GirlSpace and WAVE(S)
Adolescent girls, particularly girls of colour and girls in lower income situations, face many obstacles. They are at high risk for dropping out of school, contracting STDs including HIV, experiencing assault, eating disorders and other negative experiences…Often their social, educational, and community environments fail to provide girls with the needed resources and skills to cope with these obstacles. In a society where girls are daily bombarded with negative media images of women and where women’s lives and contributions are largely ignored by textbooks, girls often don’t have access to positive women role models…WAVE 1996 provided girls with the opportunity to expand their knowledge and thoughts on issues such as dieting and body image, coming out, dealing with racism, choices about sex, about drug use, study skills, sexual harassment and assault, and other themes through discussion. [1]
-From the 1997 WAVE Summer Leadership Workshops Proposal by Ramona Roberts and Laura Humphreys
GirlSpace and WAVE were created to provide young girls spaces to explore a number of issues that were especially relevant to their lives. These programs also provided opportunities for QPIRG McGill to work outside of the McGill. QPIRG offered, and continues to offer, stipends to be able to support initiatives like these. [2] Both of these programs were created because of receiving QPIRG stipends. They were then able to hire coordinators and pay for materials, which then allowed them to reach out to other organizations, such as Concordia’s Simone de Beauvoir Institute, to receive additional grant money.[3]
GirlSpace was a program during the school year for girls aged 13-17 that was started in 1995 by QPIRG McGill, the Women’s Union (now McGill’s Union for Gender Empowerment), and the Women of Colour Collective. Programs were run in three schools and one community centre during lunch times and after school at the downtown YWCA. [4] Each workshop focused on a different theme or topic and included different kinds of interactive activities. The topics included body image, eating disorders, sexual assault, drugs and alcohol, peer pressure, sexuality, STDs, birth control, menstruation, safer sex, and feminist activism. The facilitators designed the programs to be discussion based and allow the girls in the group to learn from each other’s experiences.
WAVE (Women Active, Vocal, and Effective) started in the summer of 1995 after receiving a stipend from QPIRG McGill.[5] WAVE became WAVES in 2000, adding the S for strong. It was more formal than girlSpace, which operated as a drop-in program, because it was a summer day camp that required registration beforehand and had a set program. WAVE(S)’s mandate was anti-racist, anti-ablist, feminist mentoring, and questioning sexuality.[6] WAVE(S) reflected the defining aspects of third wave feminism in its mandate and programs. The organizers and facilitators were committed to educating teenage girls about a feminist that was inclusive to many intersecting identities. For example, the 2001 schedule included activities about gender and sexuality, anti-oppression, anti-racism, and anti-ableism.[7] They wanted to show how different aspects of identity, such as race and class, influenced and interacted with their gender identities. The organizers also made sure that their staff were equipped to be providing this kind of education. In the 2002 interview questions for hiring a co-coordinator, they asked candidates specifically about how they came to identify as feminists and how they saw patriarchal oppression as it related to other forms of oppression.[8]
[1] WAVE Summer Leadership Workshops Proposal, 1997, WAVES, File: 2007-0007.01.36, QPIRG Fonds, McGill University Archives.
[2] "Summer Stipends." QPIRG McGill. http://qpirgmcgill.org/research/summer-stipend/ (accessed April 8, 2014).
[3] Letter to the Simone de Beauvoir Institute, 1997, WAVES, File: 2007-0007.01.36, QPIRG Fonds, McGill University Archives.
[4] Letter to School Guidance Counsellors, 2000, girlSpace, File: 2007-0007.01.25, QPIRG Fonds, McGill University Archives.
[5] WAVE Summer Leadership Workshops Proposal, 1997.
[6] Ibid.
[7] WAVES Camp Schedule, 2001, WAVES, File: 2007-0007.01.36, QPIRG Fonds, McGill University Archives.
[8] Interview Questions for WAVES Co-coordinator, 2002, WAVES, File: 2007-0007.01.36, QPIRG Fonds, McGill University Archives.