The trials and tribulations of being a teenage girl

Speaking as a former teenage girl, I’m beginning to think society, the media, and the world hates adolescent girls.  Crap is marketed to them (Miley Cyrus, Twilight, the Jonas Brothers, Emo); they’re abused (Precious); they’re coveted by dirty old men (Lolita, Britney Spears); and when they’re not having heart palpitations over Robert Pattinson, they’re taking over college campuses and creating a boy crisis in education, because as you know, if girls succeed boys must fail.  And now the latest in teenage girl hateorade:  Lifetime network’s “The Pregnancy Pact.”

Aside from the Raspberry Award worthy acting and the fact that I lost two hours of my life by watching it, “The Pregnancy Pact” is rife with teenage girls who are silly, naive liars trying to trap their boyfriends by getting pregnant.  Oh yeah, and in a lame-o plot twist we find out that the liberal blogger (Thora Birch) who goes back to her highschool to document the spike in teen pregnancies lied to her super-sweet ex-boyfriend about having an abortion.  That bitch!  Lifetime even took some creative license (if you can call it that) and changed the facts on which the movie was based.  In reality, the Gloucester, MA girls did not have a pact to get pregnant.  The pregnancies were a coincidence.  Way to go Lifetime!  Is this television for women or television for brain-dead women? 

Admittedly, I sometimes ironically watch Lifetime for the pregnant-teen movies because nothing is funnier than a bad movie, but I’m confused as to why a network that purports to care about girls, their bodies, and their choices constantly depicts them as the last girl on earth you’d want for a best friend.  I wholeheartedly support movies that are meant to spark serious debate about teen pregnancy, contraception, abortion, and teen-parent communication, but please, please make the movie good, honest, and a little bit more nuanced.  I’d like to see a movie that is not the pregnancy-for-plot-advancement of “Juno” or the hilarity of peter pans becoming men in  “Knocked Up.”  

Considering the latest news about the increase in teen pregnancies we need to come up with a better way to talk to kids about sex and baby-making that goes beyond Sarah and Bristol Palin hawking abstinence on the cover of In Touch, distributing condoms, or locking girls in their bedrooms until they’re 70.  I suspect a real solution would mean abandoning ideology and working together to teach all girls and boys that there’s more to life than sex–you know, like having a future that can be filled with education, careers, love, and yes, children.