Intersections of youth and other aspects of the kyriarchy
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naraht's post Adult privilege linking to The Adult Privilege Checklist has a great discussion in the comments poking at the various aspects of adult privilege and possible criticisms of the list. hl's response The Opression of Chilhood. In which I try for emotionless and hard analysis (and fail) got me thinking about intersections.I don't have any major point, just some thoughts.
So:
- I think a lot of "why don't people pull themselves up by their bootstraps" classism/racism glosses over the fact that children REALLY can't do this. (Not that it's fair to expect it of anyone, but noone's going to deny it's stupid to expect it of say a baby)
- Control over sexuality and identity is a MAJOR issue for intersex children, and anyone else with an "abnormal" but functional body who is operated on without their consent "for their own good".
- The way children are forced into their parents ethnic/cultural values is a serious issue for interracial/international adoptees.
There's more along those lines, but if I wait until I have more to say I'll never get around to posting this :)
EDIT: Adult Privilege Linkspam and A Transformational Politic (bell hooks).
I find myself pondering the similarities and differences with the treatment of disabled people, especially those with cognitive disabilities.
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The arbitrariness of these boundaries certainly becomes clear when you encounter other cultures. For example, in Australia the age of consent is 16 and the drinking age 18, so it's always weird when I see tv characters freaking out about having sex with an OMG 17 year old(*).
I had trouble enough coming to terms with my own socially acceptable heterosexual sexuality as a child/adolescent thanks to the anti-sex environment I grew up in, I can't imagine what it must be like for LGBT children.
(*)Of course Australian child porn laws are their own special brand of bizarre, but I don't think they reflect community norms to the same extent.
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Age of consent in the US varies by state; it ranges from 14 (I think that's currently the lowest; it was previously 12) to 18. But even in the states with under-18 ages-of-consent, the laws get all tweaky-weird around age 18; it may be legal for two 16-year-olds to have sex but not for an 18-year-old to have sex with a 16-year-old.
And the laws are running into some psychotic problems right now, with the internet & cellphones, because *pictures* of under-18s are forbidden... and teens who take pics of their boyfriend/girlfriend and email it to other friends are running afoul of "child pornography" laws.
LGBT teens in the US have an extra layer of discrimination to deal with--until recently, "abstinence-only" sex ed was taught in 49 of the 50 states. (I'm in California, the one original holdout; I think we're down to about half the states still using those programs.) They taught that the only *safe* sex was monogamous inside marriage, and everyone should wait until marriage to have sex. So, um, gay people? Should be celibate for life. (The programs kinda implied that gay people shouldn't or maybe didn't really exist; "confused" teens should hold off on all sexual behavior until they find a straight marriage.)
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Yeah that happens here too.
Abstinence only sex ed is afaict only taught in religious schools here, I remember getting the bare bones of sexuality in primary (elementary) school. And my own nominally religious private girls school had a fairly thorough education on contraception and STDs, though it was still very heteronormative and I think partly motivated by not wanting any teen pregnancies making the school look bad. Oh, and as part of a series of talks by people with interesting and informative life experiences (not for sex ed) we had a gay man with AIDS come talk to us about his life.
Thinking about it, the students were as bad if not worse than the teachers. My fantastically earthy and straightforward sex ed teacher told a girl off when she ranted about how disgusting it was seeing two men kissing and had said girl formally complain that she was "pressuring us to be gay" >:/ (said teacher was happily married to a man and never brought up LGBT issues at any other time) A researcher came to the school and asked if there were any lesbians at the school and someone said "Of course! Well, they deny it, but everyone KNOWS." Meanwhile my bi friend was told she was just trying to sound cool.
Too tired to remember not to typo.
For the girl schools they tend to be rather thorough with making sure the girls know a lot about avoiding pregnancies and STI's for the reason you mentioned.
The boys schools (and this was certainly true of the boys I dated from private schools) they weren't taught shit all. It wasn't something that reflected on the school badly if these boys had poor attitudes towards women and sexual health
Of course, given at least one of these schools has since been busted with 13yearold girls selling porn tapes of themselves to the boys at the private boy schools, hopefully this attitude has been shaken up a bit more (interestingly in that case I remember it was the boys school that caught on and acted fastest about that situation).
Re: Too tired to remember not to typo.
at least one of these schools has since been busted with 13yearold girls selling porn tapes of themselves
You mean my school? :D That's the PLC entrepreneurial spirit at work! Same as the girls from my year expelled for stealing younger girls laptops and selling them for drug money.