cartoon of young women

Working with young women

Strategies

Are young women attending your service?
If you keep statistics on the number of males and females who use your service it can be helpful to have a look at who has used your service over the past year.

If significantly more young men than young women used your service, you may need to address this by implementing specific strategies for young women.

The first step in increasing young women's participation is to ask them what they want. Talk to young women who currently use your service about how it could be improved and what activities they would like to see. Most likely your service is already meeting some of their needs, otherwise they wouldn't be attending.

Ideas for a consultation workshop
Here are some questions to ask young women who already use your service. You can interview young women individually or run a group workshop to answer some of these questions.

  1. Being a young woman is...
  2. I hate it when I can't...
  3. I like it when I can...
  4. It's not fair because...
  5. At the youth service boys expect me to...
  6. At the youth service it would be great if...
  7. At the youth service I would like to be able to...
  8. Do you think the issues for young men and young women are different?
  9. What activities would you like to see happen at the youth service just for young women?
  10. Is there anything else you would like to say about young women using this youth service?

(Adapted from Should I go and play pool? Ideas for strategies and programs to access young womyn, 1995 by Al Bingham and Deb Shearim)

It may be useful to undertake an observation study to find out the patterns of behaviour at your service. Ask an independent person to visit your service or activity over a few sessions, to sit quietly and observe the interactions between young women and young men, whether any group dominates activities etc.

Most importantly, talk to other young women who do not use your service. Ask them what activities and programs they would like and how they would like those programs to run. They may already know about your service and have some good feedback about why they don't attend.

Some young women don't like to attend programs which young men also attend. For example they may not like the rowdy behaviour of some young guys or they may just want a safe place to talk about "girl stuff".

Many youth services have programs specifically for young women. These programs provide a safe place for young women to unwind, meet with their friends and have fun.

Young women's groups provide a good opportunity to run health, fitness, education and self esteem programs. Your local women's health service may work in partnership with you to deliver a program.

Young women's programs are also well suited to the needs of young women who are Muslim or come from a Muslim family, as often they will not attend programs which young men also attend.

Islam (the religious faith that Muslim people follow) requires that relationships with people of the opposite sex outside the immediate family be strictly controlled.

There are restrictions on clothing that can be worn, touching and social contacts. For example, girls are not allowed to talk to boys from outside the family unless they are with someone from their family, and any physical contact between unmarried males and females is absolutely forbidden in Islam.

It is important to gain the trust of parents when running programs for young Muslim women. You can:

  • Have clear information for parents about the program and supervision arrangements (including translated information if necessary).
  • Have a parents' open day or offer to meet with parents to introduce yourself and your service.
  • Gain the support of the local school.
  • Have the program take place straight after school or not too late at night.
  • Hold the program in a familiar venue.
  • Provide transport home from the program.
  • Find out if parents require all staff and instructors to be female.
  • Provide cultural training to any staff or instructors who have limited experience in working with young women from culturally diverse backgrounds.

If you are running a program specifically for young women you may want to consider forming a partnership with migrant services such as Nepean Migrant Access or the Blacktown Migrant Resource Centre. These services can provide more advice about working with young people from refugee and migrant families.

You may also want to consider establishing a program specifically for young mothers. The Young Parents section of this manual provides more information about working with young mothers.

Are young women treated as equals at your service?
You can change the dynamics at your service by changing:

  • the activities you provide
  • the way the activities are run
  • the way you behave and respond.

The activities you provide
If your service is dominated by loud or rowdy behaviour you may want to consider changing the activity.

A service in Western Sydney found that they were facing a lot of issues with aggression, competitiveness and even violence. The central activity at the service was a pool table which boys dominated while girls took on a passive role watching. The service decided to remove the pool table and replace it with computers and a series of activities such as music lessons and craft activities. They noticed an immediate difference in the service "vibe" and who attended the programs. The pool table has now been formally retired.

Active sports and activities can be great for young people, especially after a day of sitting down being quiet and listening at school all day. If your service offers sporting activities think about how you can change those activities to be less competitive and more fun and team orientated.

The way activities are run
If you run an activity that is dominated by young men, think about how you can increase young women's participation.

A youth service in Sydney ran regular music events. They found that both young women and young men enjoyed the events but that all the bands were only comprised of young men. The service initiated a music course just for young women and helped start several female only bands. They also introduced a policy where bands who had a female band member would be given priority of playing at the music events. They actively sought out other girl bands from other areas to play at their events as well. They also introduced other music programs which were open to both young men and young women where young women felt comfortable performing such as talent quests and karaoke nights.

The way you behave and respond
The way that youth workers behave influences the "vibe" of your service. It is critical that your behaviour is non-sexist and that you value young women and young men equally.

Steps that you can take:

  • Promote a positive image of women and their achievements. Think about your promotional material and the guest speakers at your service and how this reflects on the image of young women.

  • Organise special events for young women's festivals and camps, International Women's Day and Reclaim the Night. Talk to young women and young men about the reasons for these events.

  • Put programs in place for young women and young men which challenge assumptions and provide education about physical and sexual violence.

  • Challenge sexist behaviour and assumptions. This includes "jokes" - for example jokes about blonde women being stupid, women not being able to drive or men not being able to cook.

  • Sexual harassment is against the law and you have a legal responsibility to prevent this from happening at your service. Make sure your workers and volunteers know how to respond to any sexual harassment they witness. YAPA has suggestions in its model policy on Inclusiveness, at www.yapa.org.au/youthwork/modelpolicies .

  • Ensure that your workers and volunteers model non-sexist behaviour in the way that they relate to each other and clients.

  • Promote non-traditional career options for young women and young men.

  • Talk to the young men who use your service about whether they want any programs just for them to talk about "guy stuff".

  • Have clear rules and workplace policies about non-sexist behaviour.

  • Encourage and support young women to play an active role in decision making at your service and at a wider community level.