I have mixed feelings about Gaby Rodriguez, the 17 year old senior from Washington state who revealed that her "supposed" pregnancy was in fact a school project. Gaby came up with the idea to fake her pregnancy in order to study stereotypes, rumors and statistics. Rodriguez is a straight A student and came up with the idea herself in order to experience first hand the type of reaction and critique teen mothers are faced with.
The population of Rodriguez's town is about 75 percent Hispanic. The student body at Toppenish High School is 85 percent Hispanic. Her experiment is significant in the realities of this situation.
Nationally, teen pregnancy rates have been steadily declining for years. However, Latinas have the highest teen pregnancy and birth rate among any major racial or ethnic minority.
About 51 percent of Latina teens will become pregnant by age 20, compared with about 30 percent of teens overall, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
In her schools assembly last week she had students read out comments that she had carefully recorded during her 6 months of faux pregnancy. One such comment included “Her attitude is changing, and it might be because of the baby or she was always this annoying and I never realized it.” Woah, these comments weren't necessarily said to her face but if you can remember high school, you find out about what people say about you in all sorts of ways.
Rodriguez herself stated, "A lot of rumors were just that I was irresponsible. No college...it was bound to happen. I knew she would get pregnant. Doesn't she know she just ruined her life," she said.
I get that Rodriguez wanted to gauge reactions to the fact that even though she was a straight A student and seemingly well liked, the news of her pregnancy brought about the same remarks and stereotypes as if she were a C student who engaged in any number of reckless behaviors. I mean, I think that is the point. On one hand you realize that stereotyping exists (not surprising) and on the other, that teens who become pregnant have a lot of shit talked about them. Do I think that teen mother's should be shunned or shipped off? Of course not. I think we should focus on methods to prevent pregnancy, but that isn't 100% realistic nor do those methods work 100% of the time.
None of the stories I found said anything about how her boyfriend (the father I assume?) was treated or if he found the same type of gossip and rumors being spread about him. I feel like that is way more telling in terms of stereotyping then people treating a pregnant teenager poorly.
Society never wants to see a teenager pregnant. Girls were sent away to "special" schools to give birth in secret not all that long ago. Pregnancy isn't contagious but viewing teen mothers to be is distasteful. I absolutely cannot watch any of the shows on television about pregnant teenagers. Sure, we shouldn't sweep the issue under the rug but why should we draw entertainment value out of it? Obviously you can't be on a teen mom show without becoming a teen mom. Over and over in these televised situations you view the disillusioned young women do the best she can with pregnancy, clinging on to young relationships with the fathers only to find that once junior comes along, daddy wants to be out with his friends playing basketball like a normal teenager and you are now spending your afternoons figuring out how to use a breast pump.
I give Gaby Rodriguez an A for creativity and execution and I honestly think it is an interesting hoax. However, I don't see why pretending to be a teen mom and hearing awful things about the way people feel about you proves anything about stereotypes and it's obvious that teenage moms remains a taboo issue. Whether you're confused or laud Rodriguez for her project, I guess we are having a conversation about teen motherhood, right? I just don't quite see what it is that we're saying about it
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