The XX Factor: What women really think.

Bristol, the Poster Child?

Jessica, I don't think we're quite "piling on" Bristol Palin for either her interview or her teen pregnancy, but I do see quite a difference between Bristol and Rachael's examples of Lauren B. and Amy Richards. Lauren B. is a writer and Richards is an abortion rights advocate, and they both decided to make their stories public. Bristol, on the other hand, was thrust into the spotlight—had her mother not been running for vice president, the news that the governor of a noncontiguous state had a pregnant 17-year-old daughter likely would have escaped notice altogether or been acknowledged only in short news items. Bristol chose to do this interview, but she didn't choose to become a poster child for teen momhood in the first place. I applaud Richards and Lauren for frankly discussing their experiences with abortion, but, as I'm sure they would both agree, they offered themselves up for discussion and criticism—two things Bristol has certainly been subjected to without having the same opportunity to tell her story herself first.

I don't know what her primary motivation for the interview was—to fight misconceptions about being an uneducated high-school dropout, to piss off her mother, or to warn other girls against unprotected sex (her "abstinence or whatever" comment seemed to me like a veiled attempt to advocate for contraception without speaking the words). Perhaps she merely wanted an excuse to put on makeup and do something a little exciting after six weeks of mothering a newborn.