Film

In this video adaptation of 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 are too important to be left to ideologues bent on vilifying feminism and undermining women’s autonomy.

“Jessica Valenti makes a thoughtful and compelling case that virginity ideology has a racist and classist agenda. Moreover it is being used by politicians and forces in our society who are actively working to rescind women’s reproductive rights and limit women’s political agency. Valenti also shows clearly how abstinence-only education serves this agenda, and as a purely ideological tool perpetrates a fraud against the American taxpayer and only hurts generations of our teens and young people. Valenti is among the most clear-sighted of young feminist thinkers in the USA.”
- Amada Sandoval, Director of the Women’s Center at Princeton University

For more praise and information on how to buy the film, visit the Media Education Foundation.