When the House of Representatives passed the Pence Amendment on February 18, they essentially sent the message that women’s health was not a priority in this economic downturn. Though the odds of this passing in the Democratic majority Senate are slim, the fact that it passed in the House of Representatives is enough to call for a powerful reaction from activists.
The Pence Amendment to the spending bill would cut off all federal funding to Planned Parenthood. “It is embarrassing that it’s even gotten this far,” said Caroline Katzman ’13. Katzman, a member of Students for Choice, interned at a Planned Parenthood in St. Louis last summer and plans to do so again this summer. In Providence, she has also volunteered as an escort for women visiting the Providence Planned Parenthood.
Protesting
On February 24, Students for Choice hosted a phone bank in J Walter Wilson. “We got a lot of people involved who weren’t paying attention or wouldn’t have known about the matter if they hadn’t seen us,” said Melissa Shube, president of Students for Choice. Shube estimated that students made over 200 calls.
Members from Students for Choice encouraged students to call senators from their home states, especially if they were from a state that could be either Republican or Democrat, Shube said. “It’s very frustrating that these bills cut funding because there are studies that show that preventive funding, especially for reproductive health, saves taxpayer money in the long run,” she added.
Planned Parenthood provides services such as breast cancer screenings, pelvic exams, and general health care, in addition to abortions. Planned Parenthood also serves as a place for men to receive medical care, offering physical exams, prostate cancer screenings, and other services. On campus, most people were supportive of the arguments Student for Choice made, said Shube. “Most people were appalled when they found out about the Pence Amendment and wanted to help and were excited to call during the phone bank,” Shube added.
I Have Sex, Now What?
Students at Brown were not alone in taking action. At other college campuses throughout the country, students displayed their opposition to the Pence Amendment.
Members of Wesleyan University Uncut, a student group that promotes open sexual dialogue, made a video—“I have Sex,”students speak out against ideological attack on Planned Parenthood—in which students say “I have Sex” and hold signs that read the same message. The video calls attention to the fact that many young people, of all different backgrounds and races, have sex and deserve the right to obtain resources that promote sexual health.
Promiscuous Girl?
I believe that society’s underlying belief that women do not deserve the same
sexual freedom as men drives the plan to cut Planned Parenthood’s funding. The point of the “I have Sex” video is that young people are sexually active. However, a bigger problem is that while many people can accept that young people have sex, recognizing that young women do so is much harder. In our society, a young woman who has a lot of sex is called a “slut,” while a young man who partakes in the same behavior is likely to gain a good reputation among his friends.
“Even as we enter the twenty-first century, the possibility that girls might be interested in sexuality in their own right rather than as objects of boys’ desire is met with resistance and discomfort,” according to Deborah Tolman in her book Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk about Sexuality.
In her book, Tolman discusses an encounter she had with a father she met at a dinner party. When discussing his son, the father beams with pride about his son’s “‘raging hormones’” and ability to be a “‘ladies’ man.’” In contrast, he is anxious and uneasy when his daughter goes out with boys for fear that “‘things might happen to her’ that she would ‘regret.”’
While Tolman acknowledges that such fears are valid, she points out that “if these risks were our deepest concerns we would be pouring funds into effective, accessible forms of birth control and protection against diseases, [and] providing comprehensive sexuality education.” Rather than do what Tolman suggests though, the federal government is proposing to do the exact opposite.
Unchanged Society
Tolman’s book was published over ten years ago, but the acceptance of female sexuality seems to have only weakened since then. While students across different college campuses show outrage over the Pence Amendment, many of these students, including myself, are guilty of following the double standard outlined in Tolman’s book.
I fully support Planned Parenthood and think that the federal defunding of such services is beyond ridiculous, but I am guilty of referring to girls as “sluts” for doing the same things I would probably deem appropriate for boys. Moreover, it’s safe to say that, though Brown is probably better than most college campuses in defying the double standard, I am not the only student on this campus who has thought, or said, comments that actually degrade women.
While the Pence Amendment takes these beliefs to an extreme, the underlying notions that guide officials to make such decisions are evident in student interactions with their peers even on the most liberal college campuses. The Pence Amendment may be stripping women of their rights financially, but everyday, prevalent expectations about women’s sexuality only enforce the attack on women that the amendment stirred.