The Myth

After a year in an independent study high school my mother decided I should transfer to an all girls school. Both schools were Catholic but they could not be more different in how they approached religion, worship, and sexuality.

School one had a more laid back approach. Our priest was well known in the school community, he had an office in the school, he was easy to talk to, really friendly, and wore jeans when he wasn't leading mass. When we'd go to mass it was either in the gym or in the summer months it was on the field at the back of the school...yes mass on the grass. The emphasis was put on community, helping each other out, and being good people. At school I didn't feel stifled by religion or its dogma, and as a young woman I didn't feel as is I was carrying a burden of temptation and morality.

...in comes school two.

School two was an all girl school and not a week went by when abstinence, pro-life, and sexist dogma were not shoved down our throats. I could feel the shift instantly. Suddenly there was an abstinence group, where they'd put on lame, badly acted, skits on how to avoid having sex with your boyfriend (ironically enough one of the main members of this group was one of the most sexually active in the school) . Health class was a joke, it only highlighted the STIs we could contract if we had sex. (It was later revealed by my sister that, our gym teacher, who taguht health, had taught her year about condoms and birth control but adminsitration caught wind of this and shut down the safe sex unit in health class altogether.) Mass was held at the convent next door where we preached at about the special gift God gave to us and how it must be cherished as well as protected. Pre-marital sex was a sin. Homosexuality was a sin. Materbaution was a sin.

We were taught all of these things and yet girls at my high school still got pregnant before graduation, girls still contracted various STIs, and girls still got it on in the parking lot with their boyfriends during school dances.

I don't know about you but I'd say absitence only programs do not work.

We had this discussion with one of our more religiously inclined teachers. A classmate asked why safe sex shouldn't be taught in schools, our teacher said that providing condoms and lessons about birth control would be giving young people persmission to have sex (except that we don't need permission), my classmate countered 'but we're having sex anyway' after that my teacher shut up and continued on with the lesson.

So completely shocked and disgusted that my vagina and womb were constant fodder for both fear and control, I asked my brother and a few of my male friends who went to the all boys school up the road about abstience and pro-life: 'What's that?' 'Huh?' 'Oh we don't have that' 'They don't teach us about condoms either'

WHAT THE FUCK???

I was so angry! The blatant double standard was dispicable! I mean, a girl cannot get pregnant on her own, she cannot contract an STD all by her lonesome!

In light of this extrem sexism I started to weapons of the weak it. I skipped mass. Slept in religon class. Argued with my philiosphy teacher that yes, transgendered men and women are in face people...I was rude to him too, he deserved it! And I took a stand in business class, it may have not been on the Rosa Parks scale but I yielded the little power I did have:
It was pro-life week, the pro-lifers were passing around pictures of dead burnt babies and shit. At the end of their terrible presentation, they passed around these forms saying I making this promise to God, that I will keep my purity for marriage signed ________.
Oh fuck no!

I was seated beside a girl named Jessica, she was 6 months pregnant, so when said forms were being handed out, the pro-life girl handed me a form and sheepishly asked Jessica, 'You don't want one, do you', Jessica smiled nervously and shook her head. As everyone was signing their names the pro-life girls announced that all these sheets of paper would be placed in a bowl and be offered up to God at mass.

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So as everyone passed their sheets up to the front the girls around be were like 'why aren't you handing in your sheet?' and I stated loudly, and clearly 'I'm not going to make a promise that I'm not going to keep, least of all to God' They gave me cut eye and turned back around. And that was my defiance in the fact of sexism, mysgongy, and religion.

It sucks that a woman's morality is contingent on her sexuality. A man would never be considered a bad person because he's has double digit, sexual partners but if you found out a woman had the same amount well then she'd be considered a slut, someone to be gawked at, someone to be avoided, someone not worthy of a commited relationship.

Really? REALLY?

Take a fucking walk!