Making HERstory: The Undoing of Safe Space Understanding Through a Feminist Youth Program

• In Event: 14.045 - Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: 14.045-24 - Youth Media, Youth Research: Empowering Queer, Trans, and Nonbinary Youth, Young Women of Color, and Young Rural Women

Abstract

In an increasingly standardized education system, spaces for critical explorations of societal norms are difficult to find. Provocative and diverse knowledges epistemologies are continually pushed to the fringes and underground. However, this does not mean these knowledges have disappeared. This article discusses data from a study of Making HERstory, a youth empowerment program for women of color aged 14-19 and their allies, in a southern state located in the United States. This piece essay utilizes feminist materialism materialist feminism theory to describe how the Making HERstory workshop—in its contradiction of traditional educational norms—provides a unique method for creating a safe space for girls of color and allies to develop their critical consciousnesses.

Author

• Jennifer Job, Oklahoma State University