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The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women quotes about feminism
Antifeminists are the only ones who benefit from their version of working on women’s behalf; in reality, they put other women at risk and fail to solve any larger problems.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
What other movement has ensured that young women have the rights that they have today? Feminism is responsable not only for the decline in violence against women over the last decade, but also for equal pay and rights legislation, reproductive justice, and the list goes on. So I’m more than a little suspicious of those who see women’s advancement as a bad thing.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
Perhaps it’s true that in our sex-saturated culture it does take a certain amount of self-discipline to resist having sex, but restraint does not equal morality. And let’s be honest: if this were simply about resisting peer pressure and being strong, then the women who have sex because they actively want to — as appalling as that idea might be to those who advocate abstinence — wouldn’t be scorned. Because the “strength” involved in these women’s choice would be about doing what they want despite pressure to the contrary, not about resisting the sex act itself.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
Young women are not putting themselves in danger. The people around them are doing the real damage. Who? you might wonder. The abstinence teacher who tells her students that they’ll go to jail if they have premarital sex. The well-founded organization that tells girls on college campuses that they should be looking for a husband, not taking women’s studies classes. The judge who rules against a rape survivor because she didn’t meet whatever standard for a victim he had in mind. The legislator who pushes a bill to limit young women’s access to abortion because he doesn’t think they’re smart enough to make their own decisions. These are the people who are making the world a worse place, and a more dangerous one, at that, for girls and young women. We’re just doing our best to live in it.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
Trusting women means also trusting them to find their way. This isn’t to say, of course, that I think women’s sexual choices are intrinsically ’empowered’ or ‘feminist.’ I just believe that in a world that values women so little, and so specifically for their sexuality, we should be giving them the benefit of the doubt. Because in this kind of hostile culture, trusting womenis a radical act.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
I’ve thought often about why – why?! – anyone, especially other women, would try to disrupt feminist work that combats violence. What in the world could be the point of that? The only reason I’ve come up with, and I think it makes sense, is fear of becoming that “impure” woman.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
For women especially, virginity has become the easy answer- the morality quick fix. You can be vapid, stupid, and unethical, but so long as you’ve never had sex, you’re a “good” (i.e. “moral) girl and therefore worthy of praise.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
I’ve always found the idea of ‘saving’ your virginity intriguing: it’s not as if we’re packing our Saran-wrapped hymens away in the freezer, after all, or pasting them in scrapbooks. But packed-away virginities aside, the interesting — and dangerous — idea at play here is that of ‘morality.” When young women are taught about morality, there’s not often talk of compassion, kindness, courage, or integrity. There is, however, a lot of talk about hymens (though the preferred words are undoubtedly more refined — think ‘virginity’ and ‘chastity’): if we have them, when we’ll lose them, and under what circumstances we’ll be rid of them.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
Antifeminists are the only ones who benefit from their version of working on women’s behalf; in reality, they put other women at risk and fail to solce any larger problems.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
As bell hooks wrote in a 1998 essay, “Naked Without Shame, ” about black women’s bodies and politics, “Marked by shame, projected as inherent and therefore precluding any possibility of innocence, the black female body was beyond redemption.” She points out that since the time of U.S. slavery, men have benefited from positioning black women as naturally promiscuous because it absolves them of guilt when they sexually assault and rape women of color. “[I]t was impossible to ruin that which was received as inherently unworthy, tainted, and soiled, ” hooks wrote. Women of color, low-income women, immigrant women- these are the women who are not seen as worthy of being placed on a pedestal. It’s only our perfect virgins who are valuable, worthy of discourse and worship.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
As Feministing.com commenter electron-Blue noted in response to the 2008 New York Times Magazine article “Students of Virginity, ” on abstinence clubs at Ivy League colleges, “There were a WHOLE LOTTA us not having sex at Harvard . . . but none of us thought that that was special enough to start a club about it, for pete’s sake.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
Making women the sexual gatekeepers and telling men they just can’t help themselves not only drives home the point that women’s sexuality is unnatural, but also sets up a disturbing dynamic in which women are expected to be responsible for men’s sexual behavior.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
If you spend any amount of time doing media analysis, it’s clear that the most frenzied moral panic surrounding young women’s sexuality comes from the mainstream media, which loves to report about how promiscuous girls are, whether they’re acting up on spring break, getting caught topless on camera, or catching all kinds of STIs. Unsurprisingly, these types of articles and stories generally fail to mention that women are attending college at the highest rates in history, and that we’re the majority of undergraduate and master’s students. Well-educated and socially engaged women just don’t make for good headlines, it seems.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
The desirable virgin is sexy but not sexual. She’s young, white, and skinny. She’s a cheerleader, a babysitter; she’s accessible and eager to please (remember those ethics of passivity!). She’s never a woman of color. SHe’s never a low-income girl or a fat girl. She’s never disabled. “Virgin” is a designation for those who meet a certain standard of what women, especially young women, are supposed to look like. As for how these young women are supposed to act? A blank slate is best.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
Consider another abstinence product: a gold rose pin handed out in schools or at Christian youth events. The pin is attached to a small card that reads, “You are like a beautiful rose. Each time you engage is pre-marital sex a previous petal is stripped away. Don’t leave your future husband holding a bare stem. Abstain.”Do we really want to teach our daughters that without their virginity they’re nothing but a “bare stem”?
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
..the hope I have for women: that we can start to see ourselves-and encourage men to see us-as more than just the sum of our sexual parts: not as virgins or whores, as mothers or girlfriends, or as existing only in relation to men, but as people with independent desires, hopes and abilities. But I know that this can’t happen as long as American culture continues to inundate us with gender-role messages that place everyone-men and women-in an unnatural hierarchical order that’s impossible to maintain without strife. For women to move forward, and for men to break free, we need to overcome the masculinity status quo-together.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
Young women are not putting themselves in danger. The people around them are doing the real damage. Who? you might wonder. The abstinence teacher who tells her students that they’ll go to jail if they have premarital sex. The well-founded organizarion that tells girls on college campuses that they should be looking for a husband, not taking women’s studies classes. The judge who rules against a rape survivor because she didn’t meet whatever standard for a victim he had in mind. The legislator who pushes a bill to limit young women’s access to abortion because he doesn’t think they’re smart enough to make their own decisions. These are the people who are making the world a worse place, and a more dangerous one, at that, for girls and young women. We’re just doing our best to live in it.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
By fetishizing youth and virginity, we’re supporting a disturbing message: that really sexy women aren’t women at all- they’re girls.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
[Robert] Jensen calls for an end to our current understanding of masculinity. He says, “We men can settle for being men, or we can strive to be human beings.” What’s funny is that that statement essentially echoes the same hope I have for women: that we can start to see ourselves, and encourage men to see us, as more than just the sum of our sexual parts: not as virgins or whores, as mothers or girlfriends, or as existing only in relation to men, but as people with independent desires, hopes and abilities.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
Idolizing virginity as a stand-in for women’s morality means that nothing else matters- not what we accomplish, not what we think, not what we care about and work for. Just if/how/whom we have sex with. That’s all.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
While boys are taught that the things that make them men–good men–are universally accepted ethical ideals, women are led to believe that our moral compass lies somewhere between our legs. Literally.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
Young women are not putting themselves in danger. The people around them are doing the real damage. Who? you might wonder. The abstinence teacher who tells her students that they’ll go to jail if they have premarital sex. The well-founded organizarion that tells girls on college campuses that they should be looking for a husband, not taking women’s studies classes. The judge who rules against a rape survivor because she didn’t meet whatevel standard for a victim he had in mind. The legislator who pushes a bill to limit young women’s access to abortion because he doesn’t think they’re smart enough to make their own decisions. These are the people who are making the world a worse place, and a more dangerous one, at that, for girls and young women. We’re just doing our best to live in it.
— Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
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