Right now, the world is changing rapidly. Regardless of what anybody says, the roles of both men and women are changing. In some places the gender roles might be changing faster than others, while some places roles might not have changed at all. In Muslim societies, women do not have the same rights as them men do. For example, the women are not expected to make independent decisions. They aren't allowed to decided their marriage partner, whether or not they get a divorce or who gets custody of her children if a divorce were to happen. in the Qur'an men are referred to as the guardians of women, meaning it is their duty to watch over the women. There are even societies, like the Ede villages of Vietnam, where the woman is dominant. In these villages the women own all the property and they pass it down to their daughters should anything happen to them. The women are expected to propose to the men and the men are to take the last name of the woman's family, this is exactly the opposite of today's society in America.
In the United States, sexual education has always been a touchy subject. Even today, there is no federal law requiring sexual education to be taught in schools. The Netherlands made sex education mandatory in 1993. Though abstinence-only education became the predominant means of sex education for the US in 1981, there are strict guidelines that the schools must adhere to. The schools must inform the students that abstinence is the only way to protect against pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and psychological harm.
If our schools heavily emphasize abstinence, which is not having sex until marriage, why do our kids compare so poorly against the kids of other countries? According to www.studentpulse.com the Netherlands have the lowest rate of unplanned pregnancy, abortion, and teen pregnancy in the western world and the birth rate for teens ages 15-19 in the Netherlands is only 8.2 per 1000, compared to 54.4 per 1000 in the US. Teens are now hitting puberty at a younger age and getting married at an older age which creates a larger age gap than that of the past, this makes abstinence harder to maintain. Other western countries, like the Netherlands, consider sexual activity before marriage to be normal and they view it as a healthy part of human development. As I mentioned before, the US tries to only emphasize abstinence but the Netherlands reproduction, relationships, safety and interactional competence.
In the United States, sexual education has always been a touchy subject. Even today, there is no federal law requiring sexual education to be taught in schools. The Netherlands made sex education mandatory in 1993. Though abstinence-only education became the predominant means of sex education for the US in 1981, there are strict guidelines that the schools must adhere to. The schools must inform the students that abstinence is the only way to protect against pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and psychological harm.
If our schools heavily emphasize abstinence, which is not having sex until marriage, why do our kids compare so poorly against the kids of other countries? According to www.studentpulse.com the Netherlands have the lowest rate of unplanned pregnancy, abortion, and teen pregnancy in the western world and the birth rate for teens ages 15-19 in the Netherlands is only 8.2 per 1000, compared to 54.4 per 1000 in the US. Teens are now hitting puberty at a younger age and getting married at an older age which creates a larger age gap than that of the past, this makes abstinence harder to maintain. Other western countries, like the Netherlands, consider sexual activity before marriage to be normal and they view it as a healthy part of human development. As I mentioned before, the US tries to only emphasize abstinence but the Netherlands reproduction, relationships, safety and interactional competence.