Regression of Rights

This is a column of mine that was published in UMass-Amherst's newspaper the Daily Collegian in April 2007. The published version of the story can be found here.


Purity Balls, a fairly new phenomena in the evangelical community, take the term "daddy's little girl" a little too literally. The ball is a practice in which fathers vow to protect their daughters' virginity until the day they hand her over to her husband on her wedding day.

With the time, money and effort put into the ornate décor of the ballroom, it could easily be mistaken for a high school prom except the girls are escorted by their fathers rather than teenage boys. The girls dress up in princess-like outfits including satin gloves that go up to their elbows. Their hair is pinned up in intricate up-dos with a few curls loose and a tiara holding the ensemble together.

If you are to wander onto the Web site of the founders' of this event, you will see a video of delicate looking ballerinas prancing around in angelic tutus around a giant cross while the fathers watch from the side. Images of girls doing the tango and being spun and dipped by their fathers also appear in the video.

The evening begins with the host of the event shouting "Are you ready to war for your daughter's purity?" to the men in the crowd. During the ceremony the fathers and daughters sign a contract that starts off "I (daughter's name)'s father choose before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity."

This tradition was started in Colorado about nine years ago, and a few other states - mostly in the conservative south - have started to host these ceremonies. This summer, these Purity Balls will spread their Victorian-age venom all the way to the northeast. In June, New York City will hold its first annual Purity Ball.

Though the intentions of fatherly love are a bit endearing, a large portion of the girls who participate in these Purity balls are barely old enough to understand what sex is. Therefore, they are in no way ready to agree to something they do not comprehend. Their fathers have got their morals completely warped. While they are trying to prevent young men from taking advantage of their daughters' bodies, these dads are doing the same to their daughter's underdeveloped minds. The fathers use the fact that if given a pretty dress, a crown and a night to be treated like a princess, a little girl will agree to anything as bait for girls to go along with the agreement. These men are not realizing a girl's sex life is personal - to have those rights as a sexual being taken away from her at a vulnerable age is an utter disgrace.

Teaching young girls to make wise decisions sexually is one thing, but to hold a ceremony where she signs off her sexual choices as a woman for her father to decide reeks of oppression. It's understandable that it's a masculine urge for a dad to want to shelter his daughter from the cruel intentions of boys, but to completely strip away a freedom women in the United States are fortunate enough to have is pure discrimination.

The followers of these pledges believe this is a way for girls to have more self respect for themselves than girls who go sleeping around. However, a girl who agrees to the pledge could possibly grow up thinking she is to have no sexual desires at all. It implies that her husband has full control of her sexual urges and she is to only participate in sexual relations under her husband's will. Her life as a sexual being will be protected by her father as a girl and then owned by her husband when she weds. How is this self-respect?

This Puritan-like practice is a punch in the stomach to all the women warriors who have made their lives into a mission for us to have as many equal rights as possible. It's a stumble backward in the progress that has been made for in the area of women's rights. This does not mean a woman who wants to save herself for her husband on her wedding night should be looked down upon - as long as the decision is something she truly feels strongly about. One she is choosing on her own.

What these fathers do not realize is that not only are they putting restrictions on their daughters' sex lives but her role in society in general. A father who makes this vow to keep his daughter pure wants his daughter to grow up to be a strong-willed and independent woman. How can she believe this if one of the most important decisions for her body as a woman is not hers to make?