What has been proven, time and time again, is that abstinence-based sex education is ineffective. The reason is simple. People have sex. And I’m going to say something truly shocking to everyone: teenagers have sex, too. While this may affront our Puritan sensibilities, what should shock us is that teens are having sex without the necessary information to protect themselves, prevent unwanted pregnancy, and feel respected and safe at all times. Furthermore, the scare-tactics used in abstinence-based sex education are making teens too afraid to ask appropriate questions about sex— something that perpetuates the ignorance that leads to high-risk behavior.

The U.S. Department of Defense has announced 14,000 new jobs and assignments for women in the military. According to a statement, the DOD based its decision in part on recent findings from the Military Leadership Diversity Commission. The department also issued a new "vision statement" in a report detailing the changes: The Department of Defense is committed to removing all barriers that would prevent service members from rising to the highest level of responsibility that their talents and capabilities warrant.”

A new survey conducted by the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation paints "a complex portrait...of black women who feel confident but vulnerable, who have high self-esteem and see physical beauty as important, who find career success more vital to them than marriage," according to the paper. The survey of 800 black American women is described as "the most extensive exploration of the lives and views of African American women in decades."

The LA Times' Catherine Saillant writes about an "unusual" job that a group of Navy Seabees undertook in Afghanistan recently. "First, the team selected to build barracks high in the mountains of Afghanistan consisted of eight women, who are all stationed at Naval Base Ventura County," she writes. "And second, the women completed the job far ahead of schedule." Furthermore, the job was the first start-to-finish project finished entirely by women in the Seabees' 70-year history.

The Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania, has taken issue with the fact that former U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Margolies was asked to speak at the University of Scranton because of Margolies' views on abortion (she is pro-choice). As the Times Leader reports, Margolies "intends to stick to the topic [of women holding elected office] when she speaks at the University of Scranton later this month." Still, Bishop Joseph C. Bambera asked for her invitation to be rescinded -- a request that university president Rev. Kevin P. Quinn denied.

This infographic (after the jump) from Bolt Insurance Company asserts that women -- particularly women small business owners -- are America's new job creators. Women-owned businesses account for nearly $3 trillion in total economic impact, and at least 7.8 million businesses, or almost 30% of non-farm businesses, were majority owned by women in 2007, according to the infographic.

Have you heard of the "political gender gap"? In this case, I'm not talking about the number of men and women in elected office (although that is a big issue as well); I'm talking about how men and women act at the voting booth. In a piece published earlier this week in Slate, Libby Copeland notes that "The gender gap—the difference between how men and women vote—represents on average a seven point gulf between the sexes during presidential elections." Why is that? In part because women's political views tend to remain stable, while men's political views seem to shift more dramatically.

California Gov. Jerry Brown is considering granting clemency to Shirley Ree Smith, a grandmother convicted in 1997 of shaking to death her 7-week-old grandson, Etzel Glass. Sentenced to 15 years to life in prison, Smith insists she's innocent. Prosecutors built their case against Smith almost entirely on the findings of forensic pathologists at the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner. During an autopsy, doctors discovered a small amount of bleeding on the infant's brain and in his optic nerves. Based on this bleeding, the forensic pathologists concluded that somebody had violently shaken Etzel's body, killing him. They ruled the death a homicide. Others, however, aren't so sure.

Just before the new year, distraught father Ray Wilson posted a video asking people online to help him find his daughter Haley Faith Wilson, who had run away from home. The video was posted on Reddit and quickly spread, with other strangers soon making their own videos to help find Haley. Watch Wilson's video after the jump.

A new report from the Pew Research Center finds that women who serve in the U.S. military differ from their male counterparts in some ways, but not in others. Compared to military men, a greater share of women in the military are African-American and a smaller share married. Meanwhile, women in the military are as likely as their male counterparts to be officers and to experiemce similar struggles and rewards as veterans. Written by Eileen Patten and Kim Parker, the report also found that the number of women in the military has grown seven-fold since the early 1970s, from 2% to 14%.

A legal battle is underway over an East Texas teenager whose softball coaches outed her as gay to her parents before, allegedly in violation of her privacy rights. Skye Wyatt, the 16-year-old sophomore at Kilgore High School, was also kicked off the team. The incident caused her to become "depressed and anxious," reports Dallas Voice's John Wright. For their part, "the defendants allege that Skye Wyatt had been openly gay for several years and never attempted to keep her sexuality secret."

"Both surfing and science are historically male-dominated scenes," writes Marissa Fessenden in the Mercury News. But a number of surfer-scientist women are bucking stereotypes while pursuing careers in the marine sciences. Tanya Novak, a graduate student in physical oceanography at Cal State Monterey Bay, recall starting out as a marine sciences researcher. "I felt like I was representing all women," she said. "I thought, I better be able to 'man-up' to these physical requirements."

Micah Zenko, a Fellow for Conflict Prevention at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes about the recently-released U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security. He notes, "The Obama administration should be congratulated for recognizing the essential role that women play across the broad spectrum of peace and security issues, and for producing a long overdue NAP that clearly articulates a strategy for translating this rhetorical vision into practice." However, he notes his disappointment that the plan does not address gender inequality within the U.S. government itself.

Reed v Reed is a U.S. Supreme Court case many have never heard of. Yet, it triggered the landmark 1971 decision that declared it unconstitutional to discriminate against a woman solely because of her gender. In the wake of that historic ruling, hundreds of laws were changed, giving women - and men - unprecedented rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Sally Reed, a divorced, single mother, started it all when she challenged an Idaho state law which prohibited her from administering her dead son’s estate because she was a woman.

Roller derby was once a popular sport for men and women in the United States until it fizzled out a few decades ago. Then, about ten years ago, it was revived in Austin, Texas, as an amateur sport for women. Since then, it has spread all over the U.S.