Offers for girls

Highlighting the different realities of women

Girls and young women are still highly exposed to gender-specific discrimination, sexism and sexualized violence. In workshops and discussion groups, they talk about the pressure exerted by beauty ideals and restrictive ideas of femininity. They also report experiences of sexualized violence. In addition, teachers and school social workers as well as girls themselves see a great need for spaces for empowerment in which schoolgirls can discuss bullying, violence and sexism between girls and women. And even if girls and women were long considered to be less at risk of radicalization into right-wing extremism or Islamist extremism, more recent research findings and practical experience indicate that they are definitely present and active in both phenomena. However, too little attention has so far been paid in research and prevention work to the gender-specific factors that lead girls and young women to turn to extremism.

Enabling an examination of women's roles and different ideas of femininity

Cultures Interactive has therefore developed various workshop formats that enable girls and young women to explore female roles and different ideas of femininity. This creates spaces for girls in which they can express and develop themselves freely, but also reflect on their own experiences and actions. The workshops are usually linked to a youth cultural practice or elements of self-defense. This is because the empowerment of girls and young women is also largely achieved by learning and trying out (new) skills in protected spaces. This strengthens girls and young women in their self-confidence and encourages them in their personal and democratic attitudes and abilities to act.

In the workshops, the young people are given a practical introduction to youth cultures such as rap, DJing, graffiti and breakdancing to encourage them to engage artistically with social developments and learn new strategies for self-empowerment and solidarity with other girls. Girls and young women are particularly interested in methods and approaches that portray different feminisms and the different worlds in which women live. This enables them to develop their own perspectives and critically reflect on preconceptions. Especially when girls' groups take place over a longer period of time at a school or youth facility, it can be observed that the girls become more self-confident over the course of the workshops and trust themselves more, while at the same time increasingly questioning their own prejudices regarding femininity.

The girl-specific (youth culture) workshops can take place as a single offer of four to eight hours or as a regular weekly workshop as part of the all-day program. The ideal group size is five to 15 girls aged 13 to 20.