It’s been a while since I posted last. I left good-old Zionist Israel and moved to DC, to study Law. (Two weeks in and I still have my idealism, Still hoping to change the world, and all that jazz J Feeling pretty settled in over my long weekend, I went on a search for the next post, and I found it alright in the Jpost editorial written by Shmuley Boteach, the Jewish Doctor Phil “wanna be,” the formerly Chabad, preacher of torah psychology.
Well this time he went beyond feel good platitudes, to trying to explain the reason “Why women dress skimpily in the cold.” The answer of course is “complicity of an educated generation of women in their own degradation and denigration!” Never mind, that the skimpy dressed “degenerates” are going to get up the next morning (with a slight hang over
and march of to the office in business attire, of course even Shmuley admits that these women are “educated.” He accuses these women of being nothing but men’s “play things” rather than their own individual human beings. One would assume that someone with such harsh criticism comes from a community where women have more options, than the Dublin young Professionals; However, the Rebbi (dead leader of movement), spoke against the use of any of birth-control for Jewish and non-Jewish alike. The Rebbi said “We must convince the leaders of the country to fight against family planning and birth prevention by lobbying in Congress, simply soberly, and with common sense. (53)” I guess the real obstacle to women‘s dignity is mini-skirts and not reproductive freedom!
But, that’s not even the worst of it. Shmuley throws out, without citing, a particularly frustrating statistic that I seem to come across all the time (it’s the first five hits on google for the word combination of “depression, sexually active, girls).
A few years ago a similar US study, based on the government-funded National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, linked adolescent female depression and suicide with adolescent sexuality. The study found that about 25% of sexually active girls say they are depressed all, most or a lot of the time, while only 8% of girls who are not sexually active feel the same. While 14% of girls who have had intercourse have attempted suicide, only 5% of sexually inactive girls have. (Shmuley in the Jpost)
“A few years ago” is the key, because it turns out that this data is no longer accurate. The changing attitudes to adolescent sexuality removed some of the stigma , and the depression went with it. Thus it appears that premarital sex doesn’t actual cause depression, but social stigma does. Suppose, we all decide that eating apples is immoral, wait a while, and will find a strong correlation between eating apples and depression. I even have up to date information from a reputable source to back up my analysis. According the American Journal of Sociology
Girls who have sex at a young age relative to the norms of their peers experience a significant increase in depression, while those who have sex “on time” or later than the majority of their peers do not experience significant effects.
Apparently adolescent girls fall prey to….pear pressure. When they have sex “on time” all is well, but if they step outside the box depression hits. Sex, itself is not the problem at all.
A far more interesting question seems to be why are girls victimized by pear pressure in a way that boys are not at least when it comes to sexuality since according to the same study “males do not experience a significant increase in depressive symptoms after first sex, regardless of age norms or relationship status.” I’d love to have a serious conversation on this topic, because, all the answers I can think of are very sad. Perhaps, girls growing up in a liberal society are not very liberated at all, but stuck in whatever paradigm of sexuality is presented to them, be it virginity till marriage, or casual sex. In that case, neither model is particularly empowering or liberating. In that model the Lubavitch woman who is pregnant half of her adult life, and the Dublin partier are equally caught it in systems of power outside their own creation (some might call those systems of power patriarchy!), despite the varied window dressing.
Sources:
Kaploun, Uri. A Partner in the Dynamics of Creation: Womanhood in the Teachings of the Lubavitch Rebbe. New York City. 1994
Ann M. Meier, “Adolescent First Sex and Subsequent Mental Health”, American Journal of Sociology 112.6 (May 2007): 1-28.