Click here to access the Media Toolkit in PDF format.

Throughout the year of our surveys and roundtables, we heard from advocates and organizers that domestic violence language and approaches are not resonating with young people. There are a few things to consider.

The discourse on adolescent relationships privileges risk, violence and even death. The discussion of romance and/or desire is virtually non-existent — excised from all consideration. In fact, girls’ relationships involve both pleasure and danger, and young people want to talk about their relationships with these complexities. Yet as adults, we tend to focus almost exclusively on the dangers.  As teen dating violence preventionists, we often lack a clear articulation of desire and a “discourse of female pleasure without penalties.” Lynn Phillips (2000) offers the following warning in discussing how girls experience violence by young men: “Young women appear unable to name their own victimization precisely because their cultural contexts make it so difficult to insist on male accountability and to envision and experience hetero-relational pleasure without penalties (p.191).”

What’s more, young people’s relationships may not look at all like the ones adults imagine when we develop our curricula.  What does it mean for a teenage girl to be in a relationship with a 30 year old man, and how does this affect her understanding of abuse?  What if she is with someone who is gang-affiliated, or in and out of jail?  What does it mean if the relationship is secret because of religious pressures?  Or because the young person is not out as lesbian, bisexual, transgender or gender non-conforming?  If we don’t ask these questions, we will develop approaches and curricula that youth will rightly shrug off as irrelevant to their lives.

Technology also plays an increasingly important role in our society. Cell phones, ipads, Facebook and Twitter are providing new ways for perpetrators to control, harass and stalk young women. Our efforts to prevent teen dating violence must take this fact into account.

The main drawback of many teen dating violence prevention programs is that too little time is spent discussing actual relationships (with all of their intricacies). Teen girls, those we know and work with, want to talk about the complexities of relationships — all types of relationships with partners, friends, and family. However, often programs are relegated to one class session in many schools (if we are lucky). With this time limitation, preventionists are forced to get right down to the business of talking about the unhealthy or dangerous aspects of dating relationships, using an essentially cookie-cutter approach.

If we are going to develop curricula that resonate with young people, it will therefore require both a change in our approach and a systems change to allow for our programs to be more comprehensive.

Based on the 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) which monitors six categories of priority health risk behaviors among youth, dating violence is a serious issue for teens.  A staggering 18.5% of Chicago youth surveyed reported that they had been hit, slapped or physically hurt on purpose by a boyfriend or girlfriend.  Rates are highest for African American girls, with 22.6% reporting that they had experienced dating violence.  Overall, this is a significant increase from the 2007 data.

NATIONAL DATA

During the 12 months preceding the survey, 9.8% of high school students nationwide had been hit, slapped, or physically hurt on purpose by their boyfriend or girlfriend (i.e., dating violence).  This is slightly down from 9.9% of students in 2007.

Overall, the prevalence of dating violence was higher among male (10.3%) than female high school students (9.3%).  This has consistently been the case over the last few years. In 2007, male high school students also reported higher dating violence rates than their female peers (11.0% vs. 8.8%).

The prevalence of dating violence was higher among black (14.3%) and Hispanic (11.5%) than white (8.0%) students; higher among black female (14.8%) than Hispanic female (11.4%) and white female (7.2%) students; and higher among black male (13.8%) than Hispanic male (11.7%) and white male (8.8%) students.

ILLINOIS DATA

During the 12 months preceding the survey, 13.8% of Illinois high school students had been hit, slapped or physically hurt on purpose by the boyfriend or girlfriend.  Rates were highest for Black youth, at 19.4%.

The prevalence of dating violence ranged from 7.4% to 17.8% across state surveys (median: 11.1%), putting Illinois above the national average.

CHICAGO DATA

• Background papers providing research and context on the issues presented on this website
• Online surveys to allow stakeholders to provide input
• Bimonthly roundtable discussions to unite stakeholders
• Research into existing policies and laws
• On site research at Cook County Hospital

WHICH ORGANIZATIONS SUPPORT THESE RECOMMENDATIONS? We are thrilled that the recommendations derive from a range of approaches and perspectives.  The recommendations have been endorsed by the following organizations:

A Long Walk Home

Alternatives GirlWorld

Apna Ghar

Between Friends

Beyondmedia Education

Brighton Park Neighborhood Council

Broadway Youth Center

BUILD Inc.

Center on Halsted

Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation

Chicago Area Project

Chicago Freedom School

Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers

Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network

Chicago NOW

Chicago Women’s Health Center

Community Justice for Youth Institute

Cook County Juvenile Probation Department

Cyberquilting Experiment

Ella’s Daughters

Family Shelter Service

Gender JUST

Global Girls

Health & Medicine Policy Research Group – Court Involved Youth Project

Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health

Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence

Literature for All of Us

Mikva Challenge Youth Safety Council

Project NIA

Rape Victim Advocates

Rogers Park Young Women’s Action Team

Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law

SHEER

Sisters Empowering Sisters

Take Back the Night Dupage

Unsilenced Woman Press

Voices and Faces Project

Women for Economic Justice

YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago

Young Women’s Empowerment Project

Research suggests that “girls are not more violent than before and confirm(s) that girls engage in far less crime and delinquency than boys for nearly every offense. It was also observed that mandatory arrest policies and other changes in the juvenile justice system are associated with the higher arrest rates for girls.”

National studies have found that when girls do offend, the rate at which they are being processed through the criminal legal system has increased dramatically over a very short period of time.  Nationally, minor transgressions are being formally policed at an unprecedented rate (Schaffner, 2007).

Among young women in conflict with the law, black girls are overrepresented within the system and they receive harsher punishment than white girls (Moore and Padavic, 2010).  Recent research also underscores that LGBTQ youth receive harsher punishment at school and in the criminal legal system.  In fact, gay and lesbian teens in the United States are about 40 percent more likely than their straight peers to be punished by schools, police and the courts. According to Kathryn Himmelstein, lead author of the study published in the journal Pediatrics, “The most striking difference was for lesbian and bisexual girls, and they were two to three times as likely as girls with similar behavior to be punished.”

Girls in conflict with the law experience violence at all levels.  For example, the topic of sexual violence in the lives of young women and its connection to future incarceration is sometimes referred to as the Girl’s Prison Pipeline.  It is impossible to have a  conversation about young women in conflict with the law without addressing their early histories as survivors of sexual violence.  Once girls become enmeshed with the juvenile justice system, they continue to be exposed to various forms of violence (including systemic violence).

As you look through the other parts of this section, we ask you to keep in mind the interconnections between the various forms of violence that young women experience. The criminalization of girls and young women is intricately tied to school-based violence, reproductive violence, and relationship abuse. It is our overall contention that compartmentalizing the forms of violence that young women experience prevents us from identifying relevant and workable solutions.

These issues intersect with the other forms of violence we address, in several ways.  Recent studies have drawn attention, for example, to the prevalence of reproductive coercion among young people – a form of abuse in which young women are denied access to contraceptives.  In fact, studies show that girls who experience dating violence are 4 to 6 times more likely than non-abused girls to become pregnant (for a summary of recent data, see “Reproductive Health & Violence” on the Family Violence Prevention Fund website).  In addition to leading to unwanted pregnancies for young women, the denial of condoms puts young women at significant health risks.  It is incumbent upon us, then, to address these issues as we set out to tackle issues of violence against young women.

Because the experiences of young and older women of color have traditionally been marginal to the reproductive rights movement, organizations such as Sistersong in Georgia have advanced a new more holistic framework for discussing these issues called Reproductive Justice (RJ). RJ calls for the “complete physical, mental, spiritual, political, social, and economic well-being of women, girls, and individuals, based on the full achievement and protection of human rights.”

In the fall of 2006, after attending a workshop by SisterSong in Wisconsin, members of the Rogers Park Young Women’s Action Team (YWAT) were inspired to articulate their framework for understanding the concept of reproductive justice. This explanatory construct takes into account the broad meaning of reproductive freedom and choice as understood by a group of young women of color in Chicago, working to address violence.

REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE – What it means to us (Rogers Park Young Women’s Action Team 2006)

The Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls and Young Women heard from local organizations during our roundtable discussions that adopting a Reproductive Justice framework allowed for coalition-building and for better addressing young women’s lived realities. We encourage you to read the innovative models section in order to understand the breadth and depth of approaches favored by Chicago organizations that are addressing reproductive justice issues.

While young people are certainly sometimes perpetrators of violence in school, if we take a moment to ask youth about safety, they point to the systems that are unsafe for them. Here is language from Gender JUST, a youth-led LGBTQ organization that addresses school safety, referring to the suicides of LGBTQ youth:

While youth violence is a very serious issue, the real bullies we face in our schools take the form of systemic violence perpetrated by the school system itself: sex education that ignores queer youth and a curriculum that denies our history, a militarized school district with cops in our schools, a process of privatization which displaces us, increasing class sizes which undermine our education and safety. The national calls to end the violence against queer youth completely ignore the most violent nature of our educational experience.

As you read this section, we encourage you to question whether your own views of school safety have been impacted by media stereotypes of young people.  A great reference guide on media stereotypes is Moving from Them to Us, a 2009 report issued by the Prevention Institute.

We encourage you, too, to think about what can be put in place in our schools to create a culture of safety; the section on Innovative Models has a couple of ideas to get you started.

The World Health Organization (WHO), in their World Report on Violence and Health, defined sexual violence as: “any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, unwanted sexual comments or advances, or acts to traffic, or otherwise directed, against a person’s sexuality using coercion, by any person, regardless of their relationship to the victim, in any setting, including but not limited to home and work.“ Sexual violence may include attempted and/or completed rape, sexual coercion and harassment, sexual contact with force or threat of force, and threat of rape.

Here in Chicago, Taskforce discussions began with, and expanded upon this definition, to set the stage for the action steps we will need to take to end sexual violence.

First, Taskforce members and partner organizations stressed the need to look at a continuum of harm.  An example is this quote from an advocate:

“I believe sexual violence exists on a continuum.  For example, a man leering at a woman on the bus or train may not legally be considered ‘sexual violence’ – but it contributes to a culture that says it is acceptable to make women feel uncomfortable in a place where she has the right to feel safe.  This behavior is particularly problematic when it goes unchecked.”

Beyond a definition, what this quote points to is the need for cultural shifts to end sexual violence.

Second, even as programs provide crucial services to individual violence survivors, there was consensus on the systemic nature of sexual violence.  As one person noted,

“sexual violence is a pervasive culture issue.  It is a systemic problem, not just an individual issue.”

Another advocate pointed out that sexual violence derives from varied forms of oppression, defining it as

“emotional, physical, verbal, psychological harm against persons drawing on sexism, racism, homophobia, designed to hurt or control them.”

If we believe that sexual violence is systemic in nature, culturally supported and based on intersecting oppressions, then we must address those systems and forms of oppression in order to impact the issue.

As you read these sections, consider what action steps our communities can take to address the systemic nature of sexual violence against girls and young women.

MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS: DATA FROM THE 2009 YOUTH RISK BEHAVIOR SURVEILLANCE SURVEY:

For the first time since 1995, the YRBS conducted a survey of middle-school (6^th, 7^th & 8^th grades) students in Chicago for the 2009 report.  These findings are particularly instructive when examined along with the high school data.

Percent of Chicago Female Middle and High School Students – Ever Had Sexual Intercourse

Percent of Chicago Female Middle and High School Students

Chicago Female Middle and High School Students

Reproductive Coercion

We have not found data that is Chicago-specific on reproductive coercion.  However, the data reported in 2010 from a California study in the journal Contraception is instructive. In a cross-sectional survey of young women ages 16 – 29, who had sought care at 5 different family planning clinics in California:

“Fifty-three percent of respondents reported physical or sexual partner violence, 19% reported experiencing pregnancy coercion and 15% reported birth control sabotage. One third of respondents reporting partner violence (35%) also reported reproductive control. Both pregnancy coercion and birth control sabotage were associated with unintended pregnancy (AOR 1.83, 95% CI 1.36–2.46, and AOR 1.58, 95% CI 1.14–2.20, respectively). In analyses stratified by partner violence exposure, associations of reproductive control with unintended pregnancy persisted only among women with a history of partner violence.”

Violence at School: Statistics from the Status of Girls in Illinois report, by Michelle VanNatta

Girls encounter significant violence in their school environments, and this is worse for girls in Chicago than for those in other parts of Illinois or the U.S.  More than one in nine Chicago high school girls reported in a 2007 survey that someone had threatened or injured them using a gun, knife, club or other weapon while on school property at least once in the previous year (YRBS, 2007).  The overall number for the U.S. was 5.4%.  At the same time, 12.5% of Chicago high school girls stated that they themselves had carried a gun, knife, club, or other such weapon at some point in the month before the survey, while 5% of girls in the rest of Illinois had carried a weapon and 5.4% was the national average (ibid).

A number of young women reported that they were involved in a physical fight on school property.  Overall 8.5% of high school girls in the U.S. said that they had been in a physical fight at school.  Girls of color in Illinois and Chicago were much more likely to report fighting at school than their white peers.

Based on all of these statistics, it is not surprising that a significant proportion of Chicago high school girls (10.7%) report that they did not go to school because of safety concerns.

How often do you feel (girl’s name) is safe at school? Would you say never, sometimes, usually, or always?

A great deal of school harassment is based on bias about actual or perceived sexual identity.  The Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) reports that 74% of students in Illinois had heard homophobic slurs at school, such as the words “faggot” or “dyke.”[5] Even more Illinois students, 83%, had heard other students say things like “that’s so gay” or “you’re so gay” (ibid).  GLSEN learned from students that often teachers and school staff did not intervene when hearing these comments, and, worse, almost one fifth of students (19%) said they had heard school staff make sexist comments, 12% had heard staff make racist comments, and 11% had heard staff make homophobic comments.  Less than one quarter of students said that their schools had Gay/Straight Alliances (GSAs) or groups dedicated to LGBT student issues, and less than half of students said that their schools had an anti-harassment policy with specific language protecting LGBTQI students.