In states like California, where the 2016 California Healthy Youth Act requires more comprehensive sex education in schools-including discussion of gender identities and sexually transmitted diseases-parents in two school districts have signed petitions this year over concerns that the current curriculum is age-inappropriate. This silence, she says, produces a climate ripe for sexual harassment, the disempowerment of young women, and “a hook-up culture that often dehumanizes kids in their sexual encounters.”įor decades, ideas surrounding sex education in schools have been polarizing. In our conversation, she argues that parents and schools alike have failed students-especially young women-by not having honest and comprehensive discussions about sex. I recently spoke with Orenstein for Education Week Commentary’s interview series with K-12 thought leaders to talk about what she thinks is missing when talking to young people about healthy sexuality. She is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and the author of five books, including Cinderella Ate My Daughter, Schoolgirls, and, most recently, Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape. Peggy Orenstein, a journalist and author who has written extensively about the sexualization of young girls, wants to change the conversation to be a more open one. Public schools in just 24 states and the District of Columbia are required to teach sex education to students, often through an abstinence-only lens.

Schoolgirls by Peggy Orenstein