S. African mayor offering scholarships in exchange for "virginity test"

[closetcagebaby]

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/0858a7779a0e4c48918740976974599b/s-african-mayor-awards-scholarships-virgin-women

 

Can't help but see this as another symptom of the religious right infiltrating Africa. And of course it's only for girls! Gotta be honest guys, the idea of these poor girls having to submit to hymen inspections in order to continue their educations just makes me sick.  

[Mrsaztx]

Not to mention rape is a huge problem in SA, so that's a super cool way to revictimize those poor girls

[treehugger]

What happened to all our vomit smilies?  This is nauseating and disgusting.  As far as I'm concerned, an exam like that is sexual abuse.  Horrifying that they want to subject young girls to this.  

[closetcagebaby]

4 minutes ago, treehugger said:

What happened to all our vomit smilies?  This is nauseating and disgusting.  As far as I'm concerned, an exam like that is sexual abuse.  Horrifying that they want to subject young girls to this.  

I couldn't find any either! If there was ever a time for vomit smilies...

[samurai_sarah]

Also, some women are simply born without a hymen, others break theirs in a multitude of ways that doesn't include sex.

But generally WTF? A woman's body has got nothing to do with getting an education! Having said that, I can kind-of-ish see what he's trying to achieve in the most effed up way possible. Circumstances often force teen mothers to let education fall by the wayside, but this "incentive" is NOT the way to go. 

Sex-ed, education about consent, childcare, providing teen mothers with educational possibilities, networks of support etc. The list goes on for keeping teenagers in education. But all of that is much harder than simply saying "well, keep your legs closed".

Ugh. I'm off to kick a very sturdy object to vent. And then am going to find that tub of ice-cream and hide beneath my desk. Women are only bodies anyway, so I may just as well stuff mine with ice-cream.

[Lachlanne]

This is the second relatively high-profile example of double standard disgustingness that I've read in the past two hours.  ("Relatively high-profile" meaning not just our average run of the mill stuff we see/hear on a daily basis around us, but stuff that makes news reports.)

Honestly, it makes me insane.  Insane! 

[Gobsmacked]

This is just beyond . In a world where Donald Trump and Sarah Palin are the source of so much merriment this is just beyond.

 

[samurai_sarah]

13 minutes ago, Lachlanne said:

This is the second relatively high-profile example of double standard disgustingness that I've read in the past two hours.  ("Relatively high-profile" meaning not just our average run of the mill stuff we see/hear on a daily basis around us, but stuff that makes news reports.)

Honestly, it makes me insane.  Insane! 

Sadly, I think it is rather run-of-the-mill. It's part and parcel of the patriarchal world we live in. This mayor could be handing out condoms, left, right and centre, and educating men about consent and birth control. Instead, he took the easy way out, and blames women. You are right that other stuff doesn't make the news, only, it's just...well, same shit, different day. 

 

[Gobsmacked]

The world is going crazy. Trump, Palin, now this.

[CyborgKin]

vomitvomitvomit.

[Handmaiden of Dog]

So BJs, hand jobs and anal sex still on the table.  Right.  Because that hymen is worth more than any other part of a woman's body.

[Toothfairy]

What about boys? And hymen doesn't mean anything. Some girls are born without it.

[withaj]

This shit makes me stabby.

[Lachlanne]

25 minutes ago, Toothfairy said:

What about boys? And hymen doesn't mean anything. Some girls are born without it.

Boys, naturally, cannot be held accountable for their actions. Boys will be boys, after all. It's certainly not their fault should they give in to their natural urges because a girl sits across from them/happens to glance at them/merely walks into a room where they also happen to be. Girls, after all, must not only be responsible for their own actions, but also for the actions and reactions of the boys they so wantonly entice.

Remember this guy who said that in his day, girls used aspirin for contraception? They just held it between their knees ...

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/foster-friess-in-my-day-women-used-bayer-aspirin-for-contraceptives/

Because responsibility always rests on the female.

[salex]

2 hours ago, Toothfairy said:

What about boys? And hymen doesn't mean anything. Some girls are born without it.

 

 

[salsa]

Quote

Some activists have called for the banning of virginity testing in South Africa, describing it as sexist and invasive. Those defending the cultural practice say it preserves tradition and has been modernized to teach girls about their reproductive health and HIV and AIDS.

to the underlined: what have these girls been taught about themselves to willingly submit to virginity exams - especially when they knew before Victorian times that the absence (or even presence) of a hymen was not an accurate measure of a woman's sexual experience.

[Mrsaztx]

2 hours ago, Lachlanne said:

Yet again couldn't get rid of this quote box.

Re: that video, growing up I could never figure out the whole hymen/period thing. Please tell me I'm not the only 13 yo who thought "wait, if it's covered, wtf is going on? Semi permeable?" WHY DOESN'T ANYONE ELSE REALIZE THIS?! It seems like that's pretty basic stuff, and it always confused the shit out of me until about 5 years ago I read something on cracked, of all places, that actually explained it. Basically no anatomy lessons covered it, Internet searches aren't that helpful, as the video pointed out. It's a very weird thing that everyone accepts that a vagina is somehow sealed shut and can somehow also leak blood and fluids 

[HarryPotterFan]

3 hours ago, Mrsaztx said:

Re: that video, growing up I could never figure out the whole hymen/period thing. Please tell me I'm not the only 13 yo who thought "wait, if it's covered, wtf is going on? Semi permeable?" WHY DOESN'T ANYONE ELSE REALIZE THIS?! It seems like that's pretty basic stuff, and it always confused the shit out of me until about 5 years ago I read something on cracked, of all places, that actually explained it. Basically no anatomy lessons covered it, Internet searches aren't that helpful, as the video pointed out. It's a very weird thing that everyone accepts that a vagina is somehow sealed shut and can somehow also leak blood and fluids 

I never even thought about how a "sealed hymen" could leak blood and fluids. I feel like everythig I know is a lie. And super angry at how cultures everywhere perpetuate this myth. This video is the only actual explanation of the hymen that I've ever heard.

[Iokaste]

Seriously, if you still believe virginity to be an actual physical thing, you shouldn't be handing out scholarships, you should be going back to school!

[Khan]

How long will it be before some church in the USA offers a similar deal? "Attend our Purity Ball. Sign our Purity Pledge. Get free SAHD training if you let us probe you at random intervals."

[salex]

I posted the video on my fake book (I found it on my real facebook) and a woman told me to post it to one of the bible discussion gorups, so I did.  She was shocked, because she had been kidding.  The two men who were there refused to watch it/listen to it (though they are both married, one for the second time, and in their 50s) because of the word hymen... they didn't want to hear about it.  I was asked to take it down because too racy... so no discussion of "purity" etc with this little group.  And this is one of the friendly bible groups I have found on fakebook.....others are more legalistic.  I doubt any of the people in the room knew what the video taught.

 

I never met so many superstitious christians until I went on fakebook. 

[Gossamer1]

On 1/24/2016 at 6:29 PM, Handmaiden of Dog said:

Because that hymen is worth more than any other part of a woman's body.

Think of the hymen as a piggy bank. Once the bank is broken open it no longer has any value. 

All our worth is in that 1 oz, didn't you know?

[DaisyD]

On 1/25/2016 at 7:38 PM, salex said:

 

 

I love that show. I hadn't seen that one yet. Love the switcheroo. I too spent many a teenage hour wondering about the whole fluid thing. I think I came to it being a cheesecloth like consistency, thus why you could break it on a bike. There was no internet (at least not like it is now) for me to quell my curiosity. All the sex ed people ever said was that it could break or be non-existent in the first place.

[Fenchurch]

I really can't understand some of the things our Government does and gets away with.

This has caused a pretty serious uproar, and our main political opposition (the Democratic Alliance) have involved the Human Rights Commission to get this stopped immediately.  This is discrimination to the highest extent.  I am 100% certain that the "conditions" attached to the scholarships will be set aside.

It's still very sad that anyone things that "the idea is great".  I don't think with my vagina and I whether I am or am not sexually active has absolutely zero to do with my willingness or ability to learn.

Eish.