If you're a U.S. resident, at this point, you've probably given some thought to who you will be voting for for President, and may even know who you'll vote for by now. You may also know, or have some idea, of who you will be voting for when it comes to positions in your state up for the vote this year.

What you might not be prepared for in advance are ballot measures which will be printed on your ballot November 4th, which are just as important, and not always explained clearly or detailed. These measures are one of many reasons why your vote matters so much.

This year, some states have measures up for the vote which may be of particular interest to Scarleteen readers, such as parental notification laws for minors who want an abortion, age of consent laws, same-sex marriage, civil rights, stem cell research, education issues, even a proposal to lower the voting age for primaries in one state (whoohoo!) and another to ban abortion outright (grrrr). Here are a few of them to help you find out what's what in advance.

ARIZONA: Proposition 4 Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Minor’s Pregnancy. This measure amends the State Constitution to require, with certain exceptions, a physician (or his or her representative) to notify the parent or legal guardian of a pregnant minor at least 48 hours before performing an abortion involving that minor.

Proposition 102 Marriage. Proposition 102 would amend the Arizona Constitution to provide that only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.

ARKANSAS: Proposed Initiative Act 1. A proposed act providing that a minor may not be adopted or placed in a foster home if the individual seeking to adopt or to serve as a foster parent is cohabiting with a sexual partner outside of a marriage which is valid under the constitution and laws of this state; stating that the foregoing prohibition applies equally to cohabiting opposite-sex and same-sex individuals.

CALIFORNIA: Proposition 4 Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Minor’s Pregnancy. This measure amends the State Constitution to require, with certain exceptions, a physician (or his or her representative) to notify the parent or legal guardian of a pregnant minor at least 48 hours before performing an abortion involving that minor. (This measure does not require a physician or a minor to obtain the consent of a parent or guardian.) This measure applies only to cases involving an "unemancipated" minor. The measure identifies an unemancipated minor as being a female under the age of 18 who has not entered into a valid marriage, is not on active duty in the armed services of the United States, and has not been declared free from her parents’ or guardians' custody and control under state law.

Proposition 8 Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry. This measure amends the California Constitution to specify that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. As a result, notwithstanding the California Supreme Court ruling of May 2008, marriage would be limited to individuals of the opposite sex, and individuals of the same sex would not have the right to marry in California.

COLORADO: Amendment 46 Discrimination and Preferential Treatment by Governments. Proposes amending the Colorado Constitution to:
- prohibit Colorado government from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public employment, public education, or public contracting;
- make exceptions for federal programs, existing court orders or other legally binding agreements, and bona fide qualifications based on sex; and
- provide the same remedies that are available for violations of existing Colorado anti-discrimination law.

Amendment 48 Definition of Person. Would amend the Colorado Constitution to:
- define the term "person" to "include any human being from the moment of fertilization"; and
- apply this definition of person to the sections of the Colorado Constitution that protect the natural and essential rights of persons, allow open access to courts for every person, and ensure that no person has his or her life, liberty, or property taken away without due process of law.

Amendment 51 State Sales Tax Increase for Services for People with Developmental Disabilities. This would increase the state sales tax to help provide for more help and assistance for those people who have developmental disabilities.

CONNECTICUT: HJ 21 Voting Age. This resolution proposes a constitutional amendment allowing 17-year-old citizens who will turn 18 on or before the day of a regular election to vote in its primary. Under the resolution, such an individual must apply and otherwise qualify for admission as an elector. He or she may then vote in the primary held to determine nominees for the regular election. Upon turning 18, the individual's electoral rights attach. By law, a "regular election" means any municipal or state election. State elections include candidates for federal office.

FLORIDA: Amendment 2 Florida Marriage Protection Amendment. This amendment "protects" marriage as the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife and provides that no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.

Amendment 8 Local Option Community College Funding. Proposing an amendment to the State Constitution to require that the Legislature authorize counties to levy a local option sales tax to supplement community college funding; requiring voter approval to levy the tax; providing that approved taxes will sunset after 5 years and may be reauthorized by the voters.

MICHIGAN: Proposal 08-2 A Proposal to Amend the State Constitution to Permit Human Embryo and Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research in Michigan. This is what it says: you would be voting to allow or disallow stem cell research.

MONTANA: I-155 Healthy Montana Kids Plan Act. I-155 establishes the Healthy Montana Kids plan to expand and coordinate health coverage for uninsured children under the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Montana Medicaid Program, and employer-sponsored health insurance. The State Health Department may: raise income eligibility levels for children under CHIP and Medicaid; simplify transitions between CHIP and Medicaid coverage; provide assistance for children in employer-sponsored insurance; and work with health care providers, schools, organizations, and agencies to encourage enrollment of uninsured children. Funding for I-155 will come from a share of the insurance premium tax and federal matching funds.

NEBRASKA: Affirmative Action Ban The object of this petition is to place on the general election ballot an amendment to the Constitution of the State of Nebraska to prohibit discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis or race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting by the state or any of its agencies, institutions or political subdivisions.

OREGON: Measure 58 Prohibits Teaching Public School Student in Language Other Than English for More than Two Years. Ballot Measure 58 amends Oregon statute to prohibit teaching non-English speaking public school students in a language that is not English for more than one to two years. Presently, local school districts are required to provide programs based on research for the learning of English as nonnative speakers. Those programs now are provided until such time as students are assessed as "English proficient."

Under the measure, students who do not understand English may attend English immersion classes for a limited time before being taught only in English. English immersion is not defined by the measure and will require the Oregon legislature to determine what comprises English immersion and what effect that definition will have on instruction in the non-English language. Further, the legislature will have to address the effect of this measure on compliance with relevant federal laws.

Students entering a public school in kindergarten through grade 4 may attend English immersion classes for no more than one year. Students entering a public school in grades 5 through 8 may attend English immersion classes for no more than one and one-half years. Students entering a public school in grades 9 through 12 may attend English immersion classes for no more than two years. After one to two years, English language learners will be mainstreamed, regardless of whether they are English-proficient.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Amendment 1 Age of Consent. This amendment deletes the section of the Constitution which says an unmarried woman must be fourteen years old or older in order to consent to sexual intercourse. Deleting this section would allow the state legislature to set the age of consent. Currently, the state legislature has the age of consent set at sixteen for most cases.

SOUTH DAKOTA: Initiated Measure 11 Reinstate Prohibition Against Abortion. Measure 11 would prohibit all abortions performed by medical procedures or substances administered to terminate a pregnancy, except for: abortions medically necessary to prevent death or the serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily organ or system of the woman; and abortions to terminate a pregnancy of less than 20 weeks resulting from rape or incest reported to law enforcement.

When an abortion is performed as a result of reported rape or incest, the woman must consent to biological sampling from herself and the embryo or fetus for DNA testing by law enforcement.

Want to have a look at the ballot for your state in advance, so you can know how to vote before you go? You can see sample ballots for each state by clicking here, or look up the ballot measures for your state here

You may have recently seen an email floating around called "Why Women Should Vote" summarizing some of the struggles of suffragists who won us that right.

It is a good account, an important account, and I'd implore you to take a look at it if you haven't already.

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.

When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because-- why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

In that same vein, I've something else for you to take a look at.

Not unlike many people who do social work, Jane Addams has always been a particular shero of mine. As a child, there was a series of illustrated children's books in our library about great women in history: each book was a colorful biography of a given woman and what she had done. (I'd give my left arm to recall the name of the series and find old copies.) I loved these books, and checked out every one again and again, but I was most drawn to the one about Jane Addams, perhaps because so much of her work took place in my own city with families so much like ours, perhaps because even as a young girl, I felt a pull to the kind of work Addams did, and the kind I'd wind up spending so much of my life doing myself.

The following is an excerpt from a speech by Addams in 1915, reprinted as a pamphlet, where she is speaking about why women having the right to vote is so important. While it is in so many ways clearly coming from a different time -- those "old obligations" refer to a woman's place being solidly cemented as only in the home -- in many others (to a degree that's almost disturbing, given nearly 100 years have passed), it remains timely and pertinent.

To those of my readers who would admit that although woman has no right to shirk her old obligations, that all of these measures could be secured more easily through her influence upon the men of her family than through the direct use of the ballot, I should like to tell a little story.

I have a friend in Chicago who is the mother of four sons and the grandmother of twelve grandsons who are voters. She is a woman of wealth, of secured social position, of sterling character and clear intelligence, and may, therefore, quite fairly be cited as a "woman of influence." Upon one of her recent birthdays, when she was asked how she had kept so young, she promptly replied: "Because I have always advocated at least one unpopular cause." It may have been in pursuance of this policy that for many years she has been an ardent advocate of free silver, although her manufacturing family are all Republicans!

I happened to call at her house on the day that Mr. McKinley was elected President against Mr. Bryan for the first time. I found my friend much disturbed. She said somewhat bitterly that she had at last discovered what the much-vaunted influence of woman was worth; that she had implored each one of her sons and grandsons; had entered into endless arguments and moral appeals to induce one of them to represent her convictions by voting for Mr. Bryan; that, although sincerely devoted to her, each one had assured her that his convictions forced him to vote the Republican ticket! She said that all she had been able to secure was the promise from one of the grandsons, for whom she had an especial tenderness because he bore her husband's name, that he would not vote at all. He could not vote for Bryan, but out of respect for her feeling he would refrain from voting for McKinley. My friend said that for many years she had suspected that women could influence men only in regard to those things in which men were not deeply concerned, but when it came to persuading a man to a woman's view in affairs of politics or business it was absolutely useless. I contended that a woman had no right to persuade a man to vote against his own convictions; that I respected the men of her family for following their own judgement regardless of the appeal which the honored bead of the house had made to their chivalric devotion. To this she replied that she would agree with that point of view when a woman had the same opportunity as a man to register her convictions by vote. I believed then as I do now, that nothing is gained when independence of judgment is assailed by "influence," sentimental or otherwise, and that we test advancing civilization somewhat by our power to respect differences and by our tolerance of another's honest conviction.

This is, perhaps, the attitude of many busy women who would be glad to use the ballot to further public measures in which they are interested and for which they have been working for years. It offends the taste of such a woman to be obliged to use indirect "influence" when she is accustomed to well-bred, open action in other affairs, and she very much resents the time spent in persuading a voter to take her point of view, and possibly to give up his own, quite as honest and valuable as hers, although different because resulting from a totally different experience. Public-spirited women who wish to use the ballot, as I know them, do not wish to do the work of men nor to take over men's affairs. They simply want an opportunity to do their own work and to take care of those affairs which naturally and historically belong to women, but which are constantly being overlooked and slighted in our political institutions.

In a complex community like the modern city all points of view need to be represented; the resultants of diverse experiences need to be pooled if the community would make for sane and balanced progress. If it would meet fairly each problem as it arises, whether it be connected with a freight tunnel having to do largely with business men, or with the increasing death rate among children under five years of age, a problem in which women are vitally concerned, or with the question of more adequate streetcar transfers, in which both men and women might be said to be equally interested, it must not ignore the judgments of its entire adult population. To turn the administration of our civic affairs wholly over to men may mean that the American city will continue to push forward in its commercial and industrial development, and continue to lag behind in those things which make a City healthful and beautiful.

You know what to do.

September 25th is the last day to submit public comment on the proposed HHS regulations which are not only superfluous, but more importantly, would further limit access to reproductive healthcare (and other healthcare) services in the U.S., particularly for those who already have the greatest limitations to care, which certainly includes teens.

It's so important to have public comment on this, so if you have not done so yet, take a few minutes tonight and be sure to get something in.

* * *

I am writing to urge you to stop efforts to block women's access to basic reproductive health services.

I understand that the proposed regulations that the Department of Health and Human Services released on August 21, 2008 expand existing law to allow more health care providers and institutions to refuse to provide needed care.

As written, the regulations could allow institutions and individuals -- based on religious beliefs -- to deny women access to birth control and permit individuals to refuse to provide information and counseling about basic heath care services. Moreover, they expand existing laws by permitting a wider range of health care professionals to refuse to provide even referrals for abortion services.

For those of us working in healthcare, the onus is on us to choose a clinic or an area of practice where we know we want to provide the healthcare services offered to clients, and which we feel is in alignment with our personal values or religious beliefs. It should not be on those seeking needed health services. It is our responsibility -- and we have the greater agency as as workers -- to seek out the work we want, and leave the work we do not want, or do not feel we can live with, to those who are supportive and can honor any given job description. It is also our responsibility to take a job earnestly, not disingenuously. In healthcare, we have an extra responsibility, which is to put our clients needs and their physical health -- not our ideas about their spiritual health -- ahead of our own, and to care for them in the way which is best for them, objectively, rather than in the ways we feel would be best for us, or feel our religion would mandate.

Since this proposal has come to light, I have looked for any evidence that it is in response to a mass of healthcare workers voicing complaint and finding they are incapable of doing the very jobs they have agreed to do. I have found no such thing. I have also found Mike Leavitt's responses to the concerns of many with this proposal to be disturbingly dismissive, belittling and out-of-touch. The notion that low-income people can (or should have to) simply and easily choose a healthcare provider whose religious beliefs match their own, as Leavitt has flippantly suggested, is a stunning display of ignorance about the realities of public healthcare and those in need. The Department of Health and Human Services is the principal agency we have for "protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services, especially for those who are least able to help themselves." That does not mean those who work in healthcare: it means those seeking and receiving healthcare. The head of the HHS blithely stating he is privileging providers over patients seems effectively to be saying that he has no real interest in doing his job or serving the population he has sworn to through his appointment.

That given, I simply can only reasonably deduce that this proposal is one last gasp from the Bush administration to try and limit or remove more of our reproductive rights. This appears to be nothing more than one more back door through which those who want to control women -- rather than to provide healthcare, which is not to be confused with morality lessons -- and put our health at risk can creep in under the false pretense of self-protection.

I work for two different reproductive health organizations, with populations who would be the most impacted by this policy, should it be approved: with teen and young adult women, with women of color, with low-income women. At both, I see daily how -- already, without these new regulations -- lack of access to reliable contraception and reproductive health services and accurate information has a negative impact. I see it with the clients who come to the clinic I work at, where we provide abortions and other reproductive healthcare services: a great deal of our clients arrived there because their access to contraception and sound information on contraception was limited or absent. For a nation who endlessly states it wants nothing more than to limit abortions, policies like this have a funny way of showing it. I see it with the young people I counsel every day who often go without reliable contraception or sexual healthcare because of discrimination they face from healthcare providers, ignorance about contraception due to the limitation of their providers, or valid worries that they will be refused care or service, or given morality lectures rather than healthcare. For a nation which states it wants its citizens to be as healthy as possible, and who want its youth to thrive, proposals like this appear to stand in a strange conflict with that aim.

I do not need to work for either of these organizations: I have far more choice and agency in where I work and what job I do than I -- or others -- do when it comes to healthcare, particularly as an uninsured person in the United States who relies on sound public healthcare. Should I ever forget that, I think it would be sound to suggest it was time I found another profession and that I consulted my conscience. It is a cruel irony to have this proposal state to be about provider conscience, when, in fact, it appears to be about suspending conscience altogether.

My clients cannot exempt themselves from their healthcare needs: I can exempt myself from a job I do not wish to do, or set aside my own personal beliefs to honor those of someone in need of care who has every right to receive it. If I am in earnest about wanting to support reproductive health in my work, should I find myself unable to do the work or put needed care first, exempting myself from it would be the only sound recourse. I should say the same about the federal government and this proposal if it truly supports our health. At a time when more and more Americans are either uninsured or struggling with the soaring costs of health care, the federal government should be expanding access to important health services, not undermining existing protections or interfering in programs that have successfully provided services for years.

For certain, freedom of religion is an essential part of the foundation of this nation: however, separation of religion from public law and policy is the other vital half of that equation, and required for that very freedom. For all of our citizens to have the liberty our constitution assures, it is necessary that no one set of beliefs or values be privileged, nor exercised at the cost of another person's health.

For years, federal law has carefully balanced protections for individual religious liberty and patients' access to reproductive health care. The proposed regulations appear to take patients' health needs out of the equation. I urge you to restore this important balance and protect access to basic care for the millions of Americans who depend on federally funded health care services.

Thank you for your consideration,

Heather Corinna
Founder and Director, Scarleteen.com
CONNECT Program Director, Cedar River Clinics/FWHC

I used to play with Barbies a lot when I was little. No wonder I wanted to be blonde.

I smiled at my reflection. Not because of my morena skin. Not because of my brown eyes, or even because I was looking at the face of a child with a life of opportunity ahead. It was because at that time of day, if I used a bit of imagination, the light from Costa Rica’s morning sun made my dark, curly hair glow a golden yellow. I would go into daydreams of myself: blonde with bright blue eyes and a perfectly pink smile, driving off in a matching magenta convertible with the most popular boy in the class (who was, incidentally, also blonde). Because of course, the reason I never crossed his mind just had to have been my looks. But the day darkened to match my skin, and I went back to my Barbies, back to the world I created and the bodies and features I desired.

If I have to confess, I never really liked pink as much as blue, and high heels were never my style. If it boils down to uncovering secrets, once puberty set in I was perplexed as to why I wasn’t “growing” as much as I was “supposed to”. If I didn’t follow the pattern, I could never be a Barbie doll, and that meant, God Forbid, I would have my quince años and never have been kissed.

Not like Priscila. Green eyes, electric blonde hair, small waist, white skin… Perfect. I casually remember her telling me she had her first French kiss at around 10 or 11, and she wanted to know when I would get around to thinking of having mine. And then there was Shakira: Brunette music idol of Latin America and another of my role models, not in the least bit bimbo-ish. When she released Laundry Service it was a low blow. Singing in English is one thing. Did she have to bleach her hair in order to become the new flavour of the U.S. pop charts? Interestingly enough, even though most of my classmates and I revered the blonde look, the great majority of us thought Shakira was selling out. She should be proud of her dark hair and Latin roots! Like us… right?

I actually hadn’t thought about it before I wrote this, but maybe that was the breaking point where I got over wanting to be a Barbie. I always assumed it was because fashion began to change in favour of a Latin Lover look, or because of the wonderful (brown haired) boyfriend I’ve been dating since I was 14, or simply because I realized that what I look like really isn’t that important.

Whatever might have been the case, I came to realize that a lot of what I thought I favoured was because Barbie- and quite a bit of advertising, for that matter- told me that’s what I should do. Not just that- I noticed with shock that for a long time I belonged to a legion of little girls who were living too fast and dreaming of makeup, nail polish, “ideal” hair and eye colour, perfect teeth, dieting, breast implants and a physique that could not be further from what our true “Ticas Lindas” (pretty Costa Rican girls) look like. Of course, I can’t say this is all Barbies fault, especially since Costa Rica’s culture has too often revolved around European and North American ideals. I would be lying if I said I think that Barbies are ugly, and I love the detail and attention given to them. I even have a few never-removed-from-box Barbies that I cherish as collectors items. What I mean to say is that although I appreciate their particular beauty, I became a much bigger fan of my own. Whereas before I would look at myself and point out everything that was “wrong” with me, now I look at what actually makes me a person that people remember. My best asset is the fact that I am real, I am natural, and despite past insecurities, I relish looking in the mirror and smiling, not at the yellow glow over my hair, but at a unique body that holds a beautiful soul.

I am not a beaconing light shining the way for a higher self esteem, but if there’s one piece of advice I can give others it’s this: don’t let anyone, not even Barbie, dictate what beauty is to you. We are like raindrops, the kind that are permanently suspended in the air of my homeland, and the light that shines through us produces a prism that is one of a kind. Instead of looking towards others, we should let that light in and show it to the world.

I'm going to tell you something.

I'm proud to be Native/Aboriginal/First Nations.

I'm proud not only because I have a legacy of ancestors who have stood up against some of the truest tests of time so that this great culture of ours still remains today, but because I need look no further than in my own culture to do the work that I’ve wanted to do my entire life: sexual health.

Before the invention of clinics, anatomy textbooks, or even this fantastic website, my people were practicing sexual education, living as feminists, and utilizing reproductive justice to live as a healthy, strong, autonomous nation.

We might not have called it sexual health, or labeled it with any sort of clinicized connotation, but we sure as hell have always believed in our rights over our own bodies, and how foundational that is to our continued existence.

I mean, what do people really think we used to do? Wait for the colonizers to come and teach us about sex?!

You would think however that we would get the recognition for starting the concepts and frameworks that many non-Native academic movers and shakers have been internationally hailed for, but alas, we do not. In fact my people have been so far removed from practicing our authentic ways that a lot of us don’t even want to identify with any of our former sex-positive existence.

It’s a sad but true reality that defines the work I do each and every day, that I’m not about to give up on doing, no matter how much people want to willfully forget, both in and out of my community.

Sex was upheld in our culture as not only a sacred and powerful part of human life, but as a very normal part of it, too. Sexual education began in the ancient huts, longhouses, and teepees of our ancestors, where young people would learn from selected family or community members all about their body, how to care for it, and the inviolability of their sex. Many of our ancestral teachings show us that many of our societies were matriarchal and this included healthy, educated decisions over matters of childbearing and sexuality. We have different ceremonies and traditions that we’ve been practicing for centuries to back this up.

Our long history of genocidal oppression whether through colonization, Christianization, residential/mission/boarding schools, or just blatant racism has drastically severed the ties where traditionally we might have received the knowledge that would enable us to make informed choices about our sexual health and relationships. The fact is that many of our communities are reluctant to go anywhere near the topic of sexual health because it is now viewed as “dirty”, “wrong”, or a “Whiteman’s thing.”

We have also carried a long history of being sexually exploited; which can be seen anywhere from the early Pocahontas and Squaw days (that we'll definitely be talking about later), right up until the modern over-sexualization of “easy” Native women, which still permeates much of the media.

But things were different for me. As a young Mohawk woman, I was fortunate enough to be raised in a family where I received these teachings about the power of my sexuality; my mother, grandmother, and aunties were always the first to answer any questions I had about sex. I was encouraged to get as much information as I could to protect myself, and it was not until later on in my life did I really draw on the connection between my culture and how much it related to the very principals of healthy sexuality.

So in the coming weeks, I promise to fill you in on all of these stories and much more, because I truly believe that this is the way we’re going to take it back and put it out there as it once was: strong, sexy, powerful, and unapologetic.

One of the nation’s top violence prevention organizations today launched an unprecedented new initiative to raise awareness about a kind of abuse that is rarely discussed, but has severe consequences. The Family Violence Prevention Fund’s (FVPF’s) kNOw More initiative examines the reproductive health consequences of sexual coercion and violence, which include unintended pregnancy, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, miscarriage, infertility, coerced abortion, and a range of other serious health issues. kNOw More is designed to start a dialogue about the birth control sabotage and reproductive coercion that many teens and young women face, and help draw the link to the reproductive health problems it causes. Its website is www.KnowMoreSayMore.org.

New research conducted for the initiative by Child Trends finds that some 18 percent of women age 18 to 24 report having experienced forced sexual intercourse at least once in their lives. Child Trends used data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth for the analysis, basing estimates of forced sexual intercourse on a sample of 1,833 females aged 18 to 24. The most common types of force are verbal or physical pressure, and being physically held down. More than half the women forced to have sexual intercourse report experiencing each of these types of force. Approximately a quarter of the women report being physically hurt.

“The intersection of sexual violence and reproductive health is largely unexplored,” FVPF President Esta Soler said. “With this initiative, we are overcoming stigma and raising awareness about the many women who, while dating or in relationships are forced into choices not their own through rape, sexual coercion or because partners prevent them from using protection. These women are at risk for sexually transmitted infection, unintended pregnancy, HIV, and more. Some suffer miscarriages when they want to carry pregnancies to term. Others become mothers before they are ready. Still others lose their fertility. We are creating a space for women to share stories, and raising awareness among those who may be at risk as well as their friends, policy makers and others.”

The kNOw More website features stories from women who have experienced abuse, including reproductive coercion, in many forms:

• Jessica says:

I became pregnant less than four months into dating him. He refused to give me funds to purchase birth control, and always refused to use condoms after we became exclusive… I had minimal options. When we decided to continue the pregnancy and marry, the overt abuse started within days of our wedding; it continued throughout the marriage. He was verbally, emotionally, financially, sexually, and physically abusive to me. He would videotape me during vulnerable moments, after abusing me verbally to the point where I was in hysterics, or try to video tape us against my wishes while having sex. He would always refuse my attempts at birth control.

• Carollee started dating a 32-year-old man when she was 19. Things went well at first and they began to sleep together. She was on birth control pills; however, she noticed that whole rows of pills would disappear. When Carollee called her boyfriend on the disappearing birth control, he responded that he “knew” she wanted to have his child. Carollee also noticed that he was sabotaging the condoms.

• Kylie writes:

When I first met my ex, he never wanted to use condoms. He did want me to use the ‘morning-after pill,’ I’ll admit. I was quite young and didn’t know how to stand up for myself, so I became pregnant after coerced sex. For the next four years, I stayed with my ex for the sake of the baby, suffering the most horrific kinds of abuse – physical and emotional. His ‘reason’ for abusing me? Because I ‘trapped’ him through pregnancy. Although the only thing I’d been doing since the pregnancy was begging him to let me leave, he threatened to kill me, the baby, and my entire family if I ever attempted it.

The new website provides a blog and space for other women to share their stories.

On November 10, the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity will join the kNOw More initiative by bringing together more than 500 students, faculty and Omega members on the Howard University campus in Washington, D.C. to take a pledge against violence. The fraternity will host a panel discussion on the links between violence against women and negative reproductive health outcomes. With more than 700 chapters worldwide, Omega is one of the oldest and most prestigious African-American fraternities in the United States.

Child Trends is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center that studies children at every stage of development. In its study, forced sex was defined as either responding “not voluntary” to the following question about first sexual intercourse: “Would you say then that this first vaginal intercourse was voluntary or not voluntary, that is, did you choose to have sex of your own free will or not?” or responding “yes” to: “Have you ever been forced by a male to have vaginal intercourse against your will?” The full Child Trends brief is available at http://www.knowmoresaymore.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/child-trends-f... . For information on Child Trends, visit www.childtrends.org.

The Family Violence Prevention Fund works to end violence against women and children around the world, because every person has the right to live free of violence. For more information, visit endabuse.org.

The Feminist Majority Foundation's Get Out Her Vote campaign outlines some of this election's central issues. What's your vote this year going to influence?

The 2008 election will decide who controls the White House, Congress and many state legislatures across the country. Those elected will be making decisions that could change your lives. Also, keep an eye out for special initiatives and referendums that may be on your state's ballot.

Reproductive Rights

Abortion rights and birth control are under attack in this country. Following South Dakota's abortion ban in March 2006, many other states have introduced legislation this year aimed at criminalizing abortion. The confirmations of two anti-choice Justices to the Supreme Court has already resulted in an attack on Roe v. Wade . Elected state and federal leaders will decide whether to roll back the clock on thirty years of progress and restrict women's access to abortion and birth control. To stem the tide of legislation attacking women and women's reproductive freedom across the country, our voices must be heard at the ballot box this November.

Civil Rights and Human Rights

Critical civil rights issues are at stake. Federal lawmakers will decide to weaken or strengthen Title IX, the historic U.S. law that prohibits discrimination in federally funded educational programs. Affirmative action programs for women and people of color in employment and education are under attack in some states and at the federal level. State and federal lawmakers continue to debate and pass laws on whether to permit civil unions between gays and lesbians or same-sex marriage or whether to restrict the benefits of marriage to heterosexual couples. To stand up for civil rights and gay and lesbian rights, our voices must be heard this November.

Global Peace and Women's Rights

The new President will make crucial decisions regarding Iraq, the participation of the U.S. in the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, and whether the U.S. will ratify the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). U.S. policy makers will be a major influence in the reconstruction of Afghanistan and Iraq and in determining the rights of women in these two countries. To demand peace and women's rights globally, our voices must be heard this November.

Women's Economic Equality

Even today, a woman with a college degree will make less money on average than a man who has dropped out of high school. Lawmakers elected in 2008 will make decisions about pay equity, equal education, minimum and livable wage laws, healthcare, federal welfare funding, and economic policies that will create or lose jobs. To demand equal pay for equal work, jobs and living wage, our voices must be heard this November.

Environment and Oil

The next President and Congress will decide the fate of environmental laws and regulations intended to crack down on corporate polluters, and how strictly these laws are enforced . The Congress and president determine our energy policies, and whether and how we are going to reduce our dependence on oil and develop renewable energy sources . To protect our environment and to ensure that we reduce our oil-dependency, our voices must be heard this November.

Globalization and Trade Policies

The next President and Congress will shape the U.S. role in globalization, our global trade policies, whether we crack down on sweatshops and protect workers' rights internationally from Juarez, Mexico to the Marianas Islands, and what we do to stop human trafficking . To promote the rights of women workers across the globe, our voices must be heard this November.

We'll be featuring information from the GOHV campaign throughout our election coverage in our voting guide this year. The Feminist Majority Foundation's Get Out HER Vote Campaign (GOHV) is the nation's only student voter education and registration initiative aimed at significantly increasing registration and voting by young women.

GOHV is a non-partisan campaign in accordance with the laws and regulations governing 501c3 organizations. While partisan groups are focusing on candidates you will focusing on the importance of voting and what is at stake for young people, especially young women and people of color!

Want to get involved? Campus team volunteers are still needed, especially in the states of California, Colorado and South Dakota. For more information, contact the campus team organizers by clicking here.

Newsflash: I'm white. Who cares, right?

Well, I do. Because one thing that means with the work I do is that I hear it, see it, compile it, write it all through the lens of a white person. I can be as mindful, sensitive and careful as I want, but that still doesn't change that.

By all means, I do my research and do everything I can to be sure that the content at Scarleteen is as inclusive as possible: after all, I'm not a heterosexual person either, a male person, nor a young person for that matter, but I think I do okay when it comes to being inclusive for those groups here. And sure, I grew up with a parent who worked for the Civil Rights Movement, have always lives in very integrated, urban areas, and with a taught and learned sensitivity for bias in my world and in myself. Much of my background has been a big help to me when it comes to keeping my eyes open in terms of racial issues, and knowing that when it comes to pretty much everything, race does matter and isn't a non-issue.

But know what that doesn't change? My own race, and my experiences in my life and every single day being that race. I'm still white, and I'm still a white person who writes on sexuality, body image, reproductive health, gender and sexual identity, relationships and sexual politics through my white lens and with certain privileges my color alone nets me.

Even if you have no personal experience yourself being of color, or don't talk to people of color in your life about these issues, statistics alone make very clear that race (and, more to the point, how different races are treated and valued) and our perception of race changes things. HIV and unplanned pregnancy has hit women of color harder than white women, for instance. Contraceptive and sexual health access can often be tougher for those of color. Being gay, lesbian or bisexual can play out differently being of color and in communities of color. I can see all of those things in the work that I do. I can read about all of those things in journals or newspapers. I can certainly feel empathy, compassion and upset about racial imbalances... but what I can't do is acutely feel and experience those things the way my brothers and sisters of color do and can. That's not a minor quibble: it's major.

Hearing about those experiences from people of color, unfiltered, is not as accessible to everyone as it should be.

That given, we're rolling out a new blog series here at Scarleteen where writers of color have a highly visible space to write on all of these issues and more. We've got a handful of excellent activists, bloggers and Scarleteen users and volunteers ready to tell it like it is; to illuminate, inform and educate. We're thrilled to have this opportunity to provide a space in alignment with one of the core aims we've always had at Scarleteen, which is to assure that as much room is made here for people to talk about their own experiences and to represent themselves as there is for people to be talked about and represented by others.

Our hope is that if you are of color, you'll find some communion in these pieces, some empowerment and a whole lotta "Hell, yeah." If you're not, we hope that reading these pieces might bump up your awareness, make you think about things you haven't considered before, or start to think -- and maybe behave -- differently than you did before you read them. We're hoping that some of the issues and perspectives this series brings to light get seen and heard by those who really need to see and hear them, and that they will help to foster positive change and a greater spirit of compassion and unity. We want to open a window with the hope it opens more doors.

Yep, it's that time again.

That time where we get down on our knees and outright beg our American users to vote or, for those not yet of age (and for those who are!), to get involved with the Presidential election with a vengeance. We need you. We've always needed you, but we REALLY need you this year.

YOU need you: many of your rights are on the line, and if you don't stand up for them, you might lose them, particularly since with some issues, like sex education, young adult access to contraception, healthcare, education, shipping young people overseas to war and the economy as it impacts people your age, rather than how it impacts older people, adults have a very different idea of what you need than you do. Just like we talk about when it comes to your body, sex and relationships, speaking up for yourself and actively choosing and insisting on what is right for you -- rather than passively accepting what is right for someone else -- is so deeply important. In 2004, 47% of those aged 18 to 24 voted (compared to 66 percent of voters 25 and over), and even that was relatively high: the last time substantially more people in your age bracket voted than that, I was 2 years old (in 1972). Imagine what might have happened if 100% did, or even 70% did? Imagine what could happen if this time around, ALL of you did.

So, as we've done in other years past, we'll be getting together nonpartisan guides for you on where the candidates of four parties stand on young adult issues and those central here at Scarleteen (like sex education, access to contraception and other healthcare, GLBT and gender discrimination, abuse and domestic violence protections) filling you in on how to register and how to vote, and giving you links to ways you can get mobilized, work actively to support the campaigns and get your friends involved, too. We'll also have some YA bloggers writing on their thoughts on all of this and their experiences as we go, and we'll address things like how to weather the escalating political arguments that can happen at home or with friends and partners around election times, how to have a political disagreement and make it productive, and talk more about why the youth vote is so critically important. We'll also include some helps for getting through the agony and the ecstasy that a big election tends to bring.

Not registered yet? Don't put it off: take care of it now. You can register to vote online at Rock the Vote right here.

If you've interest in writing for either of these series, we'd love to have you on board. Just drop us a line, and we'll fill you in on how to get started.

A bosom buddy is someone very near and dear, with who you can share your most intense feelings and difficult challenges. Also known as “bosom friends,” the term is a bit antiquated and the wording not embraced by all; however, just Shakespeare said “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” a true friendship is special and unique regardless of what you call it.

Can such friendship start to sour? According to a recent New York Times article entitled “Talking is Good; Too Much Talking May Not Be” by Sarah Kershaw, this intense sharing can become more negative than positive. Some researchers studying the nature of female friendships believe that friends' excessive dwelling on their emotional difficulties can lead to additional challenges, such as anxiety and depression. Referred to as “co-rumination,” the article gives examples such as “Why didn’t he call?” and “Should I break up with him?” as such so-called obsessive discussions. These researchers also believe that technological advances such as e-mail and instant messages can exasperate the problem. Some of these adults feel that “kids giving kids advice” can be bad and contagious, while acknowledging that the talking in such friendships can help shield against aggressive or unkind behavior by others outside the friendship.

While the article does raise some good points, I believe the positives outweigh the bad when it comes to supporting and sharing with friends.

For example, while parents and adults may mean well and often be right, it’s a fellow teen friend who provides the most desired support in a tough time. Additionally, such gender-oriented thinking can feed prevalent stereotypes held by many girls and women themselves: “Oh, I can’t stand being in a room with just girls, because it just gets too bitchy!” Finally, there is a bit of ageism at play in the piece. For all the bad or misinformed advice from peers, there is a great deal of wonderful support and assistance – just look at the Scarleteen message boards for fantastic evidence.

Taking things with a grain of salt and thinking critically about what we are told and see is a good way to go through life. Ending or altering “bad” friendships, just as changing the status of a romantic or sexual relationship that is unhealthy or just not working out, can be like removing an emotional band-aid.

However, good platonic friends, regardless of gender, are worth their salt in a world full of individuals. These relationships spice up our lives and provide salve for our souls, be it celebrating the good or contemplating the bad. What do you think?

*Literally, bosom refers to the chest area; figuratively, it has been considered to be the “heart” of a person, often a female, the place of our intimate feelings and emotions.

While out of town this weekend, between two plane trips and a couple late evenings up reading, I started and polished off Elliott Currie's The Road to Whatever: Middle-Class Culture and the Crisis of Adolescence in very short order. I didn't do this because it was a fluffy or easy read -- it's actually very in-depth and painful at times, though highly readable -- but because it was such a well-done piece of work, so engaging, and from my point of view, so dead-to-rights. It was incredibly refreshing to read Currie's approach: I was thirsty for it, and it delivered a long, tall and much-needed drink. I found buried treasure.

It was timely, my reading this book, because for a while I've taken issue with how at-risk youth are even defined. For the most part, they are defined by race and class, as necessarily of-color, and/or in poverty. By all means, I agree that being a member of any oppressed class -- which every adolescent is, simply by virtue of age -- will always bump risk factors up, and I want care given to of-color youth and low-income youth in a way which does it's best to compensate for those youth having less resources than others. (As well, I'm also concerned with the not-so-well-meaning and racist or classist implications of identifying at-risk youth that way, as if, by virtue of color or income, rather than the institutions which discriminate by that criteria, a given person is somehow innately destined to have bigger problems, and it is that person in need of "fixing," not those institutions.) But I do often worry, particularly since so often we see middle-class youth of all colors at Scarleteen having such a tough time of things, about assuring that our focus is broad enough when it comes to who we decide needs care and attention. I have frequent concerns that the way we identify who is and who isn't at risk, who may and may not be likely to be at-risk, is too narrow.

How much money the family of a young adult has is no guarantee at all of happiness or well-being, something I learned all too well when I taught upper class children for a year in the early 90's: there was an isolation, a loneliness and a stressed-out perfectionism many of those students -- particularly those approaching puberty -- that took me very much by surprise at the time. On more than one occasion, I heard a parent respond to a valid concern we voiced for their child with little more than an immediate concern for and defense of their needs (such as the "need" to pull a child in and out of school incessantly because a parent didn't like the cold and liked to switch over to a summer home on their whim, for themselves), not those of their child.

The new middle-class world in which many American adolescents grow up is one that combined harshness and heedlessness in equal measure. It is a world that is quick to punish and slow to help, a world paradoxically both deeply moralistic and profoundly neglectful. Hence, it is hardly surprising that so many mainstream teenagers are in trouble, for that world makes it very hard to grow up. It makes it all too difficult to achieve a strong and abiding sense of worth and all too easy to feel like a failure and a loser. It makes it all too easy to feel like an outsider, all too difficult to feel appreciated or respected for being who you are. It is a world in which it is treacherously easy for adolescents to trip up and break the rules but in which no one can be bothered to help them avoid tripping up in the first place. (p.254, bolding mine)

I admit, I had a lot of déjà vu when reading Currie's accounts of the teens he worked with. While I grew up primarily low-income, a few of my adolescent years were spent in the middle-class, and those were the years when things got as bad as they could possibly get. Accounts in the book of Tough Love were all-too familiar to me, and the reminder harrowing. In my case, Tough Love was used in conjunction with, and sometimes as justification for, an abuse dynamic, which was particularly chilling, and you see that in some of these accounts as well. I remember, too, that when we moved into (rather, married into) the middle class, there was less notice of the effects of my household on me. In lower-class communities and schools, neighbors and teachers seemed to have a keener eye: in middle-class life, there seemed a universal propensity to turn the other cheek, to put on blinders, to say "None of my business," which felt very different -- cold, isolated, the kind of disturbingly quiet things are when no one wants to talk about what's wrong -- than our lower-income community had. Perhaps it was partly due to the timing, due to that switch happening at the onset of my adolescence, but I remember it very distinctly feeling like suddenly we youth were the enemy, always at fault, and parents and other adults ever-good, even when they were being anything but.

I noticed some changes and some similarities. On the north side of Chicago, back when I was a teen, there were a rare few of us identified as "trouble" who had not either spent some time put in mental institutions by parents -- not by the state -- or who were frequently threatened with same. It became a way to find something quickly in common: "Oh, you were in the ward at Northwestern? When? Were you there with Susie?" That still seems to be occurring, but more often the institution is pharmaceutical: at the first sign of trouble, mood changes (which are part and parcel of the chemical effects of puberty, not a disorder) or rebellion, teens are put on SSRIs, anti-anxiety or ADHD medications. We also see many youth now wind up in criminal institutions, "boot camps," -- whose listings I have to remove from our GoogleAds constantly -- get shuttled more from one home to another, and with GLBT youth, in camps which aim to "rehabilitate" them.

Young adults seem also to be suspended or kicked out of school with more frequency and ease in this era, taking away yet one more resource that is needed; setting youth more adrift than before, rather than helping them to use places like school as a much-needed tether. His accounts of the world of modern-day suburban high schools and rigorous academic achievement will probably also sound very familiar to teens today: as cold, uncaring (particularly for students who do not prove their worth with high grades or test scores), punitive and, all too frequently, more parent and teacher-centered than student-centered. Of course, there is also a heavy and judgmental religious morality, one which in the U.S. has found it's way into schools and policies through our current administration, which also often judge, youth, and do so with the ultimate authority figure: one which claims to come directly from God. The actuality or threats of kicking a teen out of the house also do not appear to have decreased, despite the fact that it still remains unlawful for a parent to abandon a minor in that way.

I appreciated that he brought up that one common reason teens wind up in trouble, or in situations or social circles which endanger them isn't because teens are stupid or foolhardy, but because those places or groups are more accepting of them, have less stringent or rigid standards for approval than teens are finding elsewhere. There's a reason, after all, that so many teens are so stressed out right now: it's not random.

If we wonder why we see very young teenage women dating older partners who clearly or likely are exploiting them or putting them at risk, rather than just looking to that teen or that adult, we should also look at what they get from that situation which they are not finding elsewhere. If the only person stating or recognizing a developing maturity (whether or not that is earnest or manipulative) is the 25-year-old guy who lives with Mom and picks up teen girls at the mall, it's no wonder a young person moving into adulthood is very drawn to that person, despite their flaws or manipulations which may even be known to teens pairing up with them. If we feel like youth are spending too much time in online communities and too little in real-life, we might look at the differences through this lens, considering what kind of acceptance they are or are not getting here or there. If we're wondering things like why we're seeing an increase in abusive YA relationships we might also look to where they are learning those patterns in the first place, why those relationships seem to be so easy for teens to fall into and why they seem so normal and familiar. If it seems completely incomprehensible that young people wind up with addictions to hard drugs (self-injury is also pertinent here), we might look at the differences in how a person feels on a drug and off of it: if a drug seems the only way to feel comfortable socially, to care less about feelings of hatred for oneself, or to find something to shake a person out of feeling numb, why look to the drugs or the addiction first, and to what's being escaped from second, if at all?

The stories he recounts are so important: as usual, I can't say enough how important I feel it is that we listen -- really listen -- to young people. They are painful and poignant, but often inspirational: many of the young people he interviewed managed -- though they shouldn't have had to -- to create and discover selves and lives of meaning and value despite so frequently being denied help and care from the sources where they should have most easily found both.

But what I found most important, and most meaningful, were the conclusions he draws from those stoires and what he knows as an expert on many of the institutions and institutional systems youth can wind up in, from what their experiences illustrated so clearly and consistently. It's all very simple, really. The idea many people seem to have that the reason middle-class adolescents find themselves in crisis is because they have too much of everything -- too much esteem, too much care, too much attention -- and thus, the answer is to take those things away -- work to decrease esteem, withdraw or deny care and attention -- is not only profoundly cruel but profoundly flawed. When the young adults he talked to were able to turn their lives around was, of no surprise to those thinking and feeling clearly, when they finally got some practical help, some support and attention; when they were cared for and treated compassionately, when who they are was respected and assured to be of worth -- without being proven through achievement -- when they were no longer just tossed to the wolves to see if they'd make it or not.

These should be obvious conclusions, but we all know that however obvious they may seem, they are often not the conclusions drawn or the approach taken.

What makes this institutional failure so troubling is that many of these teenagers really needed help at some point in their adolescence. They were at best overwhelmed and adrift, and often in peril. Some had been genuinely damaged by their treatment at the hands of abusive, neglectful or dysfunctional adults. Over and over again, the teens I spoke with said that what they most needed during their periods of crisis was basic: they needed someone to listen to them, pay attention, take them seriously and not put them down or humiliate them. They needed people who were sufficiently engaged to help them figure out what to do next and strong enough to be flexible and understanding rather than reflexively judgmental -- people who could help them understand their mistakes while acknowledging their good qualities and who could help them build on their strengths and potential. When they got that kind of response, they appreciated it and usually responded in kind. But they rarely got it. What they got too often was an ideologically grounded regime of punishment and blame that seemed designed to break their "oppositional" nature... (p.168, bolding mine)

More flashback for me. I remember -- and by all means, we still hear this from teens today daily - that whatever mistakes I made, or perceived failings of flaws I had always seemed to take more precedence than the good things I did or my unique personality and talents. I could get the great grades I did all I wanted, and yet, what I heard more about was how the way I dressed and presented was ugly and unacceptable. I could be an intensely creative person, always writing, making a piece of art, singing and playing piano, I could be as kind to other people as possible, I could try and do some things with social change movements, but because I clearly wasn't straight and was (and actually was perceived as being well before I *actually* was) sexually active, what I boiled down to was just a loose slut. The fact that I had largely raised myself, taken care of myself from a very young age without much help was never recognized, but when I made any error or oversight with that self-rearing, it was all my fault.

Like most of the youth in Currie's work, when things turned around for me was exactly when these kinds of things happened for me. I was able to switch from a very unwelcoming public school -- even for an excellent student, which I very much was -- to a specialized and highly inclusive arts school where my gifts and talents were recognized and my uniqueness was celebrated by both faculty and peers. I had a counselor who didn't put blame on me, but acknowledged things that were not my fault clearly (like that it was my family who was crazy and dysfunctional, not me; like that I had been trying to live though serious trauma without any real help or acknowledgment of that trauma so it was no surprise I was having a very hard time). I was able to get connected with a parent who was supportive of me and willing to work through the problems I was having with me with love and acceptance, fully engaged with me in doing so. All of these kinds of things were my turning points. The fact that I had to actually fight to get those things -- that anyone does -- that I was ignored or denied when asking for them so much I just stopped asking, rather than to be neglected (or, at other times, face highly severe "punishments"), abandoned, institutionalized, tossed to the wolves all "for my own good," will hopefully, at some other point in history, be recognized as the harmful lunacy that it was and for many teens, still is.

Here at Scarleteen, and at other services which are expressly for teens and young adults, one way we often see that lack of care is just in how tough it often is for us to find volunteers or get donations: to far too many people, teens and young adults are seen as a population who is too young to be considered and treated as adult, but too old to be cared for. Services which are about control or containment -- which are, let's face it, more about providing creature comforts for parents then for teens -- often are more stable and supported than those which are about providing the kind of bonafide support or help the youth themselves are asking for, and that's a serious problem. Teens are often put in a sort of purgatory, even in what services are provided for them: little children are important, adults are important, but anyone in between...well, they'll sink or they'll swim, right? What Currie makes clear, and I agree, is that what that approach inclines them to do is to tread water or drown.

I do wish some attention had been given to the additional challenges gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth often face; that some address had been made of how additionally isolated GLBT youth often are, and how "tough love" or... approaches compound their crises. But that's a minor quibble -- and really, my only quibble -- while most of the youth he talked with seemed to be heterosexual, Currie didn't explicitly identify the orientation of any of them, and it may simply have been outside the scope of his study. I also would have loved a foreword from one of the youth he interviewed: maybe for the next printing?

None of this is rocket science, but it does stand pretty counter to some very common approached to youth in trouble and.or in need of help. We should know by now that the "Bad kid! No biscuit" (or no love, no roof, no school, no social outlets, no dating, whichever it is) approach not only doesn't work, but is potentially quite damaging, and certainly not in accord with helping young people transition into healthy, happy adults. For lack of a better term -- though I personally, am really fond of rebellious and think there's a lot of great power in the term -- being "oppositional" is part of the nature of adolescence. While it may inconvenience, challenge or scare parents or other adults, and while it certainly can wear a person out, in so many ways, adolescence is another sort of birth. During the teen years, young people are giving birth to the adults they are becoming, and like any birth, it is frequently painful, in some way inconsiderate of its environment, raucous, unpredictable, chaotic, anarchist. To a large degree, it is not something others can control, which certainly poses a conflict to a culture seeking more and more control of everything and everyone. I'm of the mind -- and my impression was that Currie is, as well -- that young adult separation and rebellion needn't be or be viewed as destructive. In fact, I've long thought and expressed that I think it's something we need in our culture: one incredible thing teens do for us is sort of jar us awake, pull us forward unto their future, give us, as a culture, a sort of high-powered jolt I think we're often in need of.

So many huge cultural and social changes in our culture -- like them or not -- are changes we have generations of youth to thank for: the Great Awakening, the Industrial Revolution, public schooling, the Civil Rights Movement, the Beat era, feminism, the hippies, yippies and diggers of my parents years, the punk movement of my era, the riot-grrls of the one right after that, tech development, and.... well, we're going to see what we really have right now, if we give our youth a chance to show us, anyway. For a lot of our national and global history, young people have been at the forefront of social justice movements and other social change, and for just as long of a time, adults have frequently been resistant, and sometimes that resistance results in attempts to (and successes at) control and contain rather than engagement, cooperation and participation. Often enough, and certainly now, adults have been sure that teens cannot harness and manage their own energy despite history showing us that more often, in fact, young people know exactly how to channel their rebellion and their unique spirits powerfully and positively, perhaps better than adults do.

I think if we seek to quiet, subdue or control young people, we all -- and most particularly the teens themselves -- lose something immensely valuable and seriously important. We also don't help teens at all by either abandoning them or by punishing them for their nature: it's one of the ways we do them real harm. The title to the book speaks of a typical answer Currie got when asking teens about why they fell into destructive or damaging habits, addictions or behaviors, or how they felt about themselves and their lives at the time: "Whatever," was a typical response. I think -- I hope - one place all of us can agree upon, no matter our divergent and diverse politics, values or aims -- is that no one earnestly benefits from a population who feels that their lives and actions are just "whatever." The youth themselves most certainly don't, but neither do adults, even if that "whatever" gives some adults more room to have lives uninterrupted or without the inconvenience of a more invested and higher-esteemed teen.

It seems like stating the obvious, but if we want a healthy, vibrant and caring world, we just can't very well expect to have that if when our youth are looking towards adulthood, we've made them feel that they'll have nothing of value to contribute if and when they get there (unless, apparently, they become only who we want them to be to serve our own needs and aims, rather than being and becoming who they actually are and serving what needs and aims are their own).

Suffice it to say, I strongly recommend this book: to parents, teachers, other YA helpers, as well as to young people (I know my inner-teen got some healing and acknowledgment through this, so your actual-teen might well, too). In a similar vein, I also would suggest two other books, Generation on Hold: Coming of Age in the Late Twentieth Century, (James E. Cote & Anton L. Allahar) and The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager by Thomas Hine.

It perhaps goes without saying that I also strongly recommend that we look at where, exactly, teens are learning to look at themselves and their lives as "Whatever." A mirror may prove useful.