Can Tyra Banks Be Sex Educationīs Spokesperson?
Stuart Nachbar
November 22, 2008
This month, the Tyra Banks Show surveyed 10,000 young women about their sexual activity and the host said that she was "shocked" by the survey results. The bigger impression to me is that it takes someone of Bankīs celebrity to get 10,000 young women to answer a survey and talk about a subject theyīre afraid to discuss with their parents. See a clip of an interview with Tyra Banks at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27715476#27716567.
I am not going to get into the mechanics of an online survey—this one was conducted at TyraShow.com—or one with an unusually large sample size of TV watchers, but I was surprised by one result: that twenty percent of the young women who completed a survey wanted to be teenage moms. I donīt know if the women who answered that question that way have any idea of the responsibility that comes with motherhood, nor do I know anything about their economic or social circumstances. But I doubt that they have the resources available to teen celebrities like Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears.
Iīd love to have a copy of the survey and the survey results, to see if the TV show dug down deep to find out more about these respondents, the ones who want to be mothers: where they live, would they marry, how much, or how little sex education they received, as well as their upbringing. If the TV show survey did not go that far, Iīd like to ask Tyra to do another one. Unlike me, who wrote a book on sex education issues in the past, she has a national platform.
And I worry about the education they didnīt get. Tyra Banks is in a position to do more than be "shocked." She may be one of the few people who can drive reform in sex education, because she has a national audience and she has not been a polarizing figure between those who support abstinence-only education and the advocates of a more comprehensive approach. She is an iconic brand, much like Donald Trump, and therefore, more than a typical celebrity.
Banks said in the interview clip mentioned above that it is her mission to help build the self-esteem of teenage girls. She is the executive producer of Cliques, a movie based on a best selling book about popularity and mean girls. She not only has a talk show, she hosts a reality show for aspiring fashion models where she comes across as caring and likeable. I am sure that she has the Q-rating to do more than bring sexually active young women on television to tell their stories.
In past posts, I have stated that a federal public policy on sex education is not possible. The funding has been subject to the ideological beliefs of the presidency in power. And while federal funds for abstinence-only sex education have been rejected by half of our stateīs governors, the outgoing Bush Administration took steps to make a larger pot of money available to family-planning and faith-based organizations that support their position. Yet, while I believe that an Obama Administration should zero-out these funds, the money should not be re-targeted to a comprehensive approach. That would be equally polarizing at a time when a new president needs to be a unifier and not a divider.
But I do believe in public-private initiatives at the national, state and local level, so that parents have some choice about the sex education they want their children to receive, and contribute financially, if they have the means to do so. They should also be able to receive more education alongside their children. Realistically, pro-abstinence organizations are not going to go away, but they should be forced to make their case on their own, just as comprehensive sex education advocates must do now. I just hope that Tyra Banks takes on a role thatīs bigger than herself and becomes a spokesperson on this issue.
Contact Stuart Nachbar at http://www.EducatedQuest.com, a blog on education politics, policy and technology or read about his first book, The Sex Ed Chronicles, a novel on education and politics in 1980 New Jersey, at http://www.SexEdChronicles.com.
I am not going to get into the mechanics of an online survey—this one was conducted at TyraShow.com—or one with an unusually large sample size of TV watchers, but I was surprised by one result: that twenty percent of the young women who completed a survey wanted to be teenage moms. I donīt know if the women who answered that question that way have any idea of the responsibility that comes with motherhood, nor do I know anything about their economic or social circumstances. But I doubt that they have the resources available to teen celebrities like Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears.
Iīd love to have a copy of the survey and the survey results, to see if the TV show dug down deep to find out more about these respondents, the ones who want to be mothers: where they live, would they marry, how much, or how little sex education they received, as well as their upbringing. If the TV show survey did not go that far, Iīd like to ask Tyra to do another one. Unlike me, who wrote a book on sex education issues in the past, she has a national platform.
And I worry about the education they didnīt get. Tyra Banks is in a position to do more than be "shocked." She may be one of the few people who can drive reform in sex education, because she has a national audience and she has not been a polarizing figure between those who support abstinence-only education and the advocates of a more comprehensive approach. She is an iconic brand, much like Donald Trump, and therefore, more than a typical celebrity.
Banks said in the interview clip mentioned above that it is her mission to help build the self-esteem of teenage girls. She is the executive producer of Cliques, a movie based on a best selling book about popularity and mean girls. She not only has a talk show, she hosts a reality show for aspiring fashion models where she comes across as caring and likeable. I am sure that she has the Q-rating to do more than bring sexually active young women on television to tell their stories.
In past posts, I have stated that a federal public policy on sex education is not possible. The funding has been subject to the ideological beliefs of the presidency in power. And while federal funds for abstinence-only sex education have been rejected by half of our stateīs governors, the outgoing Bush Administration took steps to make a larger pot of money available to family-planning and faith-based organizations that support their position. Yet, while I believe that an Obama Administration should zero-out these funds, the money should not be re-targeted to a comprehensive approach. That would be equally polarizing at a time when a new president needs to be a unifier and not a divider.
But I do believe in public-private initiatives at the national, state and local level, so that parents have some choice about the sex education they want their children to receive, and contribute financially, if they have the means to do so. They should also be able to receive more education alongside their children. Realistically, pro-abstinence organizations are not going to go away, but they should be forced to make their case on their own, just as comprehensive sex education advocates must do now. I just hope that Tyra Banks takes on a role thatīs bigger than herself and becomes a spokesperson on this issue.
Contact Stuart Nachbar at http://www.EducatedQuest.com, a blog on education politics, policy and technology or read about his first book, The Sex Ed Chronicles, a novel on education and politics in 1980 New Jersey, at http://www.SexEdChronicles.com.
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