Choosing the Best: A Rhetorical Analysis and Discussion of an Abstinence-Centered Sexuality Education Curriculum
This rhetorical analysis examines Choosing the Best Journey, a Choosing the Best, LLC student manual targeted at ninth and tenth grade students, and testimonials from the company’s website to provide insight about the ways in which the company’s curricula position women. In what way does this content position women in relation to men? Does the curriculum position women as those who both hold the responsibility for preventing and bearing the burden of premarital sexual activity? In what ways does this content work to reinforce gender stereotypes? By answering these questions, I am able to determine whether the curriculum works to uphold white, patriarchal power structures in an effort to encourage students to remain abstinent until marriage.
abstinence, rhetorical analysis, abstinence-centered sexuality education, Choosing the Best, gender stereotypes, patriarchy, Gender and Sexuality, Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication, Speech and Rhetorical Studies
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations