And another
Jun. 30th, 2008 04:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenHere's some actual news: the next time you hear something that sounds like an urban legend with the names/places changed, assume it is one. I'm looking at you Time Magazine.
Most of the people who read my journal are smart. You are, so give yourselves a hand. And the majority of you are very young indeed. Meaning that most of you are not so far removed from high school that you have forgotten how tough it was. Meaning that if you heard someone say that girls at a high school got together and formed a clandestine pact to get themselves pregnant on purpose, you'd laugh harder than you did at the person who believed the sperm-on-the-cheek-swab story was true for a friend's classmate. I think I was that person, actually, and even I'm not dumb enough to buy the bullshit about teenaged girls forming a coven of sperm-seeking mommy wannabes.
Especially not when the principal who "reported" this "pact" to the "press" points to one person in any sort of authority to back him up and that person says that his pearl-clutching media moment was the first that she'd heard of it. His only other sources are anonymous, uncited folk talking in hallways. Because hallways have never been known to distort facts. Facts being factually reported have never lost accuracy as the message moved from one mouth to one ear and back in crowded, noisy places. Apparently, neither this principal nor the ace reporter has ever played a game of Telephone in their entire lives. I'd pity them, but they're smearing teenage girls' names in the mud, and if the resignations over the principal's refusal to allow the nurse's office to stock contraceptives is any indication, he's fixing to do worse.
It's the set-them-up, knock-them-down strategy in one fell swoop. He denies them contraceptives, the sex-ed is nonexistant, the girls get knocked up because HELLO THEY ARE ONLY HUMAN BEINGS AND THEY ARE PULSING WITH HORMONES, and he gets to pretend they did it on purpose because they should have known better (how if school won't teach them?) and they could have protected themselves (without knowing how? without access to means?) but they didn't, so obviously they chose pregnancy (they're not human? they're not fallible? they don't forget? they always use the contraceptives they don't have perfectly accurately?).
And his bullshit, not the corrected story (i.e. that he is full of shit) is what will be used as a weapon against girls and women having control over their bodies. Well done, you magnificent asshole.
Most of the people who read my journal are smart. You are, so give yourselves a hand. And the majority of you are very young indeed. Meaning that most of you are not so far removed from high school that you have forgotten how tough it was. Meaning that if you heard someone say that girls at a high school got together and formed a clandestine pact to get themselves pregnant on purpose, you'd laugh harder than you did at the person who believed the sperm-on-the-cheek-swab story was true for a friend's classmate. I think I was that person, actually, and even I'm not dumb enough to buy the bullshit about teenaged girls forming a coven of sperm-seeking mommy wannabes.
Especially not when the principal who "reported" this "pact" to the "press" points to one person in any sort of authority to back him up and that person says that his pearl-clutching media moment was the first that she'd heard of it. His only other sources are anonymous, uncited folk talking in hallways. Because hallways have never been known to distort facts. Facts being factually reported have never lost accuracy as the message moved from one mouth to one ear and back in crowded, noisy places. Apparently, neither this principal nor the ace reporter has ever played a game of Telephone in their entire lives. I'd pity them, but they're smearing teenage girls' names in the mud, and if the resignations over the principal's refusal to allow the nurse's office to stock contraceptives is any indication, he's fixing to do worse.
It's the set-them-up, knock-them-down strategy in one fell swoop. He denies them contraceptives, the sex-ed is nonexistant, the girls get knocked up because HELLO THEY ARE ONLY HUMAN BEINGS AND THEY ARE PULSING WITH HORMONES, and he gets to pretend they did it on purpose because they should have known better (how if school won't teach them?) and they could have protected themselves (without knowing how? without access to means?) but they didn't, so obviously they chose pregnancy (they're not human? they're not fallible? they don't forget? they always use the contraceptives they don't have perfectly accurately?).
And his bullshit, not the corrected story (i.e. that he is full of shit) is what will be used as a weapon against girls and women having control over their bodies. Well done, you magnificent asshole.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-02 12:26 am (UTC)So, while you say "Oh, no, there was no pact," you're still acting as if there were by assuming that a lack of a blood pact doesn't change the fact that eight girls decided, simultaneously, "Hey, having a baby right now would be awesome." And you're judging them based on that assumption. Where have they--the pregnant girls--said that each one fucked around looking for the first magical sperm donor? The only reference to fucking homeless people came in the, now seriously questionable, original article. When I say they are victims, I mean that they probably had sketchy understanding of contraceptives not helped by their school and now are being villified, wrongly, by some asshole who thinks they're vampires for sperm. Their good names are being tarnished and their intelligences called into question. They are victims of slander and libel, both, since it has come to light that the infamous pact is no more than a rumor of a rumor.
What it comes down to is: who is making the most reasonable assumption? (Since we have none of the facts aside from the inarguable.) Did eight girls separately decide that getting pregnant as teenagers was a good idea despite the enormous difficulty of raising children and go through some ridiculously far-fetched methods to accomplish this ludicrous goal?(Come on, dude: fucking homeless people? That has "urban legend" written all over it, since teenage girls can pretty much write their own ticket when it comes to sex.)
Or did eight girls happen to get pregnant through a series of mistakes/bad judgment where it comes to sex and are now learning the consequences of it and trying to make do the best they can? Why assume malice when ignorance more than handily explains things most simply? Occam's Razor, and all.