Gender Differences in Sex Education Received by Adolescents in China and the United States

Abstract

Sex education provides teenagers with healthy and comprehensive knowledge about sexual lives. As new adult Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infections and adolescent pregnancies have become serious problems, some countries have begun to attach importance to sex education. For teenagers, different genders have different physiological structures and sexual maturity ages, which may lead to differences in the content of sex education. This paper aimed to review the gender equality of sex education in different countries, taking China and the United States as examples. In China, due to the traditional Confucianism culture, females' attitudes towards sex education have shown an implicit tendency, which is opposite from males' attitudes. In addition, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBTQ+) people are not acknowledged by law in China, which is the reason why sex education towards this community shows obvious deficiency. In the United States, there are two major policies, Abstinence-Only Education (AOE) and Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE). Gender-stereotyped content has been found in AOE, in which teaches boys and girls to play different roles in a sexual relationship. Also, AOE is still based on heterosexual relationships and neglects the LGBTQ+ community, while CSE takes these into consideration. Sex education for different genders in CSE is relatively equal, while in AOE it still has a long way to go.