Sluts talk back

Priceless: The Colorado state rep who called teenage mothers “sluts” and urged that they be shamed and sent away was forced to eat crow at a school for teen mothers (thanks to Feministing for flagging it). When he visited the Florence Crittenton School, Larry Liston actually apologized to the students, saying, “I uttered a word which I regret and I apologized for. It's a word I don't use. Scout's honor. I never use it"—uh, yeah, except for that very public time he did use it.

Not sure if this means he’ll change any of his policy positions, but still.

Ironically, the Florence Crittenton Association originally provided homes for “fallen” and “wayward” women—i.e. unwed and pregnant—and, especially during the ‘40s through the ‘60’s these homes were among the places where “girls who went away” were sent to hide their shame (and their families’) and then give up their babies for adoption (exactly what Liston seemed to be advocating in his original speech). By the early ‘70s, thanks to the women’s movement, Roe, and the rising acceptance of unwed motherhood, the demand for these homes had largely evaporated, and they began closing or being transformed into schools like the one Liston visited. I love it that girls at a Crittenton school faced Liston down—poetic justice. Some things really do progress.

(Although about some things we still have trouble being honest: If you google Florence Crittenton, you’ll find plenty of info on the history of their homes, but nothing noting that girls there were pushed to give up their babies in circumstances when they had little opportunity to refuse. I know this only because of reading “The Girls Who Went Away.”)