MICHEL MARTIN, host:
I'm Michel Martin, and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News.
Just ahead, when family members do day care - it may be free, but are there other costs? The Mocha Moms share their thoughts. That's next.
But first, we're going to continue our back-to-school conversations with a word about sex on campus. We all know that college costs seem to rise every year. And on top of this, many young women are returning to campus this year to another high-priced commodity: birth control.
For years, birth control was available at most school clinics for just a few bucks a month. But a federal law passed in 2005 inadvertently made it more expensive for drug makers to offer discounts to schools. And the consequence is that some students are now paying as much as 25 or even $50 a pack at some campuses. Well, what difference does it make, you ask?
Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell was asking that question. And in a recent op-ed, she worried that some young women aren't making this a priority. She's going to join us to talk about her op-ed from NPR's Chicago bureau. And we're also joined by Washington Post writer Laura Sessions Stepp. She's the author of "Unhooked: Young Women Pursue Sex, Delayed Love, and Lose at Both." And she's with us in our Washington studio.
Welcome.
Ms. LAURA SESSIONS STEPP (Writer, Washington Post; Author, "Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, and Lose at Both"): Thank you very much.
Ms. MARY MITCHELL (Columnist, Chicago Sun-Times): Thank you.
MARTIN: Hi, Mary. Mary, yeah, now, let's begin with you. In your op-ed, you talk about a young woman who was featured in an article who is pregnant. And she says she got pregnant largely because she couldn't afford birth control. And here's what you wrote. You said, did it ever occur to Elizabeth Harris, the young woman who appeared on page eight in the Chicago Sun-Times, that maybe she should have gotten rid of her cell phone instead of stopping her birth control pills?
So Mary, I just want to ask. Do you think this is just her, or do you really think that there's some broader issue here, where young women are not taking this seriously?
Ms. MITCHELL: I think there is a broader issue, and I was very disappointed on two fronts. One, because, again, it was a negative portrayal of young African-American women in major media. She looked addled, as if she didn't what was going on. She was - she looked immature. We're talking about a junior in college who told a reporter that she had to postpone going to Costa Rica for a study program because she had gotten pregnant because she didn't - she couldn't afford to buy birth control pills. And she was - she allowed herself to be photographed with a cell phone, a really nice dress on, and outlining her pregnant belly as if this is the government's fault that she did not take birth control.
Now, the other thing, ever though birth control - we're talking about birth control pills. The reality of the situation is how long have we been saying that African-American women, particularly, have to take better care of their sexual health because of HIV/AIDS? So not only is she saying that, you know, she chose the cell phone over the birth control pills, but she's saying that they don't use condoms because, well, it takes away the spontaneity.
So I think that maybe there are women out there like this, young women who think this way. But I just don't believe she's representative of the majority of African-American women on campuses. I think they're smarter than that.
MARTIN: Okay. So you're (unintelligible) times, but…
Ms. MITCHELL: Yeah. I just thought there was a negative portrayal.
MARTIN Okay. But what about the bigger issue? Laura Sessions Stepp, why don't you take this question? Because interviewed hundreds of young women for your book about sex on campus and about what young women think about sex on campus and how they approach it. And a pretty controversial book as it were, because some people can accuse you of being sort of puritan about it. But what do you think about the issue, first of all? Do you think that this is indicative of a broader issue, a sort of a cavalier attitude?
Ms. STEPP: I think they're a couple of things. I think that young women have been brought up to think of sex as mechanics. In other words, that's what they get in school in sex education. They get here's how you do it. Here's how you prevent it. We don't talk to them about - we don't relate that to the meaning of sex. Here's when you do it. Here's how - the kind of response - the kind of relationship you should be in. Largely because of federal restrictions, sex ed teachers are essentially prohibited from tying sex to love. So sex is virtually taught as a meaningless sort of thing that you do because…
MARTIN: It's mechanical.
Ms. STEPP: It's just mechanical. And condoms and patches and birth control pills are all part of that mechanical thing. So we have divorced any sort of meaning for these kids. We have divorced any kind of meaning from the mechanics of sex.
So, yeah, the patch, the pill, they don't have as much meaning as they should. And I think the real question is shouldn't we have better sex education? Shouldn't parents be talking more to their kids about tying, what does it mean to take a pill or a patch? It's not just because you can't get pregnant. It's also when do you do it, and with whom?
And, in fact, the data show, that if you - young women in committed relationships are more likely to use protection and more likely to see its importance than those who are not.
MARTIN: Briefly, I want to get back to Mary. But Laura, did your research -because you interviewed young women of all backgrounds. Did you observe any cultural differences among girls or racial differences and how they viewed this question of sex in relationship to values?
Ms. STEPP: I think the cavalier attitude that Mary talks about is pretty much across the board. And that's a real unfortunate thing, and she brings that up, and I think - and it's a good thing to bring up. But, again, I think that we also need to talk about the broader implications of this, particularly for lower-income African-American girls who may be going to community college or maybe can't afford to go to Costa Rica. I mean, we're talking huge increases in prices here. And condoms just aren't going to do it. Condoms are only 90 percent effective. So that means 10 percent of the time, the girl's going to get pregnant. Do we want to see more pregnancies, and, in fact, more STDs as well?
MARTIN: Mary, what reaction did you get to your piece?
Ms. MITCHELL: Well, first of all, the biggest reaction was, oh, you didn't mention abstinence. You didn't tell young women that they should not be having sex, period, that they have another choice here, that they didn't have to have sex. And it's been a long time, I admit, that my hormones have been raging, but I do know, I do know that telling young women that they just shouldn't do it is not going to work. You can't say just say no. But there is another issue here. And that's the double message we're sending out.
On one hand, we're saying that these young women should use condoms to protect themselves from STDs and from HIV/AIDS, particularly the African-American women because we know there's an alarming rate of HIV/AIDS. And then on the other hand, we're saying when a story like this comes up, that they're not, you know, a hundred percent effective. What is a hundred percent effective? You know, I've known people who got pregnant on birth control pills. But what we're trying to tell them and what we want them to understand - and this is so very important - that choice means you have choices in life. And they can make a better choice than these women are making.
MARTIN: Okay. That's an important topic. And I think we should return to it, and soon. Thank you, Mary Mitchell.
Ms. MITCHELL: Thank you.
MARTIN: Chicago Sun-Times writer Mary Mitchell joined us from our NPR bureau in Chicago. We're also joined by Laura Sessions Stepp. She's a Washington Post writer and author of the book "Unhooked: Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, and Lose at Both." She was here with us in Washington. And we also should have a conversation including some of these young women. That's something we should do soon.
Thank you both, ladies.
Ms. MITCHELL: Thank you.
Ms. STEPP: Thanks very much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.