SAFE and UNSUPERVISED LEISURE-TIME SPACES for GIRLS and YOUNG WOMEN

Nico van Oudenhoven

NIco at Trent 14 May 2024 — Nico van Oudenhoven

A Concept Note: Partners are Welcome

The main goals of this proposed initiative are to promote the notion that safe and unsupervised leisure-time spaces for girls and young women are needed for their well-being and healthy development and to provide pointers for policy, practice, training, advocacy, and research. It is clearly a ‘concept note’. With sufficient interest it could be developed into a full-blown project proposal.

Rationale

In many parts of the world the gendered narrative of inequity, imbalance and limited freedoms is a very real one. A simple concept as leisure poses a contrasting narrative for males and females. Adolescent girls and young women find it ever more difficult to enjoy leisure time without the constant and immediate supervision of their parents or other related or ‘trusted’ care takers.

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Unsupervised safe play and leisure-time places (Healthy Spaces) are necessary for any young person to freely explore, experiment, socialize, physically exert themselves and to grow up. Secure and unsupervised leisure opportunities for girls, without ‘overseers’, are becoming a rare phenomenon.

In their Wildhood, the period between childhood and adulthood, biologist Barbara Natterson and science writer Kathryn Bowers, convincingly show that all animals, from penguins, hyenas to chimpanzees, use this interval to experiment, to take risks, to ‘be wild’. In this way, they successfully learn how to be safe, navigate social hierarchies, communicate sexuality, and become self-sufficient. And, importantly, when they become adults, they are in a better shape to protect and guide their offspring. They contend forcefully that humans should follow their example.

Many young females, especially those who are part of certain religions, belief systems or tribal households, become emotionally frustrated by a life of being ‘locked-up’. Now, also in typically modern and post-modern societies, the trend is picking up force rapidly that limits girls to their strictly supervised homes or play, sport and leisure activities.

Gated communities, not only for the elite, are now becoming a norm. Young women are ever more escorted to and from their destination by their parents or hired help. They are sheltered from exploring and interacting with society.

Ever more sophisticated GPS technology reinforces this trend of curtailing the freedom of young women and putting their healthy and holistic development in jeopardy. Some parents now force their daughters to wear ankle cuffs. [GPS technology also has the potential to keep girls and young women safe as they can stay connected] The implications of a restricted, continuously monitored, and controlled environment are not well documented.

Those in regular contact with girls and young women claim that these are detrimental for their well-being and healthy development. They also fear that these women will not be prepared, when, later in life when they oversee adult responsibilities.

They need the freedom to congregate and express themselves; or to feel secure outside of their homes. Inhibition of fundamental freedoms may easily manifest itself in the form of rebellion. This can take on many forms: runaways, gang violence, prostitution, drug addiction, or aggression towards themselves, with suicide as the ultimate assault.

Research shows that girls who move freely about in an unsupervised environment also perform better academically. These results may have implications for parents, school, and community agencies as to how to structure activities to encourage teenage girls to be more physically active’.

What are the implications here then for sensitising not only adolescent boys and girls, their caregivers, but societies at large on gender issues such as identity, equality, and self-esteem? How can the school curricula address these issues? The concerns of teen pregnancies, high school dropouts, lover boys and teen suicides become suddenly relevant when examined in this context.

What are the broader implications for fostering conscious and successful youths and a more progressive but secure society? It is time that many of the infringements on the freedoms of girls and young women are seen for what they are, as violations of their rights.

Free, unsupervised spaces and access to sports, leisure and play are their entitlements according to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as also to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

It is ironic that psychologist Peter Gray’s ideas on the benefits of ‘free play’ for children have been widely accepted by the ‘educational and caring’ community. In his Free to Learn he provides ample evidence that children who only play when their parents are present develop serious mental and behavioural problems later in life. “Unsupervised play makes children happier, more self-reliant and better students for life”. If this is the case with children, it is likely that the same applies to girls and young women. But any discussion about allowing more ‘freedom’ to girls and young women is often and, in many places, met with anxiety and resistance.

The specific objectives

Document and disseminate information on the importance of Healthy Spaces for Girls and Young Women.
Identify the critical processes and mechanisms that enable Healthy Spaces to exist and expand; identify those critical processes that destroy them and block their expansion.
Identify good and effective Healthy Spaces examples [so-called Positive Deviances] and provide explanations as to their existence; formulate pointers for local policy, intervention, training, advocacy, and research.
Create an international web of ‘epistemic communities’ that promote generate new knowledge about the subject and establish new networks.

Strategies

First, this problematic will be analyzed and mapped out in more detail. The benefits of safe and unsupervised leisure spaces for girls will be spelt out.
Second, in a selected number [8-10] of pertinent but varied settings, these issues will be extensively reviewed. Situations will be looked at where girls can still safely play or enjoy leisure time with people outside the family circle or without being held on a short leash.
Third, in each location, focus groups will be held with critical ‘stakeholders’ such as adolescent girls, boys and young men, parents, youth leaders, community leaders, media people, religious and local political leaders, researchers, city planners, architects.
The next step will be to draw lessons from these ‘examples of good practice’ and formulate pointers for policy formulation, intervention and training, advocacy, and research. Finally, a strategy will be outlined as to how implement and disseminate the findings
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