In Lorena Garcia’s book Respect yourself, Protect Yourself the situation of school sexual education is brought up with how it’s a bias system that lacks in teaching students proper sexual education. The system as Hochschild puts it “Research on sex education has revealed that sex education policies are informed by national and local struggles over the meaning and consequences of gender, race, class, and sexual categories” (Hochschild, 1994).
Hochschild quote is supported throughout this book by the experiences that the young Latina women face during high school sex education. Non-stop examples how the system is flawed with problems of heteronormative, class-based notions of sexuality, and racism. As can be seen in Chapter three of Garcia’s book The Sexual (Mis)Education of Latina Girls, she highlights many of the problems of the system deriving on the experiences of the young women in her study.
Many bring up their dissatisfaction of the system some even hosting sex workshops such as Samantha and Carolyn in the beginning of this chapter. One the problems that hosts all the others is the two systems that sex education is taught which is comprehensive and abstinenceonly; comprehensive sex education does teach about abstinence, contraception, STI’s and HIV, and abortion and abstinence-only only touches upon those subject but primarily focuses on abstinence.
The problem of sex education is in the budget provided for both programs, comprehensive being the better option is severely underfunded and abstinence-only program is heavily funded primarily with President Regan’s administration in the early 1980’s with a one billion plus funding towards it. During the years 1996 to 2006 there was no funding for comprehensive sex education, which explains why so many schools support abstinence only programs and since have not change them.
In light of the previous information many problems besides the already known lack of information of sex with abstinenceonly another set of problems rest with this program such as the set of discrimination that face students of non-white heritage such as the Latina girls in Garcia’s book. The teaching of abstinence-only support a white cultural idealism and discriminating other making them out to be people that engage in sex haphazardly and producing many children not concerned with education which is disproven in this book.
An example of this is when Minerva criticized her teacher who linked Latina girl risk of pregnancy to their culture. Earlier on Garcia makes the statement “While middle- and upper-class white youth are often perceived to be in need of intervention to guide them through their “normally abnormal” hormone-besieged adolescence, youth of color are typically constructed as always “at risk” and source of danger” (Garcia, 2012). This quote is an underlying tone through the experiences of the young women her book.
Indeed this proves that notions of racism are ingrained in our school system but are reproduced in the teaching especially in sex education. This though is not the only problem but one of the many, another issue is the teaching of class and how it also effects students. Students of lower class were also known as “at risk” students thought to be sexually active and irresponsible. This notion of class only highlights the problems of students of color which is known to be discriminated against in the work place and living sectors.
In previous chapters of Garcia’s book she does bring up how women especially Latina women are discriminated in the workplace thought to be one who take many leaves for pregnancy or other dormitory notions, not being able to have well-paying jobs because of this. In other words because of negative biases against people of certain heritage areas are classified as places where people practice sex indiscriminately and without thought of protection or contraception also out of wedlock. All of these biases reproduce notion that children from these areas are the same as these notions and are predicated to follow in this notion.
The notion of Latina women being “hyperfertility” (Garcia, 2012) haunted the women in this book who were trying to learn about safe sex practices making them insecure about asking question making them seek outside information to answer their questions. Moreover girls that are curious are chastised for wanting to learn more about safe sex and even harsher ridicule they will receive if they know anything about contraception’s and other safe sex practices. These “knowing girls” (Garcia, 2012) are automatically thought as promiscuous sexually active persons even though they might not be and just have knowledge about safe sex.
Girls more often than not are ridiculed for wanting to learn about safe sex and made to feel uncomfortable asking questions about sex and sexuality. This notion though is not true for the opposite sex even though for men questions about sexuality are equally met with ridicule boys get away with far more than what girls can. Actions like these for boys are seen as “acting foolish, not taking it seriously, or saying ignorant things” (Garcia, 2012) but the same actions if done by a girl they would be reprimanded.
However sex education has relations to what femininity is in relation to the “good-girl/ bad-girl” (Garcia, 2012) dichotomy which good-girls are chaste and bad-women are sexual. Further making women see themselves as sexual objects instead of beings. This also gets women stuck between a fine area of desirability for men, the fine line of “emphasized femininity” (Garcia, 2012) that sets a limit on their sexual agency. Women risk being too sexy as Garcia puts it either their not sexy at all or too sexy in which they get ridiculed for.
The agency of sexy is also barred by what class the woman is in, lower class consisting of the poor and working class are “assumed to embody an inappropriate femininity” (Garcia, 2012). While all these teachings further promote stigmas of race, class, and gender a subject that is often left out of the curriculum of sex education is same sex relation. The sex education system is ruled by a heteronormative ideal that only men and women are accepted in this system. Questions about sexuality like stated are often met with ill replies and ridicule.
There is a complete lack of same sex education in this system with little to no reference to same sex and if there is a mention it is often in poor statements. As example when Linda asked about any “books of teenage lesbians” (Garcia, 2012) the teacher yelled out demanding to know who asked the question and how inappropriate it was, even though she wanted to learn about her sexuality. As a result of this backlash about being a lesbian the self-identified lesbians would often have to hide their sexuality.
This facade did not end at school though, these girls usually had to keep it up twenty-four seven. Most were afraid what their families would do if they found out most being largely Christian families most scared that they would be thrown out of their homes. The ones who did come out to their families often had to keep up acting heterosexually because the family would be too afraid to break the news to the rest of their family and make the daughters perform heterosexual acts to keep suspicion away from them.
By far self-identified lesbians felt the most oppression being confined in a system that is against them and have to perform acts against their own personal beliefs. Rather than teaching our future generations this system that reproduces race, class, and gender we should teach them about sexuality and every part of it. This does bring up the notion of if we should teach them about the pleasures of sex and personally I think we should. If there is going to be a system that teaches younger generations about sex we should include everything even if it might be awkward to start.
After a while this would become a new normative and sex would not be a taboo subject in our society. We should provide information about same sex relation and how women should be themselves instead of sexual objects. Furthermore it should be taught that men and women have the same thoughts about sex and that discussing sex should be a thing despite any religious beliefs. Same sex relation should be seen as equal in sex education as well making it normal to younger generations and not to be chastised. Lastly if we are going to teach students about sex then nothing should be left out.
No knowledge should be left behind for reasons such as religion or it being awkward to talk about. The system that is in place now only reproduces stigmas and oppresses women of all types. Sex should not be a taboo subject in our culture these days sex should be a subject that is talked about and with that giving power back to women to talk about their sexuality. This hopefully would end nearly all violence against women and same sex couples by resetting our normative from a white Christian Anglo system to an equal one.