Introduction
Laws and policies dictating sex and sexuality have been passed down from the ruling religion of the age for centuries. The idea that ‘purity’ in females granted them some Godly favour can be seen throughout our history. In 1881, during a trial to determine whether or not British girls were being kidnapped and sold into prostitution in Brussels, a witness named Mr Jeffes said “I myself believe it is impossible for a virtuous girl to be admitted into one of these houses. I do not believe it for a moment” (Davis, 2009).
Today, under an umbrella of ‘purity culture’ American girls are subjected to purity rings, purity balls, modesty lessons and stressed importance on virginity before marriage. What we can determine are common factors …show more content…
There were not laws to protect children then as there are now, and many were expected to work as hard as any adult working with them. Children are much easier to discipline than adults and also much cheaper workers. According to the National Archives (The Struggle for Democracy: Child Labour, no date) roughly 49% of the work force in 1821 were under the age of 20 and although many laws limiting child labour were brought in during the 1800’s they were not always enforced as they should have been.
We can determine from the laws and policies of the time, that children were considered ‘adult’ from a very young age. Given this fact they might also assume that they were old enough to give consent to something as adult as sexual interactions.
Today’s child employment laws are much different. A child cannot be employed under the age of 13 with the exception of television, theatre or modelling work and for those areas of employment they’ll need a license (Child employment, 2015). An adolescent may not start working full time until they have reached the minimum school leaving age, which for many is 16 years old, for some it is now 18 years old.
With so many laws and policies in place now to ensure the education of adolescent’s, how do we see sex education applied to these …show more content…
No one has ever has more than one partner and not paid’ (Van Tassel, 2015).
Looking again at Stranger-Hall and Hall (2011), their hypothesis was that the higher rates of abstinence only sex education would correlate with lower rates of teen pregnancy and birth. What they actually found was the higher the rate of sex abstinence only education, and the more emphasis was put on abstinence, the higher the rates of teen pregnancy and birth rates for adolescents aged 15-19 years old.
In their report they state that even though there is mounting evidence that abstinence only sex education programs do not work, the funding for said sex education programs was reinstated in 2010 for a further 5 years by the Senate Finance Committee with a fund totally $250 million (Stranger-Hall and Hall, 2011). We could possibly draw a correlation between high teen pregnancy rates, and the government panicking that something needed to be done, which brought around the reinstated abstinence only
Laws and policies dictating sex and sexuality have been passed down from the ruling religion of the age for centuries. The idea that ‘purity’ in females granted them some Godly favour can be seen throughout our history. In 1881, during a trial to determine whether or not British girls were being kidnapped and sold into prostitution in Brussels, a witness named Mr Jeffes said “I myself believe it is impossible for a virtuous girl to be admitted into one of these houses. I do not believe it for a moment” (Davis, 2009).
Today, under an umbrella of ‘purity culture’ American girls are subjected to purity rings, purity balls, modesty lessons and stressed importance on virginity before marriage. What we can determine are common factors …show more content…
There were not laws to protect children then as there are now, and many were expected to work as hard as any adult working with them. Children are much easier to discipline than adults and also much cheaper workers. According to the National Archives (The Struggle for Democracy: Child Labour, no date) roughly 49% of the work force in 1821 were under the age of 20 and although many laws limiting child labour were brought in during the 1800’s they were not always enforced as they should have been.
We can determine from the laws and policies of the time, that children were considered ‘adult’ from a very young age. Given this fact they might also assume that they were old enough to give consent to something as adult as sexual interactions.
Today’s child employment laws are much different. A child cannot be employed under the age of 13 with the exception of television, theatre or modelling work and for those areas of employment they’ll need a license (Child employment, 2015). An adolescent may not start working full time until they have reached the minimum school leaving age, which for many is 16 years old, for some it is now 18 years old.
With so many laws and policies in place now to ensure the education of adolescent’s, how do we see sex education applied to these …show more content…
No one has ever has more than one partner and not paid’ (Van Tassel, 2015).
Looking again at Stranger-Hall and Hall (2011), their hypothesis was that the higher rates of abstinence only sex education would correlate with lower rates of teen pregnancy and birth. What they actually found was the higher the rate of sex abstinence only education, and the more emphasis was put on abstinence, the higher the rates of teen pregnancy and birth rates for adolescents aged 15-19 years old.
In their report they state that even though there is mounting evidence that abstinence only sex education programs do not work, the funding for said sex education programs was reinstated in 2010 for a further 5 years by the Senate Finance Committee with a fund totally $250 million (Stranger-Hall and Hall, 2011). We could possibly draw a correlation between high teen pregnancy rates, and the government panicking that something needed to be done, which brought around the reinstated abstinence only