With art supplies scattered everywhere, a group of 16 young girls worked on four different art projects Friday as part of an attempt by the Gender and Women’s Studies Department to educate girls about media literacy, body image and empowerment.
Project Girl Founder and speaker Kelly Parks Snider exposed various media targeting techniques to three groups of young women from the Madison area. The initiative focuses on media literacy and young leader activism through art. Parks Snider speaks across the nation educating young women about how media targets them, how to recognize it and combat it and how to empower themselves and their peers.
The art projects aimed to help girls recognize the different messages they see daily in advertisements, how they perceive themselves and how to educate and encourage others. The young women presented their artwork to the rest of the group, explaining their process and what the pieces meant to them.
Parks Snider said the session was meant to teach the changing girls how to be activists for women’s rights.
“It is not easy and most likely not the popular thing to do, but it’s the right thing,” Parks Snider said. “You have to be brave.”
UW-Madison Gender and Women’s Studies Club executive board members Alexa Deboth and Meghan Sovey both said they wish they would have had this opportunity to learn about media and its effects on growing girls.
“It is great to implement what we have learned in real-life,” Deboth said. “These girls are empowering and so educated. It is good to know about media literacy and to take control of your identity at such a young age.
The art pieces created at the workshop will be on display at the 40th anniversary of the Gender and Women’s Studies department Oct. 23 and 24.
