Starting feminist group for high school students

[ChaChaDeGregorio]

I work in a high school and yesterday a fantastic conversation about gender developed and I offered to facilitate a feminist discussion/ activism group for students in school.

4 girls left my office very keen and I've agreed to get them together soon to start a group. I said they could invite other interested students and stressed that that could include boys.

Does anyone have any thoughts or ideas about how this should best be run??
I've wanted to do this for a while but haven't had time to think about it or do anything yet.

Thank you!

How about getting them to do the Bechdel test on movies? That's kind of fun for teens.

This arrived today. It's a really thick book with tonnes in and it's a higher reading level than I thought. It's presented around a quote per double page. Will defo have some good discussion starters

Interesting

That looks really interesting.

Also there are some good books about trailblazing women from history. One of these could be looked at per week.

Agree Mighty Girl is a great resource.

I've asked my daughter to ask at her school she is joining in September if she can have help starting a feminist group. Focusing on the history of women's rights in relation to property, votes, health, working rights etc. I can't believe that it was oy after 1975 that women couldn't be sacked for getting married!

Then issues such as domestic abuse, harrassment, rape?. Healthy relationships maybe, using something like the Freedom Programme as a guide?

Moving on to modern day stuff like porn, so called sex work, body image etc. How to protect themselves from online grooming.

I agree with other posters directly talking and being gender critical may be difficult.

Disclosure may be something that you will need to have a plan in place for. If one of the girls after talking about issues discloses abuse or a safeguarding issue.

Thanks @FemaleAndLearning.

Now I could really do with some help with another challenge... one of my leadership responsibilities in my school is behaviour system and this includes uniform. I only just joined the school and there are lots of girls wearing tiny stretchy bandeau type skirts and tights as part of uniform. Honestly I have seen loads of bum cheeks and gussets and other staff are complaining that it's really awkward to challenge it. The uniform policy states 'conventional knee length grey skirt'. Unfortunately it's gone unchallenged so long it's really entrenched that they are used to wearing these tiny skirts that ride up.

I've joined the school and as part of raising standards am tasked with getting uniform right.

Lots of girls are outraged we are banning stretch mini skirts and have accused school of slut shaming and going back to Victorian Times.

I'm delivering assembly about it next week and it's all planned in my head except the bit where I explain how we aren't slut shaming or blaming girls clothes for boys bad behaviour.. We just want them to wear a proper uniform and look smart. Advice gratefully received!

I have mixed feelings about the small gusset showing skirts.
Should we tell girls what to wear? Are we saying it is their fault that boys and men get distracted by them wearing these?

If they are wearing short skirts to feel empowered then fine, but I suspect most of them are wearing them to feel sexy. If this is the case why do they feel the need to feel like this? What agenda are they following by dressing like this?

Could you make it engaging in some way and ask them why they want these skirts? What do they get from wearing them.

They don't scream freedom to me. You have to pull them down every five minutes, you can't sit crossed legged and you certainly can't run in them.

And they don't have bloody pockets!

One possible line to go down is that school is (in part - much more to it than just this obviously) about preparing you for adulthood. Could you go to a job interview for a high paying job in such a skirt and actually get the job? If not, then it's not appropriate for school.

But I like the idea of asking them why they're wearing these skirts. See if they can come up with a reason why these are preferable to longer skirts that doesn't come down to "it makes me attractive".

I was thinking the same - it's about the right clothes for the right occasion. At work a suit. At school a knee length skirt. At a party a mini skirt. For boys and girls. The boys can't dress like stomzy headlining Glastonbury either.
Illustrate with photos of completely ridiculous and funny outfits not appropriate for school or any normal job.
I like the idea of asking them to think why they like them, but they might lie and say 'this makes me feel comfortable'.

Great ideas thanks.

Yes their current protests are "we feel comfortable in these skirts"

Update here-for anyone interested. I've been delivering the uniform/ skirts assemblies every morning and so far staff have commented the assemblies are interesting and kids have been engaged. I am going through the benefits of uniform plus confronting the sexualisation of girls via short skirts head on, explaining the concept of the sexualisation of women and why it's not healthy for school girls.

First meeting of the young feminists tomorrow! Will ask them to share their experiences of gender bias and start to shape what they want the new group to do.

Also got handed a discussion topic to kick off with on a plate... They have just all been in a drama club performance of fairy tales which I went to support last week. So I'm going to ask them to mind map all the male and female characters portrayed in their show, and their representation. In their performance last week the men were all hen pecked husbands or Prince Charming. Women were evil witches, jealous stepmothers, cruel mothers, ugly stepsisters or innocent naive Snow White. Hope to bring the discussion in to gender stereotyping and the way culture can set women up as rivals.

Will report back. Thanks for all the support and suggestions.

Following with interest, OP! I'd love to start a women and girls' society at my co-ed school and am keen to see the suggestions on this thread.

When I was teaching at a girls' school, I lent my copy of Kat Banyard's "The Equality Illusion" to the 6th formers as they were setting up their feminist society. Never got it back .

If you're looking for books about the history of feminism, "Significant Sisters" by Margaret Forster is an excellent read, as is "Women of ideas and what men have done to them" by Dale Spender. (The latter is a bit long, however, so it might not be suitable for a secondary school feminist society.)

Deborah Cameron is the 'Rupert Murdoch' Professor of Language and Communication at Oxford Uni! I wonder how much it would cost to fund a Mumsnet Professor of Feminist Thought? I wonder which university we could afford? …….

Jenny Murray's books on 21 Women are good - or I read the world history one to my 12 yr old. I had to skip some bits which weren't suitable, but generally went down really well. She wants to get the British women one.

The fairytales idea is great. Keep us posted on how it is going.

Why do boys have to be part of this group? It'll be a very different dynamic from if it was a female-only group. Watch out for boys dominating the conversation and cries of NAMALT.

Only 3 turned up today- 2 of the original ones and a friend one of them brought. (I had invited 4 and offered them all a +1)

We totally ran out of time but I started them off with what do you want from this group and they mindmapped and then came around to equality, with feminism as a main focus, and confidence. The issue of should this group be girls only came up and they think they observe discrimination against boys, especially black boys happening in our school. However I think the group will naturally grow with girls and I'm fine with allowing that. I want to make sure it includes girls of all races though as so far it's white middle class girls.

I asked them what they understood by sex V gender and they went off on a massive trans issues tangent. I feel that they skipped over women's issues and were straight into the trans agenda although they were defensive of women's spaces like toilets and changing rooms. I added trans issues to the list for future debate as it was too big an issue for a quick chat!

Then I got them to list the fairy tale characters and describe each and they came up with males being stereotyped as protectors or victims of evil women, and women being innocent victims or cruel villains. That's when we ran out of time!

I need them back together again, hopefully all 5 and set up a meeting for early next academic year and subsequent.

@ChaChaDeGregorio I have been thinking more about this. I had a look online and there aren't any obvious resources for this age group are there?
There is a little bit on the UK Feminista site.
There is something called genderandeducation.com but that doesn't have anything useful for running a feminist group.
There is a bit more out there for people running a university feminist society, but nothing for this level. You are having to start from scratch aren't you.

Do you think there would be demand for an online package of materials aimed at teachers who wanted to run a feminist group for teens? Or aimed at teenage girls who wanted their school to help them set up a group? With some themed sessions, ideas for activities, readings, images to use etc. along with notes for the teacher, reading lists? Something that could work for them either to use in its entirety, or to dip in to and use as a starting point to kick off their own ideas. Would it make it easier to start a group? Can I dm you about it?

I asked them what they understood by sex V gender and they went off on a massive trans issues tangent. I feel that they skipped over women's issues and were straight into the trans agenda although they were defensive of women's spaces like toilets and changing rooms.
I think this illustrates why its important to give young women exposure to straight forward feminism, so they don't skip over women's issues. What did they understand by sex v gender?

@Manderleyagain

That kind of resourcing would be invaluable! Yes DM me.

Re. Sex v gender, once I offered a definition of sex as chromosomal and asked how gender relates to that they said gender is how you feel. They didn't explore society, expectations and conditioning without me questioning in that direction.

Just wanted to say OP that this is fascinating both for me to learn and get resources myself and to think more around the general topic of feminism. There is so much scope for this to grow and create a list of resources for girls only spaces for discussion like guide guides (but not them specifically).

I was reading about women's sports and how it's not just about competing and challenging yourself physically but how you bond with competitions on with your team and what that means for women. I applaud your efforts, will be following with interest.