Empowering young women through feminist recreation programmes

Abstract

The aim of this research is to explore and discuss how and whether two feminist recreation programmes achieved their aims of empowering young women based on the perceptions of some of the young women who took part in them. The programmes were a summer camp and a self-defence course, both of one week duration and both self-identified as feminist. The theme of empowerment is explored as it was perceived and defined by the young women in relation to their experiences on the programmes which are viewed in three aspects: the physical environment - where it took place; the social environment - who was there; and the experience - what happened. A feminist approach to the research was adopted. The methods included participant observation, questionnaires and tape recorded interviews with eight girls and three leaders from the camp, three group interviews with young women from the self-defence course and two interviews with self-defence tutors. The research found that the programmes had marked effects in terms of their empowerment on the girls who took part. It showed that there were certain constraints faced by young women of this age and that the recreation programmes aimed to address these and present the young women with skills to overcome or deal with them. In addition, the research revealed that recreation and feminism accentuate qualities that, when integrated, can be used to empower young women in positive ways to enhance their quality of life.