Column: Give Girls Their Sexual Power

My favorite
column photo
(I still look like
this--Honest!)


I have a question for you. Why are we still protecting our daughters' virginity? Why are we still treating our teenage girls as if they are something frail, something less, something in need of protection and assistance?

A recent article in Newsweek touted the "new virginity" and said that 10 percent fewer teens are having sex today than did a decade ago. That might be commendable, except for the fact that more females are choosing "new virginity" than males. "So what?" you might say. Isn't it good that Suzy is waiting to have sex? Yes and no.

A student in my journalism asked me the other day why nothing has changed in the 83 years since women got the vote in this country. If women are so different from men, why hasn't their addition to the electorate changed how things are run? Why are we still settling our problems with violence? Why are we still taking money away from education, health care, and social programs--typically "women's" issues--and spending it on weapons and war?

The reason is because we have we have never really given our women their power. We have given them the vote, yes. But we haven't taught them they have a right and a duty to make their own decisions, to influence others, to take care of society and themselves.

The sad truth is that women don't really believe in themselves. Their addition to the electorate hasn't made any difference because they vote just the same as their fathers, husbands, and brothers vote. Why? The answer may be complex, but it includes sex.

Long before my daughter reached puberty, I asked my sister Bonnie how she had approached sex education with her own. Bonnie said she told her daughter Jessica that her body was her own and it was up to Jessica to decide when she wanted to have sex--Bonnie wouldn't interfere. Bonnie provided her daughter with information about preventing pregnancy and disease, and she gave her this advice: don't have sex until you want it for your own satisfaction; don't do it to please your boyfriend or keep up with your girlfriends. Do it only for yourself.

When I heard those words, it was like a curtain lifted. "Yes!" I wanted to shout and embrace my sister. Suddenly I understood my embarrassment when hearing fathers and brothers talking about how they would chase their daughter's or sister's boyfriends away. Suddenly I understood how patronizing that attitude is. How trivializing. How demeaning. How wrong.

Women have tremendous power in their sexuality, and it needs to be given over to them. It does not belong to their parents. It does not belong to their brothers. It does not belong to their boyfriends or husbands. It belongs to them.

Because we do not give our girls their full power, they don't believe in their authority on a very basic level. They are easily influenced by the powerful men in their lives--and nothing changes. Our species doesn't evolve.

I'm not saying every teenage girl should have sex. And I'm not saying things would be better if women ran the country. I'm saying girls should be empowered to make their own decisions, and we should honor and respect the feminine aspect in all people -- male and female.

That process can't begin until women truly honor and respect themselves. Let's teach them to do that. Let's give them their power. Let's not protect them. Let's set them free.

The column above is the last column I wrote, culminating a 15-year experience writing Home Front for a string of newspapers, starting with the San Francisco Progress (now defunct) when my firstborn was two years old, and ending with six papers in the Independent Newspaper Group (also now defunct) when she was 17. This is one of my favorites.