Screening: “Purity Myth”

In this video adaptation of her best-selling book, pioneering feminist blogger Jessica Valenti trains her sights on “the virginity movement”—an unholy alliance of evangelical Christians, right-wing politicians and conservative policy intellectuals who have been exploiting irrational fears about women’s sexuality to roll back women’s rights. From dad-and-daughter purity balls, taxpayer-funded abstinence-only curricula and political attacks on Planned Parenthood to recent attempts by legislators to de-fund women’s reproductive health care and narrow the legal definition of rape, Valenti identifies a single, unifying assumption: the myth that the worth of a woman depends on what she does—or does not do—sexually. In the end, Valenti argues that the health and well-being of women is too important to be left to ideologues bent on vilifying feminism and undermining women’s autonomy.

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