Activism Log #2

Activism:

            This week we hosted a bag decorating event with the Girl Scouts where we not only decorated brown paper bags, but we filled them with hygiene products for the women staying at SafeHouse. This week was good because I finally got to meet the entire troop and I feel like we were able to make some concrete progress with the Girl Scouts and with service learning in general. The event was successful and we ended up having a lot more products for the bags than we initially expected, which left us with over 50 bags to donate! Although we made contact with the scouts this week and were able to put donations together, I got the feeling that most of the girls didn’t care about what we were actually doing. A lot of the girls didn’t want to participate and we had to push them to make more than one bag. I was also able to get some planning for the unit event done, so hopefully our successes for this next week will include the unit event. I think we definitely need to make a point to the girls as to the reasoning behind everything we are doing and maybe try to engage them without the troop leaders there all the time.

Reflection:

            This week I realized that through our service learning project we are basically solidifying girl’s definition of leadership. In Girl Talk: Adolescent Girls’ Perceptions of Leadership, Shinew and Jones illustrate that girls already define leadership as “compassionate” and “caring” (60). And in Changing it Up!, the Girl Scouts research shows that girls identify leadership as a way to institute social change (8). Through the activities we have planned for the girls we play right into the notion that girls already have about leadership, which is being a leadership through social change. Through reading Shinew and Jones it occurred to me that finding a way to incorporate the talents of each girl into the leadership opportunities that we created through our project would have been a better way to teach leadership and appeal to the girls. I think that the Girl Scouts as an organization, as least, try to teach effective leadership in the ways that our readings suggest. However, I have noticed that the Girls Scouts function more through the girls doing projects that are decided by higher-ups, which is ineffective for teaching real leadership skills.

Reciprocity:

            I am personally gaining satisfaction from the part of this project that works with SafeHouse, however I still have no formula for successful youth leadership. This experience continues to show me why youth leadership is so difficult; this week it has been the problem of motivation. The project fits into a feminist perspective because it’s girls working for social justice and for a greater good. I find myself needing to put more into organizations like SafeHouse and give to those in need; in my perspective there is nothing more “feminist” than doing this.

Word Count: 494

Works Cited

Fleshman, Paula, and Salmond, Kimberlee, and Schoenberg, Judy. Change it Up! What Girls Say About Redefining Leadership. New York: Girl Scouts of the USA, 2008. Executive Summary.

Shinew, Dawn M., and Deborah Thomas Jones. "Girl Talk: Adolescent Girls' Perceptions of Leadership." Geographies of Girlhood: Identities In-between. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2005. 55-65. Print.

NWSA Assignment

Harris sheds light on many aspects of girlhood, politics, the public sphere, and  girls’ voices in all of these fields. At first I thought she was exaggerating when she says that political and public participation from girls can only happen once girls overcome the obstacles and ‘scars’ they have accumulated through growing up as a female (139). However, as my media artifact, I found a disturbing article about a teacher who had been sexually assaulting his students (fifth and sixth graders) for years, and how the administration from multiple school where he was employed didn’t report it. I see this article and the experiences of the girls mentioned in this story as solid proof that what Harris is claiming may hold truth. It seems that through these types of cases the silencing of girls is almost systematic.

At multiple points in this teacher’s career someone should have reported him, yet everyone turned a blind eye, and in return multiple girls hold these scars and lack on faith in a system that has proven to fail them, and not value their voices. The acknowledgement of girls and their experiences are vital for successful girls leadership. Harris also points out that girls are manipulated out of their agency to lead and be authentic public figures because of the invasion of the girls private spaces (126). I agree with this idea, but looking at New Moon Girls Magazine in the Ask A Girl portion, it appears that self –disclosure is everywhere, and that girls enjoy putting their stories out there and receiving feedback (5).

 I see this idea of self-disclosure being potentially good as a tool for girls to connect and relate to one another, not to be exploited by media heads. However, this line between healthy disclosure to feel connected to others through personal experiences and the disclosure that’s forced on girls to appear visible and therefore important is very fine, and easily confused and used against girls. I see how these simple and healthy spaces for girls can create a false sense of security through self-disclosing on a more public stage.

All three of these sources, New Moon Girls Magazine, Future Girl, and the Seattle Times article: School district ignored warnings, then silenced girls fondled by teacher, tie together to form a picture where girls seem to be controlled through the act of sharing. Future Girl presents this idea of the voiceless adolescent girl that is in need of help, which is solidified through the Seattle Times article. Yet it is New Moon that offers a solution to the problem, which is the attempt at creating a ‘safe’ space for girls to self-disclose, ask questions, and create their voice on their own terms.

Word Count: 452

Works Cited

Armstrong, Ken, and Justin Mayo. "Your Courts, Their Secrets: School District Ignored Warnings, Then Silenced Girls Fondled by Teacher." The Seattle times [Seattle] 23 Apr. 2010. Seattle times. Seattle times Company, 23 Apr. 2010. Web. 9 Nov. 2011. <http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/yourcourtstheirsecrets/2003316890_northshore22m.html>.

Cordes, Helen, ed. "Letters to Luna." New Moon Girls Nov.-Dec. 2011: 5-10. Web. 9 Nov. 2011. <http://www.newmoon.com/magazine/samples/November-December-2011.pdf>.

Harris, Anita. Future Girl: Young Women in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.