Girls for Gender Equity - Hey, Shorty!: A Guide to Combating Sexual Harassment and Violence in Schools and on the Streets

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Table of Contents

JOANNE N. SMITH, the founder and executive director of Girls for Gender Equity (GGE), was awarded the Union Square Award, the WNBAs Inspiring Women Award, the Stonewall Womens Award, and the Feminist Presss 40 under 40 Award for her work to promote gender, race, and socioeconomic equality. She has also been honored by the Brooklyn district attorneys office and inducted into the New York City Hall of Fame.

MANDY VAN DEVEN is the founding editor of Elevate Difference. Her writing has been published in AlterNet, Bitch, ColorLines, Curve, make/shift, and Marie Claire.

MEGHAN HUPPUCH is the director of community organizing at Girls for Gender Equity and a longtime activist for a variety of projects and organizations, including the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network and the Center for Multicultural Education and Programming at NYU.

Dedicated to the memory of Jeani Blalock
October 3, 1954January 26, 2011

When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals

Before being in Sisters in Strength, I never thought much about activism and organizing. After everything weve done together, I realize we all have a voice. To get together and speak out is how you can change a problematic situation.

Nadia Jalil, youth organizer

Mission Statement

Girls for Gender Equity (GGE) is an intergenerational grassroots organization committed to the physical, psychological, social, and economic development of girls and women. Through education, organizing and physical fitness, GGE encourages communities to remove barriers and create opportunities for girls and women to live self-determined lives. A Brooklyn, New York-based coalition-building and youth development organization, GGE acts as a catalyst for change to improve gender and race relations and socioeconomic conditions for our most vulnerable youth and communities of color. Our work is a result of the many gracious and courageous allies to whom GGE is forever indebted.

Introduction

Joanne N. Smith

When I advocate for our most vulnerable girls and women at the intersection of gender, race, class, and sexual oppression, Im advocating for myself and my family. In many ways, my childhood experiences shaped my professional aspirations and provided me with the vision to start GGE at the turn of the twenty-first century. My parents are Haitian immigrants who fled their country to escape the horror of a fourteen-year-long dictatorship by Papa Doc Duvalier, which claimed the lives of close to fifty thousand Haitians. I was born in Queens, New York, some years later, and grew up in Montgomery County, Maryland, with two amazing sisters, Natasha and Rachel, in a household led by our fearless mother, Irmone Leger. At a young age, I realized my passion for playing sports; soccer, basketball, and running crosscountry provided a place for me to channel lifes disappointments, pressures, and fears. Thankfully, multiple opportunities existed in Maryland at free, local recreation centers and on school teams. These opportunities may not have been created with a black Haitian girl in mind, but my mother took advantage of them. Athletics kept me in school, off the streets, and led me to college on basketball and academic scholarships.

After graduating from Bowie State University in 1997, I moved back to New York with the help of my cousin Guilaine. I worked as a case manager for two not-for-profit organizations serving families infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. I was committed to supporting all the children and families I was assigned to, but it was my unsuccessful search for an after-school program for Lilly, a twelve-year-old girl whose mother was living with AIDS, that led me to challenge the limited opportunities and outlets for girls living in urban communities.

The youngest of three children, Lilly lived in a threebedroom town house in Coney Island with two older brothers and her mother. Lillys father, an intravenous heroin abuser who had transmitted HIV to her mother eight years prior, left the home when Lilly was five. A great conversationalist, Lillys mother was an intelligent, independent, and witty Latina woman. One afternoon during a home visit, while Lillys mother cooked dinner in the kitchen, I sat on a stool at the island table, enjoying my talk with her and completing my paperwork. Lilly emerged from her room wearing long basketball shorts and high-top sneakers, palming her basketball in her left hand. Although I always saw various basketballs around the house, I had never associated them with Lilly until that moment.

Her mother stopped her midstride to ask, Where you going? While rolling her eyes Lilly spun the ball on her right index finger and answered, Ma, where does it look like? With a smile on my face, I chimed in, asking, Lilly, are you a balla? She checked my bluff, I can take you! Lilly stood around four feet nine on the outside, but clearly felt six feet tall on the inside. Instantly I knew I really liked this kid, and I jumped up from my seat. Stopping myself before attempting to tap the ball out of her hands as she protected itplaying b-ball in the house is a bad habit especially when its not your houseI looked back at her mother, remembering why I was here. I was relieved to see her standing by the sink washing vegetables and looking at us with a smile on her face that said, Sounds like a challenge to me. Thrilled, I packed up my work and with a thank-you head nod, I let her know that this would not take long.

Lilly led us to the backyard court where I was disappointed to find a square, plastic milk crate with the bottom cut out of it, screwed to a wooden board against her house, as the hoop. Without hesitation, Lilly dribbled around the ten-by-ten-foot cement court where trash cans lined the out-of-bounds mark so we wouldnt run into the wooden fence, and recycling bins represented how far we needed to take the ball back as we played twenty-one.

While we played, Lilly shared with me how well she did in school, her dreams of being a basketball player, and her desire to move far away from Coney Island where all she saw was drugs and gangs; there was nothing for her there. When I asked Lilly if we should talk to her school or local community center to start the program she wanted, she said, Yeah right, not gonna happen. They dont see me or hear me; why would they create anything for me? Her cynicism echoed truths about the powerlessness that girls feel when they merely survive the conditions they are presented, and feel unable to change systems they did not create, even to do something as simple as play sports. This gut-wrenching reality boiled my Haitian blood. I was fortunate to move from New York City to Maryland, to graduate from college magna cum laude and debt free. Yet, this same poverty-challenged, potential-filled, first-generation immigrant girl was me.

As the third born, I had learned how to fight, and had fought all my life. As long as girls everywhere felt that they had no choice but to accept their fate, I could not escape the multilayered oppression of race, class, and gender. Lillys words planted a seed, awakening my dormant consciousness. That day I pledged: In my lifetime, I will help to right many more of the social wrongs plaguing our most vulnerable. Today, I will create change for these forgotten girls.

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