Leave it to Amazon’s suggestive selling feature to sell me things I didn’t think I wanted. Before last month, I had not heard of journalist Hadley Freeman, or her new book, Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia, which was published on April 18, 2023. Now that I’ve just finished reading Freeman’s personal story about her experiences with anorexia, along with anecdotes from people she knew when she spent months in eating disorder programs in London, I can say that I’d definitely read another one of her books. She has a very engaging style, and her talent for turning phrases makes her writing interesting and an overall pleasure to read.
I also enjoyed Hadley Freeman’s story, because she and I are somewhat close in age. I’m almost six years older than she is. There was a time when that would have been a significant age gap, but once you get to middle age, that gap really isn’t so wide anymore. Her book was interesting to me, because we were young at the same time. I got a lot of the cultural references she made. Good Girls is about her experiences with anorexia nervosa, but it’s also about the experiences of people she met while “in hospital”. A number of the women she interviewed are my age or slightly older. I could relate to them and their stories because of that closeness in age.
Freeman included some interesting anecdotes about some of the cases involving her fellow patients that invite more research and study for my blog. Regular readers know I’m a sucker for a scandalous story, and she made me aware of a couple of them in her book. Perhaps on a day when I have writer’s block, I will think to revisit Good Girls and be reminded of those stories, which I will then write about. As I’ve discovered through blogging since 2010, I’m not the only one who is a sucker for a scandal… even the low level ones that are only interesting on a local level. 😉
Everyone has a story, and Hadley Freeman is no different. She is a British-American journalist who was born to a Jewish family in New York City. Freeman spent her early life in New York, where her father worked in finance. Freeman has dual American and British citizenship, and continues to live and work in both countries.
When Hadley was eleven years old, her family moved to London, and Hadley was plunged into a similar, but different culture. I could relate to that. I was born in Virginia, but moved to England when I was about three years old. I stayed in England until I was almost six years old. Although I was in England as an “Air Force brat”, that experience really left a mark on me, and I can remember being bewildered when we moved back to the US, having doubled in age. Granted, Hadley Freeman was eleven when she moved, so surely she had a concept of countries and continents and such. But there are some significant differences between life in the United States and life in England. As Freeman points out, New York and London, though both big cities, are very different. Hadley had some trouble adjusting.
When she was about fourteen years old, Hadley began suffering from anorexia nervosa severe enough to land her in the hospital. She spent the next three years in and out of different psychiatric hospitals in London, occasionally being treated by an arrogant doctor who apparently did more harm than good. Most of the hospitals where Freeman was treated are not specifically named in this book; Freeman does mention one clinic that was eventually renamed where a fellow patient had spent time and was exposed to a predatory male nurse. I did some preliminary research about the nurse and found his case was covered in the news. I’ll be reading more about him.
Freeman’s experiences put her in contact with other people who suffered from eating disorders, including a few men. Not everyone she met had anorexia; some were diagnosed with bulimia, while others were compulsive or binge eaters. Because the hospitals were residential, she had the opportunity to get to know the other patients. She eventually lost contact with her fellow patients, as social media wasn’t a “thing” in those days, and she had been discouraged from keeping in touch with them. Therapists had told her that staying in contact with other people with eating disorders could encourage her to keep up the destructive behaviors that had led to anorexia.
Years after her final release from hospitals, Hadley Freeman decided to reach out to some of her old friends. She found that a number of them were eager to speak to her about their experiences. So, while Freeman writes about her time on the eating disorder wards in the 1990s, she also includes stories from others she knew back then. In one case, the story didn’t come from the fellow patient, as she had died by her own hand. Instead, Freeman spoke to the woman’s family. This particular patient was a talented actress who had starred in some television and theatrical shows before she ended her life. I had not heard of her before I read Good Girls, but I looked her up and now I want to know more about her.
The theories and treatment modalities for treating eating disorders were different in the 1990s than they are today. I read several Amazon reviews from irate readers claiming that Freeman’s book is “dangerous” because she doesn’t delve into the most recent research regarding eating disorder treatment. I don’t think this book is supposed to be about current treatments or theories. It’s a memoir. Freeman is writing about her experiences in the 1990s. There is an audience of people who would be interested in reading about Freeman’s experiences during that era, even if the information she includes is not as useful to people who suffer from eating disorders today.
Many years ago, I read Cherry Boone O’Neill’s 1982 book, Starving For Attention. Cherry Boone O’Neill is Pat Boone’s eldest daughter. She suffered most extensively from anorexia nervosa in the 1970s. Her book includes theories and treatment modalities from that time, which would probably be thought of as “wrong” and “dangerous” today (even though Cherry ultimately survived and has five adult children). I wouldn’t go to Cherry’s book for information about how to help someone with an eating disorder in 2023. I don’t think that’s its purpose. It’s a story about her experiences, which has worth in and of itself. I think I feel the same way about Hadley Freeman’s book, Good Girls.
I wouldn’t recommend Good Girls to a worried parent or spouse of someone with an eating disorder, desperate for solutions or answers as to why eating disorders happen. There are other books written by experts for that purpose. Freeman does include comments from physicians and mental health professionals about today’s treatments, but I didn’t really feel like that was the main idea of her book.
Freeman eventually became a “functional anorexic”, after “cramming” at different British schools to pass her “A-levels”. She wound up earning her university degree at Oxford University, and then curiously embarked on a career as a fashion journalist. She found she had an “in” with people in the fashion industry, because she was very thin. After about ten years of that, she moved on to other areas. She’s written for The Guardian and The Telegraph, and she has also penned other books. I enjoyed Good Girls enough that I would seek out her other books– after I’ve read a few that have been sitting in the “to be read” queue for awhile.
I do wish Freeman had expanded a bit more on the British education and healthcare systems. I wouldn’t have expected an in depth explanation per se, but a little bit of information about the differences between the U.S. and British systems may have been helpful to the many American readers whom I suspect will read this book. The U.S. healthcare system is much more expensive for consumers than the British system is. Freeman also mentions “sectioning”, which could be a foreign concept to US readers, as the U.S. system doesn’t really have “sectioning”, which allows healthcare professionals and family members to involuntarily commit adults for mental health treatment for illnesses that are life threatening.
Yes, a person can be involuntarily committed in the United States, but it’s my understanding that the system is broader in Britain, which allows for commitment for illnesses like anorexia nervosa that put a person’s life at risk. In the United States, the criteria for commitment is set by individual states and is more focused on an individual’s civil rights and potential for harming or killing other people. A look at the number of people who have been recently killed by gun violence in the United States might offer a clue at the discrepancy between the U.S.’s system and Britain’s system.
Overall, I’m glad I read Good Girls. I know a lot of people with eating disorders might not like it and will protest that it lacks value due to its “dangerous and outdated” discussions of eating disorder treatments and theories from the early 90s. I would like to remind those readers that discussions about past treatments and theories are still worth reading about, if only because they provide a historic view of how things were handled in the past. History is useful, as it offers a look at where we’ve already been. This book isn’t a volume on how to treat eating disorders in 2023, although it does include some commentary from healthcare professionals of today. It’s mostly a memoir, and should be regarded as such.
On a side note… maybe one distressing side effect of reading Good Girls is that Freeman mentions the fashion industry and certain models of the 1990s and 00s. Because of that, I fell down a rabbit hole, watching America’s Next Top Model. Talk about toxic! I’ve written about that show a few times, but I have a feeling this latest look will spawn some fresh content… particularly after I watched Cycle 8, which starred Renee Alway and the late Jael Strauss. I hadn’t watched ANTM in years, but I’m hooked again, and I think it merits some discussion. So stay tuned, if that piques your interest.
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Top o’ the mornin’ to ye… Here’s a little mood music…
Kiss my ass.
Actually, as I write this, morning has about eleven minutes left. Then it will be noon. Bill has to leave for Bayern/Bavaria again this afternoon. I will spend the next three nights alone. Then he’ll come home, and life will continue until Friday, which is St. Patrick’s Day.
We probably won’t be doing anything special on the big day for “wearin’ green”. Even though Bill and I have some Irish roots and an Irish last name, I’m really more of a Scot. I think Bill is, too. For the longest time, we both thought he had a lot more Irish ancestry than he does. I was sure he was more Irish than I am. But, according to 23&Me and Ancestry.com, I am more Irish… and one can probably tell that by my temperament.
Bwahahahaha… I’m kidding, of course.
This morning, The Irish Times ran a story that got a bunch of Facebook comments from Irish people. The lovely Brianna Parkins, who is evidently not an Irish native (she’s from Australia), wrote yet another compelling column with a controversial title. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you might remember that last month I posted about Parkins’ column. She wrote a piece titled “Now it’s okay for men to pee sitting down, here are a few other changes they could make“. Irish people went “fookin'” nuts.
I ended up having an argument with one guy, who was apparently irritated by my comment that some German women train their men to sit when they pee. That’s the truth, by the way. One guy wanted to argue with me about it. It turned into a blog entry.
But, as it was on that occasion, and as it is on this occasion, Parkins’ column wasn’t actually about what the headline implied. The earlier post I wrote wasn’t really about men sitting down to take a piss. The column was actually about violence against women. But Irish men were “taking the piss” and arguing about whether or not they should be compelled to pee sitting down. It was quite the mess.
Today’s column that has Irish people’s Irish up is titled “Be patient with us clueless foreigners this ‘St. Patty’s Day’”. Of course, because the article is behind a paywall, most of the people commenting haven’t read it. They don’t understand that, of course, Ms. Parkins knows that there’s no such thing as “St. Patty’s Day”. And, amazingly enough, they don’t get that the quotation marks in the headline are a dead giveaway that The Irish Times is well aware that the correct term is St. Patrick’s Day or, if one must abbreviate, “St. Paddy’s Day.” The Irish equivalent of Patrick is, of course, Padraig.
I can understand why it makes Irish people grit their teeth and cringe when they hear some clueless Yank refer to “St. Patty’s Day” while they pinch people who aren’t wearing green. However, the misspelled name was part of the point Ms. Parkins made in her very funny and astute column. If they had respected her enough to read what she actually wrote before complaining on Facebook, maybe they would have had a good laugh.
Butters gets in trouble for pinching people who don’t wear green…
Parkins’ column was a polite request for Irish folks to be patient with us excitable non-Irish folks. We Yanks get excited about St. Patrick’s Day and our connections to Ireland, no matter how tenuous. And a lot of us are clueless about the realities of living in Ireland in 2023. We just have romantic notions of what it should be like.
Parkins writes of the tourists who show up for St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin, wearing their “Kiss me, I’m Irish” t-shirts:
These are the people who swear blind to you that it’s “St Pattys Day”. The type that say they are allowed to pinch you on March 17th without repercussions because you didn’t wear green. In primary school I once walloped a particularly strong fingered and vicious child which I viewed as a proportionate use of force for the shocking act of violence foisted on me. The teacher did not and explained I should have known that I had to wear green or the ‘leprechauns’ would get me because I had an Irish family. An Irish family who never did this pinching carry-on because it’s not actually done in Ireland. My mum might have laughed at this story but not as much as the time she received a note from the school canteen advertising a special Irish lunch option to celebrate St Patrick’s Day.
Was it bacon and cabbage? Coddle? Stew? Crisp sandwiches? No, they proudly announced they would be serving traditional Irish tacos, just like Peig Sayers and Fungi the Dolphin used to enjoy. The fillings you see make the tricolour – orange is carrot, white is over processed shredded cheese and green is lettuce. Which means the tacos were an insult to Mexican and Irish culture. Quite the achievement.
Bwahahahaha… too funny.
But go on the Facebook post for Parkins’ column, and you’ll read many, many indignant comments from people who couldn’t be arsed to read the article before chiming in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know… it’s behind a paywall. So buy a fucking subscription, then! Or, at least pay attention to the comments from the people who did read, so we don’t have to wade through your uninformed complaints.
That shit drives me NUTS. Seriously… if you don’t have the time or money to read before commenting, I don’t have the time to wade through your bullshit drivel. Check out these comments…
Bravo to Joan Butler, to whom I gave a red heart. Read the fucking article, PLEASE. Show us you actually CAN read!
I have noticed there are a lot of conservatives in Ireland. I’ve also noticed that a lot of conservatives aren’t readers. Coincidence? I don’t know… But The Irish Times is a great paper. They have some truly good journalists who don’t want to work for free. So, for the love of St. Paddy, please subscribe to The Irish Times and then, by all means, make your informed comments on the articles… not just the headlines! The writers will thank you, and those of us who do read, will also be grateful that we don’t have to read your comments and complaints about literal non-issues.
Before I get cranked up with today’s post, I want to highly recommend my readers to watch the below video. Reading my rantings about this situation is simple extra credit. Mama Doctor Jones spells it all out pretty plainly, and what she says about this incident is probably enough. Also, if anyone progressive from Fairbanks, Alaska reads this and is offended by my comments, I apologize pre-emptively for lumping all Fairbanks residents in with Joel Davidson and his ilk. However, unlike Mr. Davidson and his grasp of subjects related to sex ed and women’s health, I realize that my opinions about Alaska are mostly formed in ignorance.
At the end of yesterday’s post, I referenced a YouTube video by Mama Doctor Jones, otherwise known as Danielle Jones, MD. Mama Doctor Jones, for those who don’t know, is a board certified OB-GYN who makes wonderful, informative, and entertaining videos about women’s health and pregnancy on YouTube. I discovered her a few months ago, when the new Texas abortion ban law came into effect. She made an excellent video about why the new law is potentially very dangerous, and why she, as a physician practicing in Texas, is against it.
Dr. Jones and her family have recently announced that they are moving to New Zealand. I don’t know how long she, her husband, and their four kids will be living in New Zealand, but their move does mean that she won’t be held to the new law in Texas. In any case, as a fellow American citizen who has also left the United States, I completely understand why Dr. Jones wants to leave, even if only temporarily. I think living abroad is an experience more Americans should experience, if only to shed the ignorant idea that the United States is the “best” country in the world. Or, even if someone still thinks the USA is the best after living abroad, they might realize that other countries are also pretty good places to be.
After I saw Mama Doctor Jones take on the Texas abortion law, I became a fan of her content. I don’t watch all of her videos, but I have seen a lot of them. I am always impressed by how engaging, charismatic, and at ease she is on camera, and how non-threatening she comes across as she explains women’s healthcare. Personally, I find OB-GYNs terrifying, mainly because I had a very traumatic experience with one when I was a young woman. Even though I, myself, have a background in healthcare, I have a really hard time seeing physicians. But, if I had an obviously kind physician like Dr. Jones, I would probably be a lot less reluctant to go to the doctor for screenings.
Suffice to say, I think Dr. Jones is the bomb. If I had children– boys or girls— I would want them to watch her channel. She’s really fascinating, and judging by the comments I have read in the Duggar Family News group, I am not the only one who thinks Mama Doctor Jones is awesome. So, imagine my shock when I happened to see her video about “being canceled”.
As this video started, I was thinking WTF… but then I was highly irritated by conservative idiots in Alaska!
Mama Doctor Jones then explains that she actually isn’t being “canceled” per se, but her name came up at a school board meeting in Fairbanks, Alaska. Apparently, some people were upset that some of Mama Doctor Joneses’ content was being used to teach sex education to adolescents. The situation was covered by Joel Davidson, a journalist who writes for the Alaska Watchman. Dr. Jones explains in her video that she was blissfully unaware of this issue until one of her viewers tweeted her with a link to Davidson’s first article on the subject. The article is salaciously titled, “Fairbanks teachers want 12-year-olds exposed to explicit sex-ed videos”, and it includes a picture of Jones’ face, plastered across the top of the page.
Before two days ago, I had never heard of Alaska Watchman. I don’t even know very much about Alaska itself, since I’ve never been there. Former Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, gave a lot of us continental Americans a taste of Alaska’s apparently far right-wing culture, and I knew that it was a conservative place with a lot of independent minded people within it. I figured it was a beautiful place, too, albeit too cold for my tastes. Since I don’t know much about Alaska, I went to Alaska Watchman’s About Us page, where I found a description of this periodical:
The Alaska Watchman aims to raise awareness of key issues affecting Alaskans. Coming from a broadly Judeo-Christian perspective, we are committed to the highest standards of journalism and ethical reporting.
Our reports look to inform and equip Alaskans to effectively engage the culture for the common good. Please keep your comments respectful.
Okay then… so right off the bat, it’s obvious that this source is biased, and conservative in nature. That means it should probably be taken about as seriously as people might take my blog. However, in reading Mr. Davidson’s second post about Mama Doctor Jones and her “racy” content, I see that he’s in need of an editor:
Several board members raised concern about a YouTube video, Mamma Dr. Jones, which the district wanted to use for sex-education.
Later in the same article he writes:
“The main problem I have with all of the videos links that were sent is that they create a trust with the name and source with the students,” [April] Smith said. “We are now putting into our children that Momma Dr. Jones is an excellent source of education.”
Hey Joel– on two occasions you spelled “Mama’s” name wrong, and it looks like you’re missing a preposition. So much for those “high standards of journalism”, right? But enough about my grammar snob tendencies. What really annoys me about Joel Davidson’s articles is that they are very obviously slanted, and it doesn’t appear that he’s spent much time actually watching Mama Doctor Jones on YouTube or objectively considering the value of her content. Maybe it’s because he’s a father of eight. Obviously, he already knows something about sex, and it’s clear he doesn’t care too much about women or women’s health. I won’t even get into what he likely thinks about people who are transgender or otherwise not cisgender, as he obviously is.
Where did those 8 children come from, Joel?
According to Mr. Davidson’s article from October 21, 2021, a 2016 era state law in Alaska requires all school districts to “get approval from local school boards before they can teach new sex education material to children.” I just did a very quick web search to find the law in question, and the first hit I came upon was not the law, but an article on a site called SIECUS (Sex Ed for Social Change). That site’s profile on Alaska indicates that the local culture is overall very much opposed to teaching contemporary sex education in public schools. In fact, it’s not even a requirement to teach sex ed in Alaska public schools.
Mr. Davidson even mentions that “over the past four years, Fairbanks has lost over 1000 students to other educational options”. School board member, April Smith, claims that the district has lost the trust of many parents and they are taking their children out of the public schools and either homeschooling them, or putting them in private schools. I just want to know– is April Smith really that sure that teaching sex ed is the reason this is happening? Because it sounds like Fairbanks school board members aren’t the brightest stars in the proverbial Alaskan sky. Couldn’t students also be leaving public schools because of other issues, like COVID-19, and the risks associated with that? Isn’t it possible that some parents would like their children to be educated on important things, like how their bodies work?
Anyway, I don’t think Mama Doctor Jones is necessarily as fussed about the antiquated local mores in Fairbanks as she is that Mr. Davidson’s articles are clearly biased, as well as borderline defamatory. He has also written quite a few outright FALSE statements about Mama Doctor Jones’ content, as well as certain subjects she covers. For example, he writes:
A video for middle schoolers and high schoolers features OBGYN Danielle Jones stating that “50% of people have a vagina.” Jones’ video spotlights a young teen showing off her stained underwear and talking about the fact that vaginal discharge is normal. At one point Jones talks about what can happen when inserting a “toy or penis” into the vagina.
Okay… first off, as Dr. Jones points out in her rebuttal, Davidson doesn’t properly address her credentials. He should have written either Danielle Jones, MD, or Dr. Danielle Jones, OB-GYN. She worked very hard to earn a degree in medicine; she is board certified; and she CLEARLY knows a hell of a lot more about medicine than Davidson does. Please show some respect, Joel. Especially if you actually do care about “high standards of journalism”.
Secondly, how AWFUL it is that a woman who is an expert in women’s health actually covers women’s health concerns! Joel, as a father of eight, it appears that you have been sticking your penis somewhere. I don’t know a thing about you, but I gather those eight kids were not adopted. If they weren’t adopted, then you and a female must have engaged in some sort of normal biological activity to make those kids, right? What is wrong with teaching young people how all of that works? Perhaps if more adolescents knew the facts about sex, there might be less of a demand for abortions, or teenagers becoming parents before they’re really ready for the job.
Davidson also clearly likes the new law in Texas. He writes:
Other videos by Jones, which are not part of the Fairbanks curriculum, blast Texas’ new pro-life law banning abortion once a heartbeat is detected. Other videos celebrate transgenderism and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Dr. Danielle Jones correctly “blasts” Texas’ new “pro-life law banning abortion once a heartbeat is detected” because it’s a DANGEROUS, creepy, and unconstitutional law. And if you listen to Dr. Jones explain just WHY that law is so dangerous, and consider that it will negatively affect so many women who legitimately need to be able to safely terminate their pregnancies, you might have more of an understanding why that law is wrong and needs to be struck from the books. Moreover, a woman’s need to have an abortion should be no one else’s business, particularly since no one seems interested in helping to make having and raising children feasible and affordable. There certainly doesn’t seem to be much of an emphasis on preventing pregnancies by making contraception affordable and available, and teaching young people about how babies are made.
As for the rest of that comment… I can’t even. I get that some people can’t wrap their heads around transgenderism and want to mock things they either can’t or won’t try to understand. I just think it’s very sad that so many of them call themselves Christians, but lack the ability to be kind and empathetic, as Christ was. And it’s even sadder that someone who calls himself a journalist and is, in fact, “editor-in-chief” of the Alaska Watchman, is pushing this bullshit and calling it news, when it’s clearly very biased and sometimes outright false information.
I will admit, I’m biased too, but the difference is, I freely state that this is clearly a personal blog, not a newspaper, and I am not a journalist, nor do I play one on TV. People who regularly read my blog– and there aren’t really so many– shouldn’t come here expecting to read news. No one pays to read my content– although apparently, the Alaska Watchman is a “free” paper. I still bet some people expect to read news on the Alaska Watchman, even though it appears to me to be a glorified blog.
Davidson then goes on to write:
A separate video for high schoolers attempts to convince teens that the Plan B (or Morning After Pill) does not cause abortions. The speaker repeatedly emphasizes that this drug “does not cause an abortion.”
According to the product label attached to Plan B, it can, in fact serve as an abortifacient by preventing “attachment of a fertilized egg to the uterus (womb).” Since a “fertilized egg” is in fact the earliest stage of human life, Plan B can kill this life by blocking access to the womb, which is necessary for nutrition and continued development.
As Dr. Jones points out in the above video, if there is no pregnancy, there is no abortion. What Plan B does is prevent pregnancy from happening by preventing a fertilized egg from implantation. It does not terminate an existing pregnancy. Since Plan B does not cause abortion, it cannot legitimately be called an “abortifacient”. And Joel Davidson should NOT be making false statements, especially when he clearly has zero experience or training in medicine or women’s healthcare, nor does he even have the physical body parts that women have. What does Joel Davidson know about the care of a vagina or handling a menstrual period? I don’t even think Mr. Davidson is a very skilled journalist. I certainly would not go to him for his opinions on women’s healthcare!
Having read both of these articles written by Joel Davidson, I’m left with the idea that people in Fairbanks, Alaska are not very bright, although I’m sure that’s not actually the case. He quotes a North Pole woman as saying Mama Doctor Joneses’s content is “basically porn”. I’ve seen some porn in my day, and I want to tell that person that if she thinks Dr. Jones’s content is pornographic, she obviously doesn’t get out much and hasn’t seen anything that is actually pornographic. According to Davidson, she continues with:
“It just does not belong in the school,” she said. “We’re not allowed to talk about religion or church or anything in schools and yet we’re going to bring this disgusting material to our children?”
“Disgusting material”? You mean material that teaches people about how babies are made, how they develop, and how sex– which is among the most basic and normal of acts– can be experienced without shame, humiliation, or embarrassment? If anything, I would say promoting specific religions and churches in public schools, which are supported by TAXPAYERS of all faiths or lack thereof, is a disgusting thing to do. Particularly since so many people have been abused and damaged by religion. Look at how many people have DIED or been abused due to religious beliefs. You don’t even have to think for very long. Just look at the Holocaust. But I’ll bet they don’t teach much about that in Alaska, either.
As for the allegations of “porn” on Mama Doctor Joneses’ channel, YouTube is pretty strict about what they allow to be posted, particularly on monetized content. For instance, I’ve noticed that a lot of content creators don’t use words or phrases like “porn”, “rape”, or “child sexual abuse”, probably because those words trigger YouTube’s algorithms and affect advertising revenue. So, instead of outright saying “child pornography” or “child sexual abuse” or similar things, content creators say “CP” or “CSAM”. Personally, I think that’s a very stupid practice, since we all know what those things are, and using the letters does not, and really should not, diminish the horror of them.
Dr. Danielle Jones makes content about women’s health and sexuality, so of course she’s going to be talking about sex. And the content she creates is factual and useful, but it’s also monetized, so there’s only so much she can say that isn’t “PG-rated”. Her content is certainly not porn. But I’m sure Mr. Davidson and his rightwing nutjob friends are big fans of Donald Trump, who is a big fan of sexually abusing women and has even outright stated it. The hypocrisy is astounding!
As a 49 year old cisgender woman who has not had children, but does have master’s degrees in social work and public health, and has worked in a rural healthcare setting with young people, I applaud Mama Doctor Jones for what she’s doing. I grew up in a rural county in Virginia, with parents who never talked to me about sex. I got my “education” from HBO, the neighborhood pervert who showed me men’s magazines (and voted Republican), and Coach Todd, the former pro football player who taught about health subjects between telling us lurid stories about his days in Vietnam.
Don’t get me wrong. I LOVED Coach Todd’s surprisingly hilarious war stories, but they didn’t exactly prepare me for womanhood. I was fortunate enough to have parents who, despite being conservative and not talking to me about sex, were not opposed to letting me read whatever I wanted. So I was allowed to explore topics like sex education and sexual assault on my own, and somehow, I managed to marry my husband without a long history of sexual partners or the consequences that can come from having sex before I was ready. Not that I think having sex outside of marriage is necessarily wrong. The choice to have sex is simply a decision that should be made by mature people who are prepared to make it, and fully understand what results could come as a result of making that decision.
So many young people do not have the luxury of being able to learn what they really need to know. I know, from having been a social worker, that a lot of young people wind up getting pregnant, suffering from sexually transmissible infections, or being victimized in sexual assaults, because they have not been taught what they NEED to know. And if parents can’t or won’t teach their kids, the SCHOOLS must! Ignorance about these issues can and does lead to tragedies. Look at all of the brilliant young people who do not identify as straight who have suffered or even died because they had no one safe to talk to about these issues. Some of those kids who died too young were pointed toward “religion and church” for “help”, only to be told that their sexual orientations were “sinful” and wrong. I, for one, am GLAD Dr. Jones is willing to talk about transgender issues and other topics on YouTube that make people like April Smith and her ilk clutch their pearls. Maybe if more people talked about these topics in a non-judgmental way, there would be less suicide.
As to whether or not the Mama Doctor Jones YouTube channel is appropriate supplemental content for a school sex ed program, that’s a matter of opinion. Davidson may even be correct that Fairbanks educators acted illegally when they pointed to Dr. Jones’ videos as supplemental sex ed materials. However, that’s an issue that should have been discussed without dragging Dr. Danielle Jones and her Mama Doctor Jones channel through the mud. She had nothing to do with her channel being suggested as supplemental sex ed materials for kids, nor was she even aware that it had been recommended until one of her followers pointed it out to her. The fact is, Dr. Jones’ channel is outstanding, and I think it is a marvelous resource for the general public, even if some parents disapprove of the content.
I can tell by Mr. Davidson’s commentary that he’s conservative and pro-life. Well, if you’re pro-life, Mr. Davidson, you should be in favor of teaching young people the facts about sex. You should be for informing young people, so that they don’t fall prey to mental health issues that drive them to suicide. They should be learning how pregnancy works, what causes it, how to avoid getting pregnant until the time is right, and what is or is not normal in their own bodies. Young people are often afraid to talk to their parents about sex, but they badly need that information. And it’s pretty clear to me that a lot of the people in Fairbanks are not doing the job. I’m glad there there are people around like Dr. Danielle Jones and Dr. Jen Gunter (another OB-GYN who also puts out excellent content) to teach young people what educators can’t or won’t, thanks to conservative school boards who are “out to lunch” and think sex ed is akin to porn.
You should also watch Dr. Jen Gunter’s videos. She is awesome!
Besides helping young people avoid pregnancy, sex education also helps to prevent sexual assaults. Sexual assaults can lead to unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, abortions, and suicide. Seems to me that pro-lifers should be doing what they can to prevent sexual assaults in the form of teaching young people about sex. According to SIECUS, sexual assault is also a big problem up there in Alaska:
Half of all Alaskan women have experienced sexual assault in their lifetime and Alaska Native women experience sexual and relationship violence at even higher rates. While the Cook Inlet Tribal Council has received funding to adapt the Native Stand curriculum for Alaskan youth, it is not available statewide. Advocates report that ensuring sex education is culturally responsive to the needs of native young people, and includes instruction on healthy relationships and consent, is critical.
If you really care about young people, Joel Davidson, you should be grateful to the qualified physicians who are able and willing to share their expertise with the public. And, in the interest of promoting “excellent journalism”, you should stop spreading your ill-informed opinions about women’s health, a subject about which you clearly know very little. I, for one, applaud the school officials in Alaska who recognize the value of Dr. Jones’ content. Bravo to them. And shame on MALES who want to keep women ignorant and subservient. They all obviously need to go back to school– preferably in a school district where high quality sex ed is taught.
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