a fashion icon and role model for women while also a supporter for poverty awareness, nutrition, and healthy eating.
After law school, Obama became an associate at the Chicago law firm, Sidley Austin. She worked on marketing and intellectual property. She has held public sector positions in her hometown of Chicago as an assistant to the Mayor and as Assistant Commissioner of Planning and Development. In 1993, she became the Executive Director for the Chicago office of Public Allies - a nonprofit organization encouraging young people to work on social issues. Later, she was the Associate Dean of Student Services at the University of Chicago where she developed the University's Community Service Center. Then, she began to work for the University of Chicago Hospitals as an executive director for community affairs and Vice President for Community and External Affairs.
While working with the 2008 campaign for her husband, she discussed race and education by using motherhood as a framework. She reduced her professional responsibilities by 80% to support president Obama in his campaign. This support came with conditions of limited involvement which included only 2 days a week of political events and traveling overnight only if their daughters came along, too.
Since 2006, she was listed until Essence's "25 of the World's Most Inspiring Women," Vanity Fair's "10 of the World's Best Dressed People," and the 58th of The Harvard 100; a list of the prior year's most influential Harvard alumni.
Obama has stated that she would like to focus more attention on issues concerning military and working families. As First Lady, she has visited homeless shelters and soup kitchens. She's sent representatives to schools and supported public service. Obama toured a cancer ward abroad and advocated on behalf of military families. She's also encouraged the organic movement and even planted an organic garden and installing bee hives of the South Lawn of the White House.
"One night President Obama and his wife Michelle decided to do something out of routine and go for a casual dinner at a restaurant that wasn't too luxurious.
When they were seated, the owner of the restaurant asked the president's secret service if he could please speak to the First Lady in private. They obliged and Michelle had a conversation with the owner.
Following this conversation President Obama asked Michelle why he was so interested in talking to her. She mentioned that in her teenage years, he had been madly in love with her.
President Obama then said, 'Oh, so if you had married him, you would now be the owner of this lovely restaurant' , to which Michelle responded, 'No, if I had married him, he would now be the President'"
MISS Song of the Week
Independent Women Part I - Destiny's Child
-Jacqui Lambert
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