Screw Abstinence! (AKA Fuck Abstinence!)
Hello everyone!
I'm just posting to tell everyone about the campaign that my Women's Group are running, called Screw Abstinence! (that's its official name, but we all refer to it affectionately as "Fuck Abstinence!", which is what we started calling it before we thought up a name).
The group is part of a wider organisation, called the Scottish Socialist Youth (SSY), a group open to all young people under twenty seven who are either Socialist, left leaning or simply curious about our beliefs. The SSY is the sister organisation of the Scottish Socialist Party (we are self organised and run our own campaigns, although we do take some funding from the party).
While the SSP has been in the news recently because one of our ex-MSPs was in a sex scandal, this is an issue by-gone. While I am happy to discuss the feminist implications of all that's happened, I don't feel it nessecary to go into all that.
The SSY, while an interesting and fascinating organisation, is not the focus of this. Instead, I'd like to talk about Women's Group, which is just over a year old. It was formed when several young women realised they wanted a group and a space just for them. I'm saddened to say there was some initial opposition, and even now we are still fighting within the SSY for what we want. The most recent battle was over a private space on the forum for women only!
However, we've made it clear: we're not going to bend and we're not going to apologise because men want us to. We are going to stick to our convictions! Now that we are running a campaign, they have finally started to respect what Women's Group can do, and any man who dares suggest we shouldn't exist is quickly shouted down! Thankfully, we've made a lot of strides and the majority of the men support our existance.
The Women's Group is now very active and a fantastic organisation to be in. We have been invited to attend the Feminist Fightback conference next month, in London, and are sending a delegation down. We hope to either send a speaker or run a workshop. We have also been asked to talk to the feminist magazine, Subtext, about our campaign.
The seed of the campaign was planted only six months ago, at the annual SSY conference, during our Women's Group session. We were talking about our own experiences of sex education and how anti-woman and anti-feminist it can be (especially in Catholic schools, in which there is often a heavy anti-woman tension). We found out soon after about a pilot scheme, put in place by the government, called the Call To Love program.
The Call To Love program is an abstinence only education program, which basically says, in very flowery language that sex before marriage is bad, sex with contraceptives is bad, abortion is bad.
Obviously, a young Socialist group has concerns, but the women were particularly appalled (indeed, some of the men have very bad politics...). I don't think it's nessecary to say how abstinence only education affects young people - and especially women.
It is planned for it to be put in place in select schools, which we plan to find out about through one of our member's mother, who is an MSP.
So, our plans were formulated very, very quickly over the summer. While the rest of the party was in turmoil from the problems with a certain MSP, and the youth section was torn between splitting and staying, the Women's Group was solid. We held regular meetings and got organised incredibly quickly. It's the fastest I've ever seen a campaign put together, actually!
We've made plans, and so I will outline them here for you.
We have planned to make up little packs for young women. These will contain:
- One condom (one of our members is the daughter of a doctor, and her mother was so delighted by the plan that she has managed to strike a deal with a company and is shipping about 5000 over to us from Holland).
- A guide to using contraceptives - including info for safe same sex activities! I'm very proud to say we made a point of including it.
- A letter from our Women's Group, explaining who we are and why we think abstinence only education is bad.
- Information that we feel was lacking from our own sex education.
- Stickers! We're making stickers that say things like, "Pure sexist shite!" that can be stuck absolutely everywhere.
- Cards detailing their rights to things like abortion and free contraceptives in Scotland.
- Other things I can't remember.
We're going to give these out to young women, and hopefully get into a dialogue with them. A lot of our members have a lot of experience doing stalls and selling newspapers and getting signatures for petitions (all of which is very difficult!), so hopefully we'll be able to get into a conversation with the young women and let them know a little bit about feminism and feminist issues!
The "reproductive rights" cards are something we are especially proud of. One of our members made them, and they are absolutely fabulous. I've already given out tens of them to young women on the streets, and they were all really interested in what we had to say. Hopefully some of them will get back to us and help us fight abstinence only education!
While other campaigns our organisation do tend to be ignored by the media, this campaign has already caught their attention!
The most recent article was published yesterday, in a right wing tabloid. It spoke at length about how wrong we are! You can read it here: http://www.ssy.org.uk/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=53&topic=3697.msg55462#msg55462
We have also been in another newspaper, published the day before yesterday. The article is on our website here:
http://www.ssy.org.uk/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=53&topic=3683.msg55248#msg55248
When you piss off the anti-feminist media, you know you're doing right!
So, yeah, in a nutshell, that's the Fuck Abstinence! campaign. There's so much more I could say about it, but I unfortunately have to get off the computer and get to bed.
If there are any young women in Scotland reading this right now and they are interested in helping (and do not have to be in the central belt, they can be from anywhere!) or finding out more, please get in contact.
You can read more on our website: www.ssy.org.uk
We also have a MySpace, which I set up (although I am MySpace illiterate, so I dunno how to work it at all!), at: www.myspace.com/ssywomen
Thanks for reading!
Edit: Okay, so the tags didn't work last night, honestly. I wrote it all out so carefully and put different cuts in so people could just between bits of information... But I didn't dare try it again this morning. I got the cut to work, though, so it shouldn't be a huge rant on your fpage anymore. Cheers. :)
I'm just posting to tell everyone about the campaign that my Women's Group are running, called Screw Abstinence! (that's its official name, but we all refer to it affectionately as "Fuck Abstinence!", which is what we started calling it before we thought up a name).
The group is part of a wider organisation, called the Scottish Socialist Youth (SSY), a group open to all young people under twenty seven who are either Socialist, left leaning or simply curious about our beliefs. The SSY is the sister organisation of the Scottish Socialist Party (we are self organised and run our own campaigns, although we do take some funding from the party).
While the SSP has been in the news recently because one of our ex-MSPs was in a sex scandal, this is an issue by-gone. While I am happy to discuss the feminist implications of all that's happened, I don't feel it nessecary to go into all that.
The SSY, while an interesting and fascinating organisation, is not the focus of this. Instead, I'd like to talk about Women's Group, which is just over a year old. It was formed when several young women realised they wanted a group and a space just for them. I'm saddened to say there was some initial opposition, and even now we are still fighting within the SSY for what we want. The most recent battle was over a private space on the forum for women only!
However, we've made it clear: we're not going to bend and we're not going to apologise because men want us to. We are going to stick to our convictions! Now that we are running a campaign, they have finally started to respect what Women's Group can do, and any man who dares suggest we shouldn't exist is quickly shouted down! Thankfully, we've made a lot of strides and the majority of the men support our existance.
The Women's Group is now very active and a fantastic organisation to be in. We have been invited to attend the Feminist Fightback conference next month, in London, and are sending a delegation down. We hope to either send a speaker or run a workshop. We have also been asked to talk to the feminist magazine, Subtext, about our campaign.
The seed of the campaign was planted only six months ago, at the annual SSY conference, during our Women's Group session. We were talking about our own experiences of sex education and how anti-woman and anti-feminist it can be (especially in Catholic schools, in which there is often a heavy anti-woman tension). We found out soon after about a pilot scheme, put in place by the government, called the Call To Love program.
The Call To Love program is an abstinence only education program, which basically says, in very flowery language that sex before marriage is bad, sex with contraceptives is bad, abortion is bad.
Obviously, a young Socialist group has concerns, but the women were particularly appalled (indeed, some of the men have very bad politics...). I don't think it's nessecary to say how abstinence only education affects young people - and especially women.
It is planned for it to be put in place in select schools, which we plan to find out about through one of our member's mother, who is an MSP.
So, our plans were formulated very, very quickly over the summer. While the rest of the party was in turmoil from the problems with a certain MSP, and the youth section was torn between splitting and staying, the Women's Group was solid. We held regular meetings and got organised incredibly quickly. It's the fastest I've ever seen a campaign put together, actually!
We've made plans, and so I will outline them here for you.
We have planned to make up little packs for young women. These will contain:
- One condom (one of our members is the daughter of a doctor, and her mother was so delighted by the plan that she has managed to strike a deal with a company and is shipping about 5000 over to us from Holland).
- A guide to using contraceptives - including info for safe same sex activities! I'm very proud to say we made a point of including it.
- A letter from our Women's Group, explaining who we are and why we think abstinence only education is bad.
- Information that we feel was lacking from our own sex education.
- Stickers! We're making stickers that say things like, "Pure sexist shite!" that can be stuck absolutely everywhere.
- Cards detailing their rights to things like abortion and free contraceptives in Scotland.
- Other things I can't remember.
We're going to give these out to young women, and hopefully get into a dialogue with them. A lot of our members have a lot of experience doing stalls and selling newspapers and getting signatures for petitions (all of which is very difficult!), so hopefully we'll be able to get into a conversation with the young women and let them know a little bit about feminism and feminist issues!
The "reproductive rights" cards are something we are especially proud of. One of our members made them, and they are absolutely fabulous. I've already given out tens of them to young women on the streets, and they were all really interested in what we had to say. Hopefully some of them will get back to us and help us fight abstinence only education!
While other campaigns our organisation do tend to be ignored by the media, this campaign has already caught their attention!
The most recent article was published yesterday, in a right wing tabloid. It spoke at length about how wrong we are! You can read it here: http://www.ssy.org.uk/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=53&topic=3697.msg55462#msg55462
We have also been in another newspaper, published the day before yesterday. The article is on our website here:
http://www.ssy.org.uk/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=53&topic=3683.msg55248#msg55248
When you piss off the anti-feminist media, you know you're doing right!
So, yeah, in a nutshell, that's the Fuck Abstinence! campaign. There's so much more I could say about it, but I unfortunately have to get off the computer and get to bed.
If there are any young women in Scotland reading this right now and they are interested in helping (and do not have to be in the central belt, they can be from anywhere!) or finding out more, please get in contact.
You can read more on our website: www.ssy.org.uk
We also have a MySpace, which I set up (although I am MySpace illiterate, so I dunno how to work it at all!), at: www.myspace.com/ssywomen
Thanks for reading!
Edit: Okay, so the tags didn't work last night, honestly. I wrote it all out so carefully and put different cuts in so people could just between bits of information... But I didn't dare try it again this morning. I got the cut to work, though, so it shouldn't be a huge rant on your fpage anymore. Cheers. :)