Undergrad Brianna Koerth (third from right), visits the club one week to talk politics with the kids.
When UW-Madison undergraduate students Amelia Stasney and Danielle Sklarew decided to launch a Young Feminists Club at Black Hawk Middle School, they worried that the students wouldn’t be interested in the subject matter. The school already had robust after-school programming offering activities ranging from sports to photography. Could social justice education compete?
It turns out, yes. “Every single time we presented an issue, the kids could come up with things that they’ve experienced in their own lives — women’s issues and race issues,” Stasney says. “It was great to see all of them come together and share their experiences.”
Stasney and Sklarew ran the Young Feminists Club for five weeks last semester in partnership with Madison School & Community Recreation. The project was funded by a grant from UW-Madison’s Public Humanities Exchange for Undergraduates, HEX-U, after the school’s public humanities outreach program received a $2.5 million dollar grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which allowed for an expansion to undergraduates.
“We really focus on elevating the role of humanities in the community,” says HEX-U coordinator Jamila Siddiqui. “We try to provide a mutually beneficial connection for the students that are involved as well as the community partner.” Students get to apply their academic skills in a practical setting and organizations enjoy a free injection of creative problem solving.
Before HEX-U, there weren’t many options for undergraduate students to get experience outside the bounds of the university, Siddiqui says. The program got off to a strong start, with five successful projects completed in its first year, but there’s still room to grow. “We’re not running at capacity yet,” she says.
Sklarew first heard about the HEX-U opportunity about a year ago, shortly after the 2016 presidential election. At the time, she was highly troubled by the 53 percent of white women who voted for President Donald Trump despite his well-documented history of sexist behavior and multiple allegations of sexual assault. “I wanted to channel that energy into something positive,” she says.
She floated the idea of doing a feminism-related project to Stasney, who was her randomly assigned roommate freshman year. Both women happened to have experience working as camp counselors, so they decided to play to their strengths and focus on youth empowerment and education. “They’re going to vote someday,” Stasney says. “Let’s start talking about these issues now.”
Each week, the Young Feminists Club highlighted women’s contributions and struggles for representation in the arts, sciences, journalism, sports and politics. Attendance varied from week to week, but the club proved popular with both boys and girls, the organizers say. Highlights included a visit from members of the UW-Madison women’s club basketball team and a lecture by a campus political organizer working to get women elected to public office. “When you’re that age, you’re formulating your ideology, realizing your strengths and figuring out who you are as a person,” Sklarew says. “Making young girls realize they can do all these amazing things — when sometimes society is telling them they can’t — is so important.”
Viola Miller, the coordinator of the MSCR after-school program at Black Hawk, says the Young Feminists Club went over “exceptionally well” with the students. “They keep asking when [Stasney and Sklarew] will come back,” Miller says. “They made learning fun.”
