Empowering feminist teens – and being empowered by them

TAMARA COHEN:  Let’s lessen the pressure on Jewish adolescent girls – and on adolescents of all genders – to achieve perfection. Let’s instead make room for them to just be

As we begin a new year, many of us with teenage girls in our lives, families and schools are filled with cautious hope as well as anxiety and concern. Last year was not easy for any of us but the toll on teen girls was especially heavy.

American girls aged 13-22 accounted for 71 per cent of all mental health claims by youth in that age bracket which is experiencing a 25 per cent increase in anxiety, depression and adjustment disorders compared to the end 2019.

In the early months of 2021, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), visits to emergency departments for suspected suicide attempts increased by approximately 50 per cent for adolescent girls compared with the same period in 2019.

Of course, this isn’t the whole story. Teen girls also discovered their own resilience, forged new ways to stay connected, launched powerful online campaigns and bravely joined protests for racial justice, the rights of LGBTQ and non-binary teens and others issues they care deeply about.

Yet, as we adjust to the realities of the additional virus variants, raging fires and flooding in the US and around the world, growing antisemitism, and a US Supreme Court poised to overturn the fundamental right of women to control their own reproductive health, in the coming year Jewish teen girls will need all the support they can get.

I also believe that adults, who have more institutional power than teen girls, also need them – for their creativity, for their new ways of thinking, and for the ways they will hold us accountable to our values and our commitments to not giving up on the possibility of a better world.

My goals are relatively simple. I want Jewish teen girls of all races, classes and religious affiliations – and their peers of all genders – to have the opportunity to learn face-to-face with their teachers, perform experiments in actual labs, and take leadership on the issues they care most about.

I want them to have access to safe schools with proper ventilation and PPE. I want them to have the opportunity to perform solos on stage, to have the freedom to explore new interpretations of Torah, to create new Jewish songs.

I want them to have the freedom to experience the rush of a crush – on a person of any gender that gets their heart beating without fear that they will face bullying or discrimination. I want them to be able to define themselves using whatever language and pronouns give them a sense of belonging and rightness.

I know that while some of these wishes may or may not come to be, there is so much that is possible for teen girls. I know this because over the course of this past year, I have had the honour of witnessing the strength, creativity and leadership of more than 50 Jewish teens - girls and non-binary - who participated in the Kol Koleinu feminist fellowship run by nonprofit Moving Traditions and co-sponsored by NFTY and USY (Reform and Conservative youth groups in the US).

I have been inspired by the teens who identify as girls and as non-binary as I have watched how, with a little support from adults and institutions that believe in them, they have the ability and the smarts to empower themselves and others.

One of the Kol Koleinu teens, Laine Schlezinger, spent much of the year creating an incredible resource for their school called Queeriosity: An LGBTQ Resource Guide for High School Educators. This 35-page booklet, available online, offers teachers a powerful and practical resource for ways to support the full range of students in terms of sexual and gender orientation in their high school classes.

It offers an overview of pronoun use, gender-affirming language, social emotional support and excellent ideas for teachers about how to bring subject matter that brings the presence of LGBTQ people and gender and queer theory into history classes, English classes, and health classes.

I caught up with Laine recently at a Jewish summer camp in Pennsylvania, where they were working as a counsellor. I asked Laine about what they were seeing among girls and non-binary Jewish teens and what I heard was not surprising.

Laine spoke of more cases of campers needing to be sent home than in prior years, often for mental health reasons and some for eating disorders; many experiencing challenges that were beyond the capability of the staff to handle and seemed directly related to what Laine termed the “attention deficit” these Jewish teens had experienced over this past year of the pandemic.

Laine also reported on how many campers, especially girls and non-binary teens, are engaging with big picture societal issues, and expressed some concern about how much of the younger teens’ information was coming from Tik Tok. They are highly influenced by Tik Tok trends and struggle with body positivity and normative narrow definitions of beauty. Laine also said teens need support to cope with the upsurge of antisemitism they are encountering online and in person.

I want to conclude with one more important finding from recent research on adolescents of all genders. The strongest predictor of depression among adolescents in 2020 was perceived parental criticism and unreachable standards. I want to encourage all of us to lessen the pressure on Jewish adolescent girls – and on adolescents of all genders – to achieve perfection.

Let’s instead commit to doing our part to not pass on our own stress. Let’s make room for girls and non-binary Jewish teens to lead, to be powerful, and to just be.