There’s nothing wrong with staying a virgin throughout college, as long as it’s a choice you make for yourself.
However, in the South African town of Uthukela, there is a scholarship available for female university students who stay virgins throughout college. The educational grants are designed so the young women stay “pure and inactive from sexual activity and focus on their studies,” according to district spokesperson Jabulani Mkhonza as quoted in the Agence France Presse. Grant recipients will be subject to so-called “virginity tests” at the start of every term and upon returning to school from breaks.
Cue the screams of feminists, college women, and normal people everywhere.
The list of problems with this scholarship is extensive. First, the concept of a test to determine one’s virginity is impossible; these tests usually check for the presence of the hymen, which can be broken in a variety of other ways, such as exercise. These tests are both ridiculous and invasive; imagine if your university had the right to a report on your sex life (or lack thereof) every couple of months?
Second, the scholarship excludes any young women who have been sexually assaulted, as well as all male university students. The idea that only women should be punished or rewarded for their virgin status shows obvious sexism and is yet another example of the double standard between women and men.
Also, most absurdly, the grant inexplicably connects the concepts of sexuality and education. Both can be important parts of the university experience but otherwise have nothing to do with each other. A woman can spend hours and hours studying, graduate with a 4.0, and go off to have a fabulous career…whether or not she was sexually active in college.
The district has good intentions of lowering teenage pregnancy rates while also decreasing the cost of education for young women, but forcing women to give up sexual autonomy in favor of education is not the answer.
So, collegiettes: what do you think about the South African virginity grants?