2-3 Why do we need to attention to women's stories once we begin to hear them?

In the central Canadian city that I visited, there are a large number of community- based programs. Several of them have developed classes or working groups particularly for women. Others have a large majority of women participants. I visited some of these programs and talked with a variety of literacy workers-paid staff and volunteers, women and men.

We met in the programs, surrounded by materials, students, other literacy workers. I wanted to start talking about what happens when programs decide to focus on women. How do the programs change when they become more conscious of women's lives, women's reality? How do the women themselves, students and workers, change? What happens with the men?

As we talked, it seemed like layers of meaning peeled away for us all. "It sort of just filters down into probably a lot of small things, or not small things, but things that are subtle...You look at it and then you start to see all these little layers underneath. It's really strange."

As we talked, we seemed to be taking all the "little layers," all the "small things" and putting together a picture that could be used to finish the phrase, "Maybe this is why that happened, maybe..."

One of the women talked about how, as she listened to other women's stories and heard what they were saying, she had to learn about cruelty. She had to learn how cruel people could be. Once she learned that, she had to begin to see the cruelty all around her-including in her own program. Then, she had to decide what it meant that women were now telling their stories, and programs didn't seem to be responding.

Another worker expressed the lack of response in another way: "I guess we work on crying needs around here ... We respond to crises." Women's stories are about their everyday lives and, distressing though they may be, for most people it requires a major change in perspective to see each one as worthy of attention. Not only worthy of attention in terms of individual "help," but in terms of saying something about our society.