Saturday, April 23, 2005

Princeton Student Thinks Abstinence Will Protect Her From Rape

I couldn't help but do a double take at this little bit of ignorance in an otherwise inoffensive article about a group at Princeton that promotes abstinence among college students (emphasis added):
Jennifer Mickel, a 19-year-old sophomore from Monroe, La., brought up abstinence at a women's forum at Ivy Council, an inter-campus student group in the Ivy League.

"The discussion was very sex-focused, like about having rape kits in medical centers and condoms and the morning-after pill," Ms. Mickel said. "And I asked, 'What do your schools have for women who are not having sex?' And the room fell silent
Abstinent women can still be raped, you ignorant fool. Even someone who believes "true love waits" might still want to be able to preserve evidence so her assailant could be prosecuted, or might feel reassured that measures to prevent her from having to bear her rapist's child were easily available. It's not just women who are already sexually active who are at risk for sexual assault. The underlying assumptions in Mickel's statement are just breathtaking.

UPDATE: Jennifer Mickel shows up in the comments section at Althouse to defend her comment:
I don't think we should get rid of rape kits or the morning after pill, and that's an unfair extrapolation from my comment. The conversation was on women's issues--not sex--but the entire conversation revolved around it. My point was that perhaps some women's funding and women's issues should be targeted at other topics--not all women are having sex. Furthermore, the current state of things doesn't do much to combat the image of women as a sex object when we only deal with that aspect of womanhood in all of our programming.
What non-biological aspects of womanhood should be dealt with in programming by a women's center? Since most Princeton students are not abstinent, the women's center is serving the community by supporting women's sexual health and safety. That is what people want. Welcome to democracy. And for the last time, all women can be raped, so those funds for rape kits? Also for you, woman not having sex.
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