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Feminist Activism in Girls and Young Women: Students Teaching, Students

Learning

Moderator: Mary P. Sheridan-Rabideau

Abstract: Various facets of feminist activism in high school girls and college womenwill be discussed: how to inspire activism, how activism can be used as a pedagogical

technique, how students can become activist leaders contributing to the cycle of teaching

and learning and improve womens lives through meaningful service withincommunities.

Teaching Resistance: Inspiring Feminist Identification through Service-Learning,

Jennifer L. Martin

Female high school students participating in a womens studies course at an at-

risk alternative high school were given the opportunity to design a variety of feminist

service-learning projects to benefit other women in the community throughout the

semester. These young women were hesitant to self-identify as feminists prior to theseexperiences, despite the fact that they personally held goals similar to those of the

feminist movement. Results revealed that these projects facilitated feminist identificationand activism and strengthened the bonds between females in the school.

Girls and Zines: Using Literacy Work to Promote Activism and Feminism, Rebekah

Buchanan

The purpose of this paper is to define how paper-based zines are used as a literacy

practice that enables the girls who participate in the subculture to create, define and

construct meaning in the day-to-day practices of their everyday lives, as well as use

writing to define and explore identity(ies). It also explores how the ritual of writing as a

form of identity work is the basis for deeper examination into self. The primary focushere is on how this identity is formed and constructed in relation to feminism and

activism. Girls use zines as a writing site of counter-cultural pedagogy. This moves girls

to the space of cultural producers working to revise what it means to be a girl in late

modernity. Through ethnographic research, this paper addresses how young zinestersbecome feminist activists.

We Are the Present, Not Just the Future: Teenage Girl Activists Claiming Political

Authority in the Americas, Jessica Karen Taft

Teenage girl activists are engaged in a variety of struggles for social change.

Rejecting youth development paradigms that emphasize only their future contributions to

society, they claim space for themselves as legitimate social and political agents ofchange in the present. This presentation draws upon participant observation and

interviews with teenage girl activists in Mexico City, Caracas, Buenos Aires, Vancouver

and the San Francisco Bay Area in order to outline some of the ways that these youngwomen construct themselves as important contributors to social movements and social

change.

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Rape Prevention Education: One Size does not Fit All, Cierra Olivia Thomas-

Williams & Chris Martin

Federally funded rape prevention education always takes the form of abstinenceinstruction, which treats rape as a sexually transmitted disease. This presentation will

explain Project HOW (Healthy Outlooks for Women), a feminist activist rape prevention

program created by the presenters, attempts to find a cure for rampant sexual violence inthe U.S. Through student led organizing and implementation of activist ventures and

weekly meetings, students experienced long term and lasting effects of applied feminist

theory such as accessing the strength to report sexual crimes and self directed rapeprevention education through internet blogging.

Contact Information:

Moderator: Mary P. Sheridan Rabideau

mpsr@rci.rutgers.edu

Jennifer MartinTinkham Alt. HS

Oakland UniversityJenm999@twmi.rr.com

313.779.7138

Rebekah Buchanan

Temple University

421 West George Street

Philadelphia, PA 19122

rebekahb@temple.edu

215-833-7319

Jessica Karen Taft

Doctoral Candidate

Department of SociologyUC-Santa Barbara

jesstaft@hotmail.com

Cierra Olivia Thomas-Williams

cthomasw@indiana.edu

812-857-0760

Gender StudiesIndiana University Bloomington

Chris Martin

cmshelter@eoni.com

541-963-7226

Shelter from the StormDomestic Violence Shelter

mailto:mpsr@rci.rutgers.edumailto:Jenm999@twmi.rr.commailto:rebekahb@temple.edumailto:jesstaft@hotmail.commailto:cthomasw@indiana.edumailto:cmshelter@eoni.commailto:mpsr@rci.rutgers.edumailto:Jenm999@twmi.rr.commailto:rebekahb@temple.edumailto:jesstaft@hotmail.commailto:cthomasw@indiana.edumailto:cmshelter@eoni.com

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Requested AV: PowerPoint