Feminist Activism and Youth Participatory Action Research: Privileged Youth Interrupt Rape Culture

• In Event: Paradigm Shifts: Youth Participatory Action Research and the Disruption of Hegemonic Structures

Abstract

This paper is based on a youth-led participatory action research program for Jewish teen girls in which the participants conducted a YPAR project designed to interrogate and disrupt rape culture. Data suggest that the participants were able to see how tacitly accepted sexist and discriminatory practices normalize violence against women, and lead them to enact strategies to raise critical consciousness about the nature and extent of gender-based violence in their lives, within the Jewish community, and the broader society. Through opportunities to critically interrogate power and oppression, privileged youth hold the potential to be directly involved in sustainable social change, part of which involves dismantling a pervasive rape culture and shaping a more just and humane society for all.

Authors

• Amira Proweller, DePaul University

• Beth S Catlett, DePaul University

• Sonya Crabtree-Nelson, DePaul University