If some of the young women in the eighth-grade at Troup Middle School were advertising designers or executives, magazines would have far fewer ads featuring scantily dressed women. Instead, the teens revealed in a recent discussion, they would portray women the way they'd ultimately like to see themselves in the world: as people who are on the go, fully in control and much more than a sexual object.
In fact, when Ebony Martin and Alicia Reynolds, who are both 14, teamed up in a classroom exercise to create an advertisement for sneakers, their ad showed a girl who happened to be Alicia who was depicted, in Ebony's words, as a "strong, healthy, all-around woman who is in control."
Helping young women to take control of their own lives by recognizing and thinking critically about issues that affect them, such as gender stereotypes, is the goal of W.I.S.E. Women in Support of Each Other, a national program started at Troup last year by a group of Yale law students and undergraduates.
Saru Jayaraman, who is in a joint program in law and public policy at Yale and the Harvard School of Government, helped found the first W.I.S.E. chapter four years ago while she was an undergraduate at the University of California at Los Angeles. While working with homeless families, she was struck by the increase in poverty and homelessness among families headed by single mothers. "We found that these problems often stemmed from girls making life decisions based on limited resources and information," says Ms. Jayaraman, who is spending this year at Harvard. In particular, she says, she discovered that teen pregnancy is more often the result of low self-esteem and a lack of information or a hopelessness about other options in life than it is a result of ignorance about contraception.
While the initial mission of W.I.S.E. was to help prevent teenage pregnancy, it has since evolved and expanded, according to Ms. Jayaraman. W.I.S.E., which was recently praised as a model program by President Bill Clinton, now has four chapters: in Los Angeles, New Haven, San Diego and Berkeley. In all four locations, undergraduate and graduate student volunteers lead a curriculum covering topics that include personal identity; race and racism; sexism; sex and sexual decision-making; sexually transmitted diseases; birth control; pregnancy and childbirth; healthy and unhealthy relationships ranging from interactions with boyfriends to other friends and family members; eating disorders and nutrition; health resources; rape and sexual harassment; conflict resolution; self defense; and future options. W.I.S.E. currently operates out of the Yale Women's Center.
"Our main goal is to provide young women with practical decision-making skills and inform them about resources that are available to them through a discussion of a whole range of issues pertaining to women," says Bacardi Jackson, a second-year student at the Law School and a staff coordinator for W.I.S.E. She is one of nearly 40 volunteers and W.I.S.E. staff members, who in addition to Yale College and the Law School, hail from the Graduate School and the Schools of Drama and Medicine. A few volunteers are students at Southern Connecticut State University.
Last year, the volunteers ran one class at Troup and also conducted the W.I.S.E. program with two groups of children in connection with L.E.A.P. Leadership, Education and Athletics in Partnership, a program founded by a former Yale law student and community members and seeks to help disadvantaged, inner-city youth achieve success in all facets of their lives. This year, W.I.S.E. is being offered independently during school hours. There are now four W.I.S.E. sessions taking place at Troup each week, with more than 50 participants altogether. The teenagers have been excused from other classes for the 75-minute weekly sessions in the belief that, at this particular time in their lives, they would benefit more from the W.I.S.E. program.
In addition to helping plan and lead the in-school sessions, most of the volunteers also serve as a mentor to two youngsters. As mentors, they communicate weekly with the young teens and participate at least once a month in an activity with them.
"During the weekly sessions, most of the things we do are in the form of games and activities," says Elizabeth Shafer '98, who is the special events coordinator for W.I.S.E. "We plan activities that require a lot of interaction or role-playing. We also invite guest speakers who share their expertise or their personal experience. Our goal is not to be there to preach to the girls but to encourage them to think for themselves about relevant issues in their lives."
During a session held last year on "The Politics of Motherhood and Family Life," for example, the teenagers were divided into four groups. The youngsters in one group were allotted a "working-class" monthly salary of $1,400, while the second group was given a monthly salary of $700, based on minimum wage. The third and fourth groups had a budget of $440 and $350; these figures were based on the monthly Aid to Families with Dependent Children allotment both before and after welfare cuts, respectively to a single mother with one child. The youngsters were then asked to determine how they would spend their money, figuring in such necessities as rent, food, phone, electricity, baby supplies and clothes, travel costs, groceries, baby-sitting and medical costs, as well as leisure activities.
In this exercise, it didn't take long for the young women to realize how difficult it would be to live on welfare or even to work for minimum wage if they were mothers, say W.I.S.E. volunteers.
"The teenage years are a time when kids feel a lot of confusion and often have a tough time," says W.I.S.E. volunteer Morgan MacDonald '98. "It's hard to figure out who you are or what to do next. What's valuable about W.I.S.E. is that we throw out tangible options for the girls by focusing on particular issues and bringing to the fore a lot of things that are not necessarily defined. It helps to alleviate some of the ambiguity and confusion they experience."
Another benefit of W.I.S.E., say volunteers, is its focus on doing.
"As opposed to programs that simply 'serve' youth, our philosophy is training youth to think critically and then engaging them in change," explains Ms. Jayaraman. "The girls now spend the last part of the year developing a community theater performance on a particular topic in the curriculum, and then engaging in social action around the topic. This has already been done in Los Angeles, where our girls developed a community play on rape, but this is the first year it will be done in New Haven, and we are very excited."
The teens also write to local or national political leaders to voice their opinions on topics of concern. In addition, for their session on "Future Options," they write to colleges for admissions materials. "We ask the girls to write for college literature because there is something about actually holding something in your hands, having something you can touch, that makes the option of college become more real, more reachable for them," explains Ms. Jackson.
In fact, if the Troup students' newly found aspiration to attend college provides some gauge of the program's success, it has indeed had some impact on many of the teenagers lives, say W.I.S.E. volunteers, who note that many of the youngsters start the program with no plans to attend college but end their year in W.I.S.E. with that expectation.
W.I.S.E. volunteers are now planning a program at the New Haven Juvenile Detention Center and at the New Haven Homeless Shelter. Volunteers also hope to acquire enough funding to be able to offer a second-year component to the Troup program.
Ms. Jackson, who has kept in touch with the students she mentored in last year's program, says that the introduction of a second year of W.I.S.E. would be welcome news for many parents, in addition to the students. Last year, at an end-of-the-year banquet for W.I.S.E. students and their families, many parents voiced their support of the program. "One mom, whose daughter was in the program last year, called me up and said 'Are you sure my daughter can't be in it again this year?'" recalls Ms. Jackson. "I think we'd all like to be able to follow our new friends through high school."
By Susan Gonzalez